Recruiting & Retaining a Diverse Workforce: Exploring Barriers & Strategies

This workshop is designed to examine potential barriers with hiring and keeping a diverse workforce in architecture and design firms. This class will be taught by Dawn Mayes, Director of Design Entrepreneurship and Inclusion at Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC).

Omari Souza and Dawn Mayes - Inclusivity matters: The State of Black Design

During this lecture, Souza will discuss methods of decolonizing design practices and conducting ethical research. He will also release the co-authored book An Anthology of Blackness: The State of Black Design.

The Anthology is an adventurous collection that examines how the design field has consistently failed to attract and support Black professionals—and how to create an anti-racist, pro-Black design industry instead.

The CUDC and Third Space Action Lab co-host the event, which is supported by Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design and the Cleveland Foundation.

Omari Souza is an accomplished Assistant Professor of Communication Design at the University of North Texas. With a diverse background and wealth of experience, he has significantly contributed to various industries and academic institutions. Omari's journey as a first-generation American began in the vibrant borough of the Bronx, New York. His cultural heritage traces back to his Jamaican roots, adding a unique perspective to his work and worldview. Before his academic career, Omari held pivotal roles at esteemed organizations such as VIBE magazine, Capital One, CBS Radio, and Case Western Reserve University. These experiences gave him invaluable media, broadcasting, and higher education insights.

Design Diversity Index Building a Data Feedback Loop

Sponsored By: Ohio Chapter

It could be argued that the lack of diversity is one of the most pressing problems in the design and planning fields.

Measuring to Manage: The Design Diversity Index webinar will present initial findings from the project led by David Jurca, Associate Director at Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, and Jacinda Walker, Founder of designExplorr.

The Index is an online tool for measuring progress toward achieving diversity goals that will collect, maintain and aggregate data on the number of African Americans and Latinos from design schools, programs, and professional organizations and integrate a range of design disciplines. Our online platform compares regional data across multiple disciplines, rather than comparing national data across many states from only a single discipline.

This tool benefits students, parents, professionals, and other stakeholders by providing aggregated, state-based data to guide short and long-term actions to increase diversity in design disciplines. Over time, the tool may provide locally-based insights on successful actions for increasing diversity, which can be shared across disciplines and serve as a model for other states to adopt and reproduce. As we move toward the final milestones on this project, our objective today is to share this tools’ unique multidisciplinary approach and to hear your thoughts on our progress.