Minority Architects Organization Seeks New Student Leaders

Student clubs come and go, but right now the Highlander chapter of NOMAS — National Organization of Minority Architecture Students — is being primed for a comeback, according to faculty advisor Mark Bess, a university lecturer in Hillier College of Architecture and Design since 2004.

There are 80 collegiate chapters across the country engaging in civic and scholarly service, such as motivating minority youth, resisting against racism in their field, learning to speak in a common voice on public policy and establishing networks for career advancement, according to the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) website.

NJIT's chapter had a strong membership until a year or two ago and several graduates became leaders in the professional-level NOMA. The chapter had many academic activities and advocated for community outreach, with some members acquiring sustainability credentials along the way, while other members worked on NAACP programs to promote arts and academics.

The chapter leaders all graduated, which led to a unique opportunity that remains open for new students to take over, Bess explained. He anticipates great interest from younger students because of the chance to rise quickly in the organization, while current events such as the Black Lives Matter movement are growing locally and worldwide.

A revamped NOMAS chapter could focus more on activism. "I could see it changing. At this point, the goal is to offer students a space where they feel comfortable, where they don't feel isolated," Bess explained. One indicator, he said, is that second-year design studio students told him they were pleased to see more minorities, and particularly minority women, as reviewers.

"African-Americans in particular represent less than 2% of architects in the country. There are 116,000 architects nationwide, 1,800 are African-American and only 500 are Black women. We are severely underrepresented nationwide and it's a problem that's not been fully addressed by our profession," he said.

NJIT is successful at having a diverse population of students, faculty and staff, Bess noted — "There is a tolerance, I believe, on campus in general," he said — "But students still feel, especially the African-American and Black students, they don't see a lot of representation."

A notable part of the university's efforts, and of Hillier College specifically, is the Newark Design Collaborative where students do studio work in partnership with local officials and other stakeholders outside of NJIT. Curriculum additions reflect these efforts, such as an upcoming studio course giving students the opportunity to reimagine a Newark police precinct that was central to the 1967 riots as a civil rights museum. Alumni are also involved in diversity efforts, such as a Cape May project for a Harriet Tubman museum.

Melissa Nieves, an architect at Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, graduated from Hillier in 2019 and initially worked at Mott MacDonald. She was involved in a similar rebirth of the NOMAS chapter early in her own NJIT tenure, so she speaks from experience about why it's important and how she benefited from it.

"A lot of these things that we see growing up, systematic racism, is due to architecture — our fault, you could say — so it's our role to become educated," Nieves observed. NOMAS focuses on minorities but welcomes people of all backgrounds, she noted, because majorities need to understand the importance of diverse perspectives.

"When you step into architecture school, you think you're going to design pretty things and that's all that matters, but there's so much more to it than that. I think that diversity is one of the biggest things, especially in architecture, where a lot of the field is still primarily white men."

Nieves credited Bess, who is African-American, along with Associate Prof. Darius Sollohub, for listening to the suggestions of students to include more topics of diversity in coursework. "It's okay to bring up these topics. There are real-life things that I think should be brought to the surface," she said. "I really think [students] should join if they want to see a different aspect of architecture."

Nieves added that she found her current job at Port Authority through a contact made at a professional NOMA conference in Brooklyn, and that she enjoys speaking to student groups today. She is currently working on Terminal One at Newark Liberty International Airport and anticipates that she'll work on the upcoming renovation of Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

Perhaps more important, she continues to advocate for civil rights at the Port Authority — "I'm championing diversity and I'm bringing awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement," she said — using skills learned as a student at NJIT.