Forbes Isais Models Leadership

Geral­dine Forbes Isais, dean, UNM School of Archi­tec­ture and Plan­ning, is the first woman to serve as dean of the school. She didn’t have many lead­er­ship mod­els to fol­low when she made her ascent in acad­e­mia. She is mak­ing sure that the next gen­er­a­tion of women and minori­ties has role models.

Kim Tanzer, dean, Uni­ver­sity of Vir­ginia School of Archi­tec­ture, Bev­erly Willis, and Geral­dine Forbes Isais at the ASCA con­fer­ence at Rice Uni­ver­sity in March 2008

Forbes Isais served as the first pres­i­dent of the Women’s Lead­er­ship Coun­cil, a foun­da­tion ded­i­cated to expand con­tri­bu­tions of women in architecture.

“The Women’s Lead­er­ship Coun­cil was estab­lished out of a need for a forum for women in col­le­giate archi­tec­ture edu­ca­tion to talk. There was no for­mal men­tor­ship – no ‘good ole boys’ sys­tem for women,” she said, adding, that it remains the only “quasi-formal” orga­ni­za­tion for this type of men­tor­ship for women.

Wanda Bubriski is exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Bev­erly Willis Archi­tec­ture Foun­da­tion, estab­lished to expand knowl­edge about women’s con­tri­bu­tions to the built envi­ron­ment. Bev­erly Willis, FAIA, pres­i­dent of the foun­da­tion, helped orga­nize the Asso­ci­a­tion of Col­le­giate Schools of Archi­tec­ture (ACSA) Women’s Lead­er­ship Council.

Before the coun­cil was estab­lished, the women would meet infor­mally in small groups. They con­vened a group at the ACSA admin­is­tra­tive con­fer­ence and fol­lowed up with a meet­ing to iden­tify and meet with assis­tant and asso­ciate pro­fes­sors to reach out to and men­tor them.

“We dis­cov­ered there was a lot we didn’t know – like how to nego­ti­ate salaries,” she said. It was at that sec­ond meet­ing that Forbes Isais was nom­i­nated president.

Forbes Isais, Frances Bronet, cur­rently dean of archi­tec­ture and allied arts at the Uni­ver­sity of Ore­gon; and Cal­i­for­nia archi­tect and chair of archi­tec­ture at Cal­i­for­nia Poly­tech­nic Uni­ver­sity Pomona Judith Sheine, tapped women to come to their meet­ings to address var­i­ous topics.

“We had to look at what it means to be a woman and a leader. We didn’t want to model or iden­tify only with issues handed down from male col­leagues,” she said.

After the WLC kicked off, the gay mem­bers in ACSA were embold­ened and had their own meet­ing, too, she said.

Forbes Isais said that there are a hand­ful of uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges with women serv­ing as dean. “But there are more women direc­tors now,” she said.

Bubriski said, “We are delighted to hear of Geral­dine Forbes Isais’s selec­tion as dean of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico School of Archi­tec­ture and Plan­ning. She demon­strates that women who net­work not only empower them­selves but also rise to pow­er­ful posi­tions from which to make real change.”

Media con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les, 277‑5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu