Curry Pens Editorial In the Architect’s Newspaper On the Importance Of Public Education
The Architect’s Newspaper published a letter by Associate Dean Milton S.F. Curry which was written in response to current debates on the role of public education and the future of architecture. In his letter Curry extols the importance of quality public education and how the discussion around school choice and vouchers often neglects the tremendous need to improve public schools. In particular, he speaks to how the legacy of racially segregated schools has contributed to a racially, ethnically, and socio-economically homogenous architecture field.
Curry writes about the need to think beyond testing to reach underserved communities and the unique role a project-based education like architecture plays. Although architecture cannot solve all the problems of our education system, he believes that “precisely because of our legacy of studio-based educational pedagogy and the capacious way in which architects can receive a broad liberal arts education while simultaneously becoming experts in visual and spatial aspects of conceptualizing and making physical and virtual objects at all scales, we are uniquely qualified to make substantive interventions in the public education landscape at this moment in American history.”
He cites the Michigan Architecture Preparatory Program (ArcPrep) hosted by Taubman College as an excellent example of a course that inspiring future generations to consider architecture. ArcPrep introduces Detroit Public School juniors to architecture in through an immersive semester long college preparatory course.
Read Dean Curry’s full editorial here.
