Update from ACSA – New Orleans

The 113th Annual Meeting is gathering over 350 colleagues in New Orleans for peer-reviewed paper sessions across 10 topics ranging from Building Science to Society & Community. The first day of ACSA113 closed with the annual Awards Ceremony, recognizing the excellent work of over 50 educators and scholars across 12 award categories.

Last week, we communicated our intention to create spaces in the Annual Meeting to discuss the complex and serious issues facing colleges and universities and the ACSA community. These spaces include daily Office Hours with the ACSA Board of Directors, where conference attendees can ask questions and share their thoughts about ACSA’s decision on the Journal of Architectural Education or about other topics. On Friday, ACSA will hold a plenary facilitated discussion titled Toward Repair: Bringing Our Community Together. Participants will examine ways that ACSA and member schools can work together to address the broad political threats facing schools, particularly those in the United States. This session is also an opportunity to reflect on the divisions within our organization and discuss opportunities to move forward. We understand that not all members will attend the conference, and will provide other discussion opportunities in the future.

The ACSA Board of Directors is using the convening role of the Annual Meeting to engage a wide range of faculty, with respect for differences of opinion within our body of educators. These differences of opinion have also impacted roles within the organization. The ACSA board accepted the resignations of ACSA At-Large Directors Marcelo López-Dinardi and Vivian Lee and Incoming At-Large Director José Ibarra. Four members of the Technology | Architecture and Design journal editorial board also have resigned, Daniel Cardoso Llach, Farzin Lofti-Jam, Lisa Moffitt, and Theodora Vardouli.

We thank them all for their service to ACSA on the board of directors, our program committees, and the editorial board. We know the former directors and editors will continue to contribute to the community of architectural educators. We are grateful for our volunteers who continue to support ACSA’s efforts to bring our members together to address these challenging times.