As a School of architecture and the built environment, it is imperative that we acknowledge the role our disciplines and practices have played in constructing and upholding racial inequities in the built environment. GSAPP is engaging every aspect of the School with a collective commitment to changing these approaches, and through shared efforts is intensifying its focus in the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a community and across our disciplines and practices.

In the context of GSAPP’s Anti-Racism Action Plan and commitment to fostering environments that bring the School community together across programs to become an actively anti-racist institution, GSAPP is launching the Anti-Racism Curriculum Development Award. GSAPP is making a three-year commitment to provide up to three $10,000 grants each academic year for the development of new School-wide courses, or the revision of existing courses of this type, that address questions and material related to race, equity, and society in the built environment. The grants focus on School-wide teaching in recognition of the shared project of further developing a robustly anti-racist curriculum in the built environment, which draws on specific expertise in each program and shares that expertise with students across the School.

From seminars to lecture courses to joint design studios, such courses may be offered to all GSAPP students across programs, or, in cases where this is impracticable, across at least two programs. Topics addressed may include but are not limited to: race and space in the built environment, histories of racial inequity or exclusion, race and colonialism/neocolonialism, design for racial equity, racial exclusion in the professions of the built environment, detailed study of work by Black, Latinx, or other under-represented professionals in the built environment, strategies for enhancing equity across policy domains, technologies of racial exclusion and inclusion, and related subjects.


Eligibility

• Full time tenure and tenure track faculty and Professors of Professional Practice who have not exceeded the University additional compensation limits.
  
• Full time tenure and tenure track faculty and Professors of Professional Practice who have not received another GSAPP anti-racism award within the prior two years.
  
• Adjunct faculty who have held a GSAPP faculty appointment within the past 3 semesters (or academic year), meet Columbia University employment requirements, and are able to hold a Columbia University adjunct research appointment within a calendar year of selection.
  
• Full time tenure and tenure track faculty, Professors of Professional Practice, and eligible adjunct faculty may apply and be the recipient of one of the GSAPP Anti-Racism awards within an academic year: The Dean’s Anti-Racism and Unlearning Whiteness Research Award or the GSAPP Anti-Racism Curriculum Development Award.
  

Award Process

• To apply, please submit a 2 to 3-page statement that includes a description of your proposal for a new course or redesign of an existing course, and how it contributes towards developing an anti-racists curriculum across at least two academic programs at GSAPP.
  
• Applications must be submitted through the online form.
  
• An interdisciplinary faculty panel will review and select up to 3 candidates for the academic year 2021-2022. The process will be repeated for additional awards in the following 2 academic years.
  
• Applications are due September 30, 2021, with jury selections to be finalized by November 30, 2021. Recipients will be notified by December 15, 2021.
  

Payment

• Full Time faculty who are recipients of the award will receive the award as additional compensation within the subsequent calendar year January 1–December 31, 2022. Full-time officers of instruction may receive up to 20 percent of their monthly base salary as additional compensation.
  
• Adjunct faculty who are recipients of the award will hold a one semester research appointment – in a non-teaching semester – within the subsequent calendar year January 1–December 31, 2022. Recipients may not teach or hold the rank of adjunct faculty during the term in which they are appointed as researchers.
  
• Award recipients are to provide a final report to the Dean within one year of receiving the funds.