When the Graduate School of Architecture was up for re accreditation in July, the team assessing the school found the greatest deficiency in the area of social equity.
“The current faculty composition does not reflect women in positions of stature and responsibility,” the report from the National Architectural Accrediting Board said. “The problem needs to be given high priority because it was also noted as a concern during the last accreditation visit.”
The report also noted a high level of female dropouts from the undergraduate program through the graduate program.
The program currently has three tenure-track female faculty members out of 14. In Fall Semester 2001, the graduate program has 27 women and 55 men in it, a ratio of about two men to every woman. This ratio is one of the highest male-to-female ratios in the graduate programs at the U.
“There seems to be less of an expectation locally for [women] getting an advanced education,” said Bill Miller, the dean of the Graduate School of Architecture. “I would say we are different in that situation than other programs in the country.”
Miller believes there are few women in the school because architecture, like engineering, law and medicine, are traditionally male professions that have been difficult for women to break into.
“Obviously over the last 25 years or so that has changed a lot,” he said. According to Miller, nationally 40 percent of the students in architecture are women.
Lisa Henry Benham, assistant professor, believes architecture is often a reflection of greater cultural issues, however, and the number of women working in the field matters.
“I think architecture has potentially a tremendous amount of power to influence how we think about ourselves,” Benham said. “I think architecture is something that represents culture, and if you’re not aware of that you can make some pretty scary statements whether you’re aware of it or not.”
Some statements architects have made in the past Benham mentioned include architecture in the Nazi era designed to minimize originality and reinforce the ideas of Adolf Hitler and churches that reflect the values of a community.
Benham studies feminist theory and how it inspires architecture.
“I’ve looked at identity in architecture and how architecture might begin to embody those things,” she said.
Although more women are beginning to study architecture, many of them do not enter the profession upon completing their educations, according to Benham.
“Maybe I’m a prime example of that because I went into academia,” she said.
Benham decided to study architecture because she thought it combined her strengths. As one of 12 female students in a graduating class of 50, she said there were times when she was “disgusted” by the way professors and students treated her.
The studio environment at the U is still male-oriented, according to Benham.
“There is kind of a machismo to architecture,” she said. She talked about the high level of stress and competition in the studios as well as sports metaphors that “fly constantly.”
“The work expectation for everyone is grueling,” Miller said. “It’s not a nurturing environment in the traditional sense, I think that contributes to that discomfort and concern.”
Susan Allred, a first-year student in the graduate program, said she has not noticed a masculine atmosphere in the school, but she said students have accused her and the other female students of getting better grades because of their gender.
“You feel like you have to prove yourself even more, you have to prove that your designs are just as good,” she said.
The school recently selected a female dean to replace Miller who will return to his research. School officials said they did not hire Brenda Scheer because of her gender, however.
“The fact that there were three women candidates out of the four we interviewed was not gender biased,” Miller said.
Scheer “absolutely” plans to address the poor ratios in the school.
“We sort of have to figure out what the root of the problem is here,” she said. “It may not be the most earth shattering problem. If there’s any sense that women are being discouraged when they’re in a program, that’s a problem.”
Scheer said she also wants students in Utah high schools to realize architecture is open to them.
Although Scheer wishes to address this problem, she does not believe gender influences her designs.
“It doesn’t seem to me that when I work with my husband I’m doing the woman thing and he’s doing the man thing,” she said. “I don’t think my femininity has made a difference in my actual work.”