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The Deans Convening, specifically for deans of colleges and schools with built environment and design disciplines, is a candid, collegial conversation about the challenges and opportunities facing deans today across our member schools. Led by University of Arizona Dean Nancy Pollock-Ellwand and Arizona State University Dean and Senior Vice Provost Renée Cheng, the Deans Convening will feature facilitated full-group and small-group discussions, peer exchange, and opportunities for informal one-to-one conversations. The agenda will be shaped in part by participants’ priorities and will provide space to explore shared challenges, exchange strategies, and consider emerging issues affecting design education. This is a closed-door meeting for deans and includes lunch.

Facilitators: Nancy Pollock-Ellwand, University of Arizona
Renée Cheng, Arizona State University

Join the walking tour of the UofA campus including historic masonry architecture of Centennial Hall, Arizona State Museum, Old Main, and Bear Down Gym. The tour will include mid-century work of the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium and the Steward Observatory. The tour will visit the Grand Challenges Building and Optical Sciences, culminating with the Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory. It is here where a team of scientists and engineers are making giant, lightweight mirrors of unprecedented power for a new generation of optical telescopes. It is revolutionary new method to polish the honeycomb mirrors with a deeply curved, parabolic surface that results in much shorter focal lengths than conventional mirrors.

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Tour Guides: TBD

As NCARB continues its multi-year Pathways to Practice effort to increase access to architectural licensure, join this session to engage in focused discussions with NCARB staff and leaders.  We will explore the new possibilities which may exist for architectural education in the Pathways system, and gather your insights on what is feasible and helpful.  This session will include discussion of future possibilities for competency credit acquired in an academic setting, potential curricular resources, and the future potential of the Professional Practice Education Library.  We will also share highlights from the recent Competency-Based Education Exchange conference, attended by 13 architecture faculty and administrators.

Panelists: Jeremy Fretts, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards
Laura Tiglao, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards

Our Heatshed Moment is Now

Extreme heat is reshaping where and how we can live, but we plan for it as though it stops at city limits. Heatsheds, like watersheds, span jurisdictions, following regional geography, local climate, and the urban heat island. This is our heatshed moment: the turning point at which heat becomes something we plan and govern deliberately rather than endure. Drawing on heat action plan assessments, interviews, and work with communities in the United States and abroad, this keynote makes the case for heat mitigation, heat management, and heat governance, and for the role architecture and allied design disciplines play in each.

Join members of the ACSA Board of Directors for an interactive listening and discussion session on the 2028 NAAB accreditation standards. Participants will have the opportunity to share perspectives on desired changes and help inform ACSA’s collective advocacy efforts during the ongoing accreditation review process.

Facilatators: Members from the ACSA Board of Directors

Join architecture program administrators for an interactive, peer-led exchange focused on today’s most pressing leadership challenges. Through facilitated table conversations and three timed rotations, participants will share experiences, examine promising strategies, and identify practical resources that could support administrators across institutions. The goal is not to find a single answer to complex challenges, but to draw on the collective knowledge in the room—and translate that knowledge into useful approaches, connections, and tools. This session was developed by the 2026–27 ACSA Leadership Committee, which is charged with exploring ACSA’s engagement with program administrators at all levels and identifying initiatives that strengthen and support this community.

Introduction: Elizabeth Martin-Malikian, Miami University

Facilitators: Iñaki Alday, Tulane University
Dwayne Bohuslav, San Antonio College
David J. Isern, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Charlton Lewis, University of Texas at Austin

This session will examine how research and practice-based innovation in wood design and construction can help architecture programs remain responsive to contemporary professional practice. Through case studies presented by practicing architects, participants will explore applications of light-frame, panelized, mass timber, and modular wood systems at scale, including the design, fabrication, project-delivery, and interdisciplinary collaboration considerations associated with each approach. The discussion will consider how developments in material systems and lessons from built projects can be translated into studio, technology, and structures curricula; support faculty development and student learning; and inform program-level decisions about curriculum, partnerships, and resources. By bringing academic leaders and practitioners together, the session will identify practical pathways for preparing students to evaluate and apply wood-based solutions in low-carbon, high-performance buildings.

Moderator: Peter Mackeith, SOM Foundation

Panelists: Laura Britton, Shigeru Ban Architects
Arash Adel, Princeton
Susan Jones, atelierjones
Lara Kaufman, Studio Gang

Space Architecture

In this session, members of the ACSA Education Committee will facilitate an open and interactive conversation about the opportunities, challenges, and value of post-professional programs at architecture schools. Participants from any type of degree program are invited to contribute to the discussion, as ACSA aims to gain a greater understanding of commonalities across programs.

Moderator: Bailey Brown Mitchell, Oklahoma State University

Panelists: Amma Asamoah, Tuskegee University
Claudia Bernasconi, University of Detroit Mercy
Peng Du, Thomas Jefferson University
Louisa Iarocci, University of Washington
Leyuan Li, University of Colorado Denver
Patricia Negrón Meléndez, American Institute of Architecture Students

The future of architectural education requires students to engage in critical social issues — moving beyond superficial inclusion toward sustained, reciprocal partnerships with Indigenous communities. This session explores strategies to foster collaborative partnerships, enrich studio culture with Indigenous design methodologies, and support Indigenous students and faculty. How can schools of architecture support the creation of authentic community-led partnerships and prepare the next generation of architects to design with humility, respect, and cultural responsiveness.

Moderator: Karla Britton, Dine College

Panelists: Laura Carr, University of Arizona
Bailey Brown Mitchell, Oklahoma State

This tour starts on the light rail and continues on foot through Tucson’s historic core, the Barrio. Bob Vint, architect and CAPLA faculty member, will explain the history of this culturally rich and architecturally diverse region that has been home to continuous human occupation from Indigenous habitation to Spanish and contemporary arid urbanism.

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Tour Guides: Bob Vint, University of Arizona