A Letter to the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

Click the following link to add your signature to the letter: https://linktr.ee/UPennLARP_BLM

June 24, 2020

Richard Weller, Department Chair

The Stuart Weitzman School of Design

University of Pennsylvania

To: The Chair, Faculty, Administration, and Staff of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

A statement from Landscape Architecture students at the Weitzman School of Design

Recent events have proven, without doubt, that the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning cannot maintain its relevance without unequivocally demonstrating that Black Lives Matter. Therefore, we call on you to take action: not just to critically challenge racism, but to lead the field in expelling it from design education and practice.

While the Green New Deal is an obvious place to delve deeply into opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities through design work, it cannot be the sole bearer of social equality scholarship in the department. There is observable social danger in irresponsible and disconnected design, and our department must prepare students to design with integrity. As a leader in the field of landscape architecture, the LARP Department is responsible for demonstrating how the outdated remnants of unjust social orders should be eliminated from pedagogy and practice.

Our department is a part of the larger system of the Weitzman School and the University of Pennsylvania as a whole. We stand in solidarity with the recent statements by Inclusion in Design and BGAPSA and we urge you to advocate for these changes within both Weitzman and higher-level university administration. Systemic change will not be immediate, straightforward, or easy, but it is essential. The Department’s commitment to the practice and ongoing work of anti-racism will equip us with knowledge and tools necessary to contribute towards an ethical global future.

Between our country’s longstanding history of white supremacy and the recently heightened anti-Asian racism resulting from COVID-19, a majority of students within our department continue to face racial injustices both in and outside of the school’s walls. We see the letters sent by Dean Steiner and Richard Weller as an invitation to open a discussion on how to combat racism and interrogate whiteness within our department.

We call upon the Department to commit to the following anti-racist actions:

Reflect on the ways in which white-centering has created a loss of creativity, quality, and credibility in landscape architecture, within both this department and the profession at large. Release a statement and actionable plan that commits to challenging white supremacy in landscape design academia and practice. Open a public conversation about how the department will address institutional racism moving forward.
Require verbal acknowledgement of unceded and/or stolen Indigenous land in all of our discussions of, presentations on, and design for occupied sites. Professors will be expected to model best practices for developing and delivering this acknowledgement at the beginning of every studio and review.
Implement mandatory, regular anti-racist trainings for existing and incoming faculty, students, and staff. Develop an ongoing school culture that holds space for community reflection resulting from these trainings.
Overhaul the LARP curriculum to challenge white- and euro-centrism. Diversify sources and narratives, with BIPOC and other disenfranchised voices comprising at least half of course syllabus and material citations. Prioritize BIPOC guest speakers as a key part of the curriculum.
Embed a framework within the curriculum for understanding race in America when using a city or location as a laboratory, starting with Philadelphia. This framework should give students tools for understanding our biases as designers when engaging with sites and communities in America and abroad.
Hire BIPOC at every level. This includes tenured faculty, adjunct faculty, lecturers, studio critics, administration, staff, juries, and guest speakers.
Actively recruit BIPOC students. Hire staff to conduct an investigation into how current recruitment practices fail to attract BIPOC in greater numbers. Publish department applicant demographics and maintain transparency as recruitment practices improve.
Critically review selection criteria for scholarships, awards, TA and RA appointments, and honors. In the interest of transparency, publish findings. Refer to the University of Pennsylvania’s published policy on nondiscrimination and ensure transparent processes follow policy without hidden bias.
Proactively cultivate tools and resources to directly support BIPOC academic success, professional growth, and mental health. Develop ways to address the needs of those harmed by systematic inequity. Provide funding to support BIPOC students in fulfilling those needs, including improved access to ESL resources. Structurally and financially support BIPOC-led student research.
Revise the way crime is taught in site analysis and design. End the uncritical teaching of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) and CPTED concepts in studios and critiques. Scrutinize how design decisions can perpetuate the subjugation of BIPOC to the carceral industrial complex.
Collaborate with the student body to develop an actionable timeline and metrics of progress for addressing these demands over the short and long term. Hold regular accountability meetings and town halls.

The work of anti-racism is ongoing. Now is the time to practice radical inclusion and equity in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. We have a duty and an opportunity to prove that Black Lives Matter to us by working to actively dismantle racism in design.

Signed:

Emily Bunker, MLA '22

Salonee Chadha, MLA '21

Selina Cheah, MLA/MCP '22

Nicole Cheng, MLA '23

Christine Chung, MLA '20

Chris Feinman, MLA/MCP '21

Madeleine Ghillany-Lehar, MLA ‘22

Rohan Lewis, MLA ‘22

A.L. McCullough, MLA '21

Allison Nkwocha, MLA/MSHP ‘23

Lizzy Servito, MLA ‘22

Rebecca Sibinga, MLA/MArch ‘21

Erica Yudelman, MLA ‘21

Co-signed:

Andrew Tatreau, MLA ‘21

Rosa Zedek, MLA ‘20

Marzia Micali, MLA ‘21

Palak Agarwal, MLA/MUSA ‘21

Alice Bell, MLA ‘22

Aaron O’Neill, MLA ‘23

Caroline Gagne, MLA ‘22

James Andrew Billingsley, MLA/MArch ‘20

Yasmin Goulding, MArch ‘20

Tone Chu, MLA/MArch ‘21

Ian Dillon, MLA ‘21

Yeqing Shang, MLA ‘21

Di Hu, MLA ‘19

Jesse Allen, MArch ‘23

Selyin Yi Ding, MLA ‘21

Elliot Bullen, MLA ‘22

Daniel Flinchbaugh, MLA ‘22

Larissa Whitney, MLA ‘22

Samuel Ridge, MLA ‘22

Dorian Madden, MLA ‘22

Keling Ni, MLA ‘22

Billy Fleming, MLA Faculty/PhD CPLN ‘17

Robert Levinthal, MLA ‘20/PhD CPLN ‘24

Catherine Valverde, MLA ‘22

Bosheng Wang, MLA ‘22

Jing Cao, MLA ‘22

Lesia Mokrycke, MLA/MFA ‘20

Ana Stolle, MLA ‘22

Yue Shen, MLA ‘22

Nuosha Wang, MLA ‘21

Doug Breuer, MLA/MArch ‘18

Dyan Castro, MLA/MArch ‘20

Bingjian Liu, MLA ‘21

Lindsay Burnette, MLA ‘19

Anna Darling, MLA ‘19

Melita Schmeckpeper, MLA ‘21

Jing Qin, MLA ‘22

Marissa Sayers, MLA/MCP ‘23

Wenxin Deng, MLA ‘20

Jingyu Zhang, MLA ‘22

Fangyuan Sheng, MLA ‘21

Margarida Mota, MLA/MArch ‘20

Helen Han, MLA ‘22

Qinyuan Tan, MLA ‘21

Yutong Zhan, MLA ‘20

Natalia Revelo La Rotta, MArch ‘21

Fan Wu, MLA ‘22

Oliver Atwood, MLA ’22

Akira Rodriguez, MCP Faculty

Justine Heilner, MLA ‘03

Jennifer Daniels, MLA ’04

Yelena Zolotorevskaya, MLA ‘12/MCP ‘14

Erin McCabe, MLA ‘14

Martha Desbiens, MLA ‘04

Cari Krol, MLA/MCP ‘20

Kate Rodgers, MLA ‘15

Emily Tyrer, MLA/MArch ‘19

Zuzanna Drozdz, MLA ‘20

Cricket Day, MLA/MArch ‘15

Martha Desbiens, MLA ‘04

Jessica Arias, MLA/MCP ‘19

Sarai Williams, MLA/MCP ‘17

Byungdoo Youn, MLA ‘20

Cary Moon, MLA ‘97

Jeffrey Hou, MLA ‘93/UW MLA Faculty

Samiya Kayyali, MLA/MArch ‘20

Kelvin Vu, MLA ‘23

Yixin Wei, MLA ‘21

Jayson Latady, MLA ‘21

Wenjing Fang, MLA ‘21

Zoe Goldman, MLA ‘23

Bingtao Han, MLA ‘20

Xu Lian, MLA ‘21

Arisa Lohmeier, MLA ‘23

Ari Vamos, MLA ‘23

Jackson Plumlee, MLA/MCP ‘23

Kayla Lumpkin, MCP ‘22

Lingyu Peng, MLA ‘20

Ellen Xie, MLA ‘18

Sofia Nikolaidou, MLA ‘18

Rivka Weinstock, MLA ‘18

Zoe Morrison, MLA ‘23

Madeline Barnhard, MLA ‘23

Matthew Lake, MLA ‘23

Monte Reed, MArch ‘23

Aminah McNulty, MLA/MCP ‘23

Farre Nixon, MLA/MArch ‘19

alexandra lillehei, MLA ‘20

Michelle Lin-Luse, MLA-MCP ‘11

Janelle Johnson, MLA ‘10

Gloria Lau, MLA/MCP ‘10

Stephanie Ulrich, MLA ‘10

Radhika Mohan, MLA/MCP ‘09

Lisa Beyer, MLA/MCP ‘09

Amy Magida, MLA ‘09

Sally Gates McEntyre, MLA ‘09

Angelo Spagnolo, MArch ‘20

Elizabeth Keary, MLA ‘09

Marisa Bernstein, MLA ‘10

Charlette Caldwell, MSHP ‘16

Signatures: 112