Reimagining Learning & Research in a Global Crisis: An Avery & GSAPP Open Forum

Over the past year Columbia swiftly reinvented itself to assure continued instruction and access to its scholarly resources.  Still, safety concerns have led to painful limitations across its various schools, centers and libraries.  The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation reimagined the design studio and fabrication lab as virtual learning environments. To better serve its core communities, the Avery Library has had to turn away numerous other audiences reliant on its archives, rare materials and research collections, just as many public archives and research collections shuttered themselves to all.  These constrictions have necessitated new approaches to design, research, and documentary methodologies, which are simultaneously being challenged by growing awareness of structural biases and exclusionary practices.

Dean Amale Andraos of GSAPP, Hannah Bennett, Director of the Avery Library, Caitlyn Campbell, MSCCCP, and Charlette Caldwell, PhD - Architecture, will explore this new landscape of learning and research and the impact it will have on the scholarly record for architectural history and design. The panel will address questions such as what goals or ambitions, developed prior to the pandemic, have been reinforced by the pandemic?  What has the pandemic prevented and how will that change assumptions about libraries and approaches to research and practice?  During the pandemic, we also witnessed the epic impact of Black Lives Matter forcing an interrogation of equity and representation among library collections, spaces, and services as well as in curricula, programming, and research practices. The panel will reflect on how these developments, beyond the pandemic, provide an opportunity to contribute to a more inclusive and interdisciplinary research landscape.