Tyler Architecture & Environmental Design Chair Rashida Ng is the first African-American woman in the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture's 107-year history to serve as president of its Board of Directors.
Rashida Ng in her office at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture.
Rashida Ng, architect, associate professor and chair of the Department Architecture & Environmental Design at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, has been elected the 2019-2020 president of the Board of Directors of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). She becomes the first African-American woman in the ACSA’s history to hold the position.
“I initially became an educator to have an impact on the profession through my students and my research,” Ng said. “ACSA has provided an opportunity for me to contribute on a far greater scale. I am honored to have this opportunity to affect positive changes in architectural education and research on behalf of faculty in all of our member schools.”
A leader in architecture education and research, the ACSA represents over 200 schools and more than 6,000 architecture faculty across the United States, Canada and abroad. The non-profit association provides a forum for cutting-edge ideas on architectural thought as well as discourse on the challenges within the evolving architectural profession.
As ACSA president, Ng will serve as a voice for architectural education and work to advance architectural pedagogy by coordinating with the discipline’s accreditation, licensing and education communities, all of which are vital to student learning and development. Ng’s years of advocacy to promote inclusivity within the education of design professionals—a core value of the ACSA—and her research on and practice of sustainability, especially, prime her to help shape future of architecture education.
“The year ahead is an important one,” Ng said. “ACSA is launching new initiatives to support research and teaching, as well as retooling its annual meeting to reach more faculty and practitioners in architecture. We will also be supporting schools during the release of the 2020 accreditation standards. We are committed to increasing access and supporting the retention of students from disadvantaged backgrounds to improve the racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and gender diversity of schools and, ultimately, the profession.”
In addition to her work as associate professor and chair of architecture at Tyler, Ng is co-founder and president of SEAMLab—a non-profit think tank dedicated to research focused on materiality within the built environment. As a registered architect and principal of RNG Design, Ng negotiates the complex interrelationships between constructed and natural systems with a focus on environmentally-conscious design and production.