Our “helping hand” or our commitment as depicted through sculpture in the above photo is to education with a focus on future teachers, architectural design or history majors, and medical or scientific research.
Our “helping hand” or our commitment is never to discriminate against any applicant based upon race, ethnicity, religion, or gender by constantly seeking to affirm our commitment not just to education in general, but in particular to raising the awareness of the underrepresentation of men and underrepresented people groups in the field of education as well as an awareness of the underrepresentation of both men and women from underrepresented people groups in the field of architecture and design.
Great Expectations – It is not simply about having a diverse teacher workforce, but about the success of all students and their future teachers regardless of what community they come from. And even though male teachers who self-identify as Black only make up 2 percent of the teaching workforce,1 studies not only support the idea that diversity and inclusion in teaching increases the performance of elementary and secondary students from underrepresented people groups2, but also that teachers from underrepresented people groups who teach students from their same underrepresented people group are better able to predict a child’s ability to complete high school than teachers from other demographic groups.3
Designing Women and Men (Architecture and Design) – Not unlike the underrepresentation of particular people groups in the field of education mentioned above, our organization has been made aware of a recent study of the field of architecture and design which concluded that: (1) “[f]ewer than one in five new architects identifies as a person of color;” (2) only three percent of architects who completed the Architectural Experience Program (AXP) [self-identified as Black]; and (3) less than half of one percent of architects are Black women . . . “4 and thus the responsibility of an organization like Johnathan T. Leonard Memorial Scholarships & Grants to represent diversity and inclusion in its scholarship and grantmaking endeavors.
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