The AIAS Chapter of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln joined together with the UNL NOMA Chapter to get students talking about Advocacy! A list of questions, created by AIAS National, included topics of discussion focused around advocacy in the architecture profession, as well as advocacy in student’s architectural education. Nebraska students were asked to anonymously write answers to one of the listed questions or to have an open discussion with an AIAS or NOMA member. Only after they answered could students collect their free HURTS DONUT!
Some of the most popular questions answered dealt with the opportunities of having people of diverse backgrounds in studios/workplace, what challenges we as future architects might encounter, and what students thought we should be advocating for. As one student wrote, “We should advocate for equal opportunity, sustainability, and innovation.”
Many students also brought up sustainability when responding to future challenges within the architecture profession. In answer to diversity within studios, many wrote about the influential aspect that diversity has on design, “Diversity is extremely important in studio and the workplace because the field of design and architecture is diverse, cultural, and always changing. Understanding as much as possible about the world around us is essential to great design.” After three hours, AIAS and NOMA had collected many great responses to a long list of advocacy questions and sparked a discussion that students took back into studio along with their free donuts!
