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. GSAPP recognizes that its current curricular engagements with the Columbia Campus’ neighboring communities is not enough, and is committed to identifying and developing opportunities for meaningful community partnerships.
The Community Fellowship Program will promote educational ties between the School and surrounding communities of color in response to students’ desire to learn more about the urban environment in which the School is situated. GSAPP is making a three-year commitment to award two $20,000 fellowships to a local practitioner each academic year, in exchange for Fellow participation in lectures, programs, and classes related to one or more of the disciplines of the built environment addressed at GSAPP.
Applications can be submitted online by May 11, 2022 and consist of a 2- to 3-page statement that includes a description of the applicant’s community-centered work and what they plan to accomplish while being a GSAPP Community Fellow, as well as optional work samples. GSAPP Professors will serve on the jury for the first round of awards, and selected recipients will be notified by June 1, 2022 . The Community Fellows will help institutionalize the School’s commitment to anti-racist pedagogy and practice as well as further develop relationships between GSAPP and New York-based communities of color. Community Fellows will have a Columbia ID card and access to Avery Library, the computer lab, and courses.