We have identified the following strengths in the department and recognize that we should build on these assets as we improve our efforts to increase the diversity of our applicant pool and to improve the retention of current students, faculty and staff.

• Faculty research and teaching addresses a broad range of issues relevant to the needs and concerns of underprivileged and/or underrepresented communities.
• Outreach to K–12 is already a strong part of our studio curriculum and the subject of research of several faculty members thus expanding the community that understands what landscape architects do and what the profession offers.
• Faculty members lecture and serve as guest reviewers in programs around the world offering opportunities to reach out to potential applicants from multiple and diverse places, cultures and backgrounds
• Our faculty is a diverse body of scholars, practitioners and teachers comprised of tenure-track academics as well as adjunct and affiliated faculty members and lecturers that come from the profession and practice.
• Community service-learning is a major component of our BLA and MLA curricula. Through service-learning studios, students and faculty work with underprivileged communities where they interact with community members including parents and youths and engage in cross-cultural learning.
• Studios and courses are offered that focus on social equity in local communities thus bringing all students into discussions of social, economic and environmental justice and equity.

UWLA JEDI Report | Autumn 2022 Update
The purpose of this report is to summarize the University of Washington Landscape Architecture (UWLA) department’s social justice efforts over the course of the 2021-22 academic year. This report also seeks to continue documenting such efforts in response to the Equity and Justice Task Force Recommendations first published two years ago in Summer 2020 by UWLA students, alumni, and local professionals.

JEDI Jam Event Report | Spring 2022
This is the post-event report of our Spring 2022 gathering. Goals included building community around shared values and enjoy time together, opening dialogue around how the department as a community wants to move forward with JEDI values as we approach AY2022-23’s task of developing a department-level strategic plan, and discussing how to center JEDI issues in Landscape Architecture as a discipline and through department’s focus on urban ecological design.

Justice + Equity Task Force Dept Recommendations | Autumn 2021 Update
Through the 2020-21 academic year, department faculty, staff and student leaders engaged with the Justice + Equity Task Force Recommendations (below), moving forward several initiatives to center justice and equity in the department’s work. This report documents completed actions and activities as well as future activities identified through conversation among faculty, staff and student leaders.

Justice + Equity Task Force Departmental Recommendations
During the summer of 2020, a group of UWLA students, alumni, and local professionals created this document to identify opportunities within the Landscape Architecture Department “to take an anti-racist stance and build a more inclusive and equitable learning environment.”

UW President Ana Mari Cauce launched a Race and Equity Initiative in Spring 2015 with a challenge: that all of us — students, faculty, staff and university leadership — take personal responsibility for addressing our own biases and improving our university culture.

The President‘s message on diversity is noted online as follows:

Diversity is an inherent ingredient in an excellent education. To help the University of Washington reach even higher among the nation’s foremost universities, we must continue to do all we can to create a diverse academic community.

An educational experience that fails to expose students — majority and minority — to multicultural perspectives or that does not include interaction in a diverse community simply cannot measure up. All students leaving the university have to be able to take their places in the global village. We must continue to build a multicultural academic community because it is an inherent ingredient in an excellent education.

The University of Washington has an extensive infrastructure of offices, initiatives, and centers committed to diversity, equal opportunity, and affirmative action. For an overview of the resources available to students, faculty and staff, see the university’s web news and links at Diversity at UW.

The University of Washington operates within a legal framework established by Initiative-200 (I-200) approved by Washington voters in 1998. I-200 states in part: “This initiative prohibits government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to individuals or groups based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Besides the state law, the university conforms to federal regulations regarding affirmative action and equal employment opportunity. The meshing of these two apparently contradictory laws has been a complex process for all Washington’s public institutions.

In light of this the University has looked to address diversity by expanding the application pool as noted by President Emmert in 2007, “What we discovered at Washington was that there are other ways to ensure diversity and access to higher education, particularly by taking socioeconomic factors into account. One essential element was undertaking an intensive effort to encourage more students from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to the university.”

In a similar vein, the introductory statement on the UW website of the Vice-President and Vice Provost of Diversity and Minority Affairs gives a sense of the breadth of commitment by the university and the range of resources available for students.

“At the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, we view all areas of diversity – student, faculty and staff diversity, curriculum, research, outreach, climate – as intertwined and interdependent. Embracing a transformational approach to diversity, we offer a full spectrum of programs that address change in curriculum, research, student and community service that work toward excellence in these areas.”