November 11, 2021
6:30 PM est
Harriet Harriss RIBA, ARB, Assoc. AIA, Ph.D., PFHEA, FRSA
Dr. Harriet Harriss is a qualified architect and Dean of the Pratt School of Architecture in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to this, she led the Architecture Research Programs at the Royal College of Art in London. Her teaching, research, and writing focus on pioneering new pedagogic models for design education, and for widening participation in architecture to ensure it remains as diverse as the society it seeks to serve. Dean Harriss has won various awards including a Brookes Teaching Fellowship, a Higher Education Academy Internationalisation Award, a Churchill Fellowship, two Santander Fellowships, two Diawa awards, and a NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and Art) Pioneer Award. Dean Harriss was awarded a Clore Fellowship for cultural leadership (2016-17) and elected to the European Association of Architectural Education Council in summer 2017. Dean Harriss' public consultancy roles include writing national construction curriculum for the UK government's Department for Education and international program validations and pedagogy design and development internationally. Across both academe and industry, Dean Harriss has spoken across a range of media channels (from the BBC to TEDx) on the wider issues facing the built environment, is a recognized advocate for design education and was nominated by Dezeen as a champion for women in architecture and design in 2019.
Leading Beyond Biased Paradigms
“Whoever has the power takes over the noun – and the norm – whilst the less powerful get the adjective.” Gloria Steinem
In the same way that Corbusier insisted that Modolor Man represented the metric standard against which all architecture could be determined, and all users served equally, pervasive concepts of leadership within both architecture and academe position cis white male conservatives as the standard by which all leaders - independent of their gender, color, identity, and context - are measured and judged. Consequently, this biased, paradigmatic default serves to automatically disadvantage difference and perpetuates an ongoing lack of diverse leadership, and in doing so, stymies the chance to see progressive change in how practices, departments, and schools of architecture are structured, organized, and led.
Subsequently, this seminar/workshop will highlight some of the obstacles women face in securing and sustaining leadership positions, with reference to the ways in which women are complicit in or contribute toward their lack of representation through women-on-women competition (Tracy, 1991): notions of ‘feminine' leadership (Jablonski, 2000, p.245) forms of ‘post-heroic’ leadership (Fletcher, 2003), the specter of leadership androgyneity (Jagacinksi, 1987; Lemkau, 1983), the debilitating influence of ‘gender-blind’ (but largely male-authored) organizational theories (Hearn and Parkin, 1983), and whether it really is feasible for women to use their ‘marginality as a tool’ for professional progress (Groat & Ahrentzen, 1997), or, whether paradigms for facilitating, sustaining and measuring the success of women's leadership needs radical new tactics altogether.