CAPLA Equity, Diversity & Inclusion News & Headlines

Assistant Professor of Architecture Altaf Engineer and Lecturer in Architecture Sandra Bernal-Cordova helped build the SCALE UP curriculum and train its facilitators, and are now preparing to engage CAPLA students and recent graduates in the award-winning, community-oriented program.

New research on neighborhood-by-neighborhood heat differences across Tucson—and 19 other cities in the West—has garnered additional insight by Assistant Professor of Planning and Sustainable Built Environments Ladd Keith and Assistant Research Scientist Adriana Zuniga.

Carla A. Campos is a fourth-year architecture undergraduate student at UPC Lima in Peru. Through CAPLA’s innovative microcampus program, she’s also pursuing her BS in Sustainable Built Environments program at the University of Arizona.

In the summer of 2020, CAPLA was charged by alumni, students, faculty and staff to take urgent, college-wide action on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). Two outcomes of our action are the new CAPLA EDI website and EDI and the built environment bibliography.

At the Michigan ASLA 2020 conference held in October, Damon Leverett discussed strategies for how design-oriented organizations can address concerns and conversations about equity, diversity and inclusion and translate them into action. View the presentation.

CAPLA’s Ladd Keith was quoted extensively in a Climate XChange story on how, in Las Vegas, Nevada, hotter days will impact low-income, Black and Brown residents the most.

In this keynote lecture for the CAPLA Futures Council, Kendra Hyson MLA '15 discusses her work as co-founder of The Urban Studio and the impact she has seen through engaging young people in communities of color in the Washington, D.C. area and beyond.

Teresa Rosano was interviewed on October 28, 2020 by the team at Ascension Wheelchair Lifts. Rosano, who is guiding a universal design studio for third-year B.Arch students that is funded in part by Ascension and its parent company AGM, discusses the future of accessibility in architectural design and more.

Tamika L. Butler focuses on shining a light on inequality, inequity and social justice. In this CAPLA lecture, she challenges the audience of students, academics and urban planning professionals to consider the equitability and impact their planning decisions have on marginalized communities.

Students from the CAPLA’s MS Urban Planning program have been recognized by the American Planning Association Arizona chapter for their work with the City of Tucson on planning and policy responses to displacement and gentrification.

On September 11, Women in Architecture Society teamed up with NOMA Arizona President Carlos Murrieta to discuss equity, diversity and inclusion in a virtual roundtable event sponsored by the CAPLA Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the American Institute of Architects Southern Arizona.

What can fine-scale spatial modeling of health impacts from long-range transportation plans do to support racial and social justice? More than you may realize, according to CAPLA’s Nicole Iroz-Elardo, assistant research professor of planning.