Call for Nominations: 2023-2024 ACSA Board of Directors

The ACSA invites nominations and self-nominations for three positions on the Board of Directors. Please review the following eligibility requirements, timeline, and background information that describes the organization’s intended directions in coming years. With the 2022-23 academic year, ACSA starts its work in a new strategic plan cycle that elevates ACSA’s commitment to increase racial equity in architectural education and in the ACSA. We encourage nominations from Black, Indigenous/Native, and people of color, as well as from individuals teaching at minority-serving institutions.

Open Board Positions: Second Vice President, Secretary/Treasurer, At-Large Director

Eligible nominees for all Board positions must meet the following requirements:

• Second Vice President. Candidates shall be full-time, tenured, tenure-track, or fixed-term faculty members of a Full Member school at the time of nomination and throughout the four-year term of office.
• Secretary/Treasurer. Candidates shall be full-time, tenured, tenure-track, or fixed-term faculty members of a Full Member school at the time of nomination and throughout the three-year term of office.
• At-Large Director. The ACSA Bylaws permit no more than one At-Large Director to come from a school that is not a Full Member. For the 2023-24 Board, the Nominations Committee may consider candidates from a Candidate or Affiliate Member school that has been a member of ACSA continuously since 2020-21. This year the ACSA board is encouraging nominations of candidates from community college programs that meet our membership requirement.

Position Descriptions

Terms for directors begin on July 1, 2023, with terms of service noted below. All directors are expected to attend three board meetings a year: a fall meeting, which typically occurs in conjunction with the Administrators Conference; a spring meeting, which typically occurs in conjunction with the ACSA Annual Meeting; and a summer meeting, typically held in Washington, DC, in late July or early August. Additionally, board members serve on committees, which may entail travel to a meeting one time per year and conference calls one to two times per month.

The Second Vice President serves a four-year term. The elected person serves for one year, respectively, as Second Vice President, First Vice President/President-Elect, President, and Past President. The President is responsible for calling meetings of the Board of Directors, preparing an agenda, and presiding at such meetings. The President coordinates activities of the board, ACSA committees, and liaison representatives. The President serves as ACSA liaison with the officers of the American Institute of Architects, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, The National Organization of Minority Architects, and the American Institute of Architecture Students. During the term of office, the President also prepares a brief report of activities of the organization and the Board of Directors for dissemination to the constituent associations. As First Vice President, the person will chair the Planning Committee, and, as Past President, the person will serve as chair of the Nominations Committee.

The Secretary/Treasurer serves for a three-year term and is responsible for the corporate and financial records of the Association. In fulfilling these responsibilities, the Secretary/Treasurer oversees preparation of minutes of meetings and maintenance of the Bylaws of the Association, the Rules of the Board of Directors, and other policy documents. The Secretary/Treasurer oversees the financial affairs of the organization by serving as chair of the Finance Committee and working with the staff and independent accounting personal on organizational budgets, reports, and annual audits.

The At-Large Directors serve a three-year term as voting members of the Board. In addition, they serve as liaison to member schools, including participating in organized business meetings; maintaining contact with Faculty Councilors and others associated with member schools; assisting member schools upon request; advising Candidate or Affiliate member schools; and advising the Board of issues and concerns raised by members. At-Large Directors contribute to the work of the Board through actively serving on Board committees, contributing to collective deliberations, and performing other duties as provided by the Rules of the Board of Directors or as requested by the Board.

2022-23 Nominations Committee

Robert Gonzalez, University of New Mexico, Past President (chair)
Shelby Doyle, Iowa State University, ACSA At-Large Director
Marcelo López-Dinardi, Texas A&M University, ACSA At-Large Director
Gabrielle Esperdy, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Julie Kim, Georgia Institute of Technology
Alvin Huang, University of Southern California

Timeline

The deadline for nominations and self-nominations is October 12, 2022. ACSA will publish a preliminary slate of Board-approved candidates in November 2022, followed by a period during which members may petition for the inclusion of additional candidates to the slate. A final slate of candidates, including candidates by petition, will be published in early January, when the online balloting process will open. Candidates will be notified of the results in mid-February. The results of this election will be announced online soon after the ballot deadline.

Nomination Requirements

Nominations for all ACSA Board positions should include the following included in a single PDF in this order:

• Cover sheet confirming you have a My ACSA profile – DOWNLOAD HERE;
• Cover letter (2 pages maximum) that (a) indicates your engagement with, participation with, or contributions to ACSA and (b) addresses your potential to contribute to ACSA values and strategic plan priorities, as outlined below;
• Current curriculum vitae (2 pages maximum) highlighting relevant research, teaching, and service.

Nominations should be sent by email to Abel Chanyalew, Membership Coordinator, achanyalew@acsa-arch.org, with the subject line “ACSA Nominations”.

DESIRED COMPETENCIES AND BACKGROUNDS FOR NOMINEES

ACSA actively seeks equitable and representative involvement by a broad range of people on its Board and other volunteer bodies. The Board of Directors should represent a diversity of background, experience, expertise, geography, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. We encourage nominations from Black, Indigenous/Native, and people of color, as well as from individuals teaching at minority-serving institutions.

Prospective candidates and nominators are encouraged to review the strategic initiatives and priority objectives, included below, to understand future directions for ACSA board activities. Desired competencies include (but are not limited to) experience producing scholarship and/or funded research, understanding processes for recruiting students from a variety of backgrounds, and experience communicating the value of architecture, whether in a disciplinary or professional context. However, the desired competencies of board members should not be narrowly understood. The vacancies on the board come from directors whose primary affiliations are in the U.S. Northwest, West, and Southwest. Previous experience with ACSA committees, conference leadership, or other Board appointments is desired.

ACSA Values and Strategic Plan Priorities: 2022-2025

With the 2022-23 academic year, ACSA starts its work in a new strategic plan cycle that elevates ACSA’s commitment to increase racial equity in architectural education and in the ACSA. The plan’s objectives also sharpen the organization’s focus on climate action by calling out the imperative to promote and disseminate more scholarship that contributes to efforts in architecture and design to mitigate the effects of climate change on local communities.

ACSA expects to focus on pathways into architectural education for students of color, particularly community college students. We anticipate investing time and money to continue our work to make the transfer process for community college students more transparent and easier to navigate. We also seek to connect member schools working on K-12 educational outreach, which can take many forms, such as afterschool programs, summer programs, or one-on-one mentoring.

An equitable learning culture will also remain a strong focus, with the ACSA continuing to work to empower members to implement changes in their schools that welcome students of all backgrounds and enable them to thrive. This focus on informal culture and formal policies extends to both students and faculty. ACSA recognizes that a key factor in creating an equitable learning culture is for the faculty and staff at schools to reflect increasingly diverse student populations.

The role of the built environment in contributing to climate change and the agency of professionals working in architecture and design is also a high priority for ACSA. We seek to intensify our scholarly programs in support of climate action, and we aim to expand the impact of these programs to more students and professionals. We recognize that this work takes many forms and threads through the entire discipline. We seek to connect people working across the curriculum on climate mitigation strategies.

This spring ACSA sharpened the language in our core values to highlight Equity, Social Justice, and Climate Action; Teaching and Learning; and Research, Scholarship, and Creative Practice. We aim to invest the organization’s financial and human resources in programs that have measurable impact and bring about positive change within the discipline.