This Convergence marks the formation of a regional network of equity-focused design-centric student groups focused on re-imagining the intersection between identity and design. We hope that this event can be the start of a wide-spread dialogue about the importance of identity-based discourse in the practice and pedagogy of design of the built environment, as well as an opportunity to form a network of equity-focused design-student groups and merge these ongoing conversations in our disciplines.
We hope to seize the opportunity to grow and merge the many individual conversations about gender and other identity-based discrimination happening in our disciplines and in our schools. The SAM list did not tell us anything we did not already know; however, it did spark broad conversation where there had been uneasy silence. The Convergence breaks that silence, and invites us to engage in a collective restructuring of the design disciplines and actively question the nature of design work as it intersects with gender and other personal identities.
