June 8, 2020
Dear Knowlton faculty,
The murders of many black men and women, most recently George Floyd, Breonna
Taylor and Ahmad Arbery, has led to a long overdue national discussion about systemic racism.
Many aspects of our society are pervaded by systemic racism, including the setup of our
communities and the history we are taught in school. Systemic racism and oppression are at the
core of the racial wealth gap, disparities in healthcare, and the disproportionate police violence
towards black Americans. It is clear that we must work to combat systemic racism to prevent
further loss of black lives and to achieve an equitable society.
Given the enormous impact of architecture on people's daily lives, we feel that it is our
responsibility as future architects and landscape architects to develop an understanding of how
we can fight systemic racism and promote an equitable society. We need to be able to carefully
and constructively consider the social impact of our design decisions. Ignoring, or not properly
considering the societal impact of projects can easily add to systemic oppression instead of
fighting it.
To understand how to make a difference as future architects and landscape architects we must
develop an understanding and appreciation of the diversity within our fields and of the societal
impact of our work. We feel that our curriculum can emphasize these aspects with a few
alterations. Our courses focus disproportionately on European and North American architecture
created largely by white men. The work of minority architects in the US and architectural work
from Asia, Africa and South America needs to be included into our architectural/landscape
history lessons regularly to emphasize diverse design perspectives. In addition, we need our
curriculum to prepare us to actively promote social change. It is critical to learn what design
decisions will mean for the community in which they are made.
To accomplish these objectives, we ask:
1. To include material beyond the current dominant narrative in our architectural history
courses. We ask that the work of minority and female architects throughout history is
emphasized and discussed in our courses. In addition, we ask to include more
architecture from Asia, Africa and South America.
2. To create a course for architecture and landscape architecture students that focuses on
the societal impact of architecture/landscape architecture. This course should also
discuss aspects of city planning to allow architecture and landscape architecturestudents to better understand the context of their projects. This course could replace a
GE requirement to provide space in the current curriculum sequence.
We believe these adjustments to the curriculum would be an excellent start for providing us with
tools to fight the systemic injustices in our country. At Knowlton, we are lucky to have faculty
and students who are committed to building a better future and we hope that these steps will
help us to move in that direction.