@Jeremy Wells &
@Priya Chhaya,
I am SO sorry about the misunderstanding. I wasn't really clear on this, and just wanted to ensure that I was giving credit to everyone involved. Again, I apologize. But I'm glad the guide is on Forum, and the conversation was started because the preservation field needs to have this conversation.
I think additional information that might help students and young professionals in the field are*:
1) How to manage debt incurred in school (both while in an academic program and post-graduation/early career).
2) Professional development both during academic study and throught a professional's career (especially during career milestones and transitions).
3) What is the sense of community (not only among students in academic programs, but also among professionals in the field at large).
4) Mental and Emotional Health (there is, from what I know, no ongoing discussion about this in the field. This should not be the case. There should be a more open discussion about mental and emotional wellbeing in managing stress, anxiety, and trauma (sometimes from outside experiences that impact our work) not only in academic programs, but also in professional work (especially for those working in the advocacy and regulatory sectors who may have to encounter conflict-resolution issues).
5) I think it is imperative that we continue to make students and young professionals aware of the emerging trends and collaborations in historic preservation. We should also continue to nuture conversations around these emerging trends/collabs because, in doing so, it will provide opportunities for new sectors, fields of study, and research in preservation.
*(some of these suggestions are based on sections in NCPH's Public History Navigator)
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Jamesha Gibson
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-29-2019 09:58
From: Priya Chhaya
Subject: A guide to becoming a professional historic preservationist
Thanks @Jamesha Gibson Just wanted to put in a quick clarification! This project is @Jeremy Wells baby. As he said I provided some feedback and suggestions but he did all the work and analysis. (It isn't something that NTHP was involved with beyond that).
That being said, I wanted to make sure to post this on Forum because it is an important to the broader conversation about the future of the profession. Jeremy looked at a specific data set to develop his conclusions but I wanted to ask those out in the field about what other information would be helpful for those students and young professionals. What would you have wanted to know?
I keep jumping back to the Public History Navigator that the National Council on Public History put out a few years ago. Does historic preservation need something like that (which would take Jeremy's work to the next level?)
Priya
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Priya Chhaya
Associate Director, Publications and Programs
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Washington DC
Original Message:
Sent: 04-27-2019 16:02
From: Jamesha Gibson
Subject: A guide to becoming a professional historic preservationist
Hi Jeremy,
Thank you for considering and answering my questions. Your answers are great food for thought for preservationists in all sectors going forward. I agree that incoming students should have an interest in the welfare of people, and particularly disenfranchised groups, as well as an interest in aesthetics to maximize historic preservation's contribution to social issues. The problem, I think, with this is that our field portrays to prospective students, as well as laypeople unfamiliar with our practice, "acceptable" and "unacceptable" ways that these interests are applied in our field.
For example, a student of preservation who would like to investigate the habitual, and often predatory, trend of demolition of historic sites connected to marginalized groups within a city would be encouraged to document the sites, collect oral histories, and/or push for the various sites' nominations to the local, state, and National registers (pending these sites' ability to meet the criteria for the registers, which they often don't because of trends of marginalization), among other strategies relevant to the four sectors of preservation. The student is not, or is very rarely encouraged, to seek out, engage, and apply methods of other fields (such as social and natural sciences) to assess the underlying causes of, and determine prospective solutions for, the trend of disparate demolition. Additionally, if the student is of a minority ethnic or racial group, they may be encouraged (more implicitly, rather than explicitly) to focus their investigation of this trend on the group with whom they share racial and ethnic background (largely due to an errant perception in preservation that there should be a stronger connection between the individual and this community, whom they have never encountered before, simply due to their shared racial and ethnic background) even though other marginalized groups are experiencing the same devastations of this trend.
In this scenario (though, I'll admit, is oversimplified), there are "acceptable" and "unacceptable" ways to work with this complex issue in preservation practice. Working with the methods relevant to the four sectors is considered "acceptable" and "correct" while working with strategies from other fields is considered "less acceptable," even, possibly, "deviant." Similarly, in the scenario, there is an "acceptable" way to work with communities of color, and practice as a preservation professional of color. These implied conditions are what is rhetorically communicated to incoming students and laypeople interested in preservation practice as "acceptable" and "correct" mores. Therefore, students or laypeople who are attracted to, and share, these values of preservation practice will continue to filter into the field and perpetuate these mores. While prospective students and laypeople wanting to engage in multidisciplinary strategies and/or look differently at the complex nature of inclusion in preservation practice will either become frustrated in the field or enter into a field where these concepts are more easily accepted (I think this is why we often find "accidental preservationists" in other fields).
I think that the best way to correct this problem is to change how we, as preservationists, perceive the border of preservation practice. I believe that this is what the article does and I am beyond appreciative to you, Priya, and the National Trust for doing it!
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Jamesha Gibson
Original Message:
Sent: 04-18-2019 15:05
From: Jeremy Wells
Subject: A guide to becoming a professional historic preservationist
Hi Jamesha,
Thanks for your input. I think for your first question, I would say that the issue in the HP field is that we really have four distinct areas of practice - regulatory compliance, design/materials conservation, interpretation, and advocacy - that often fail to overlap in terms of knowledge and skills. While there are some shared areas of knowledge and skills, there's not nearly as many as most people seem to think. If HP was 10x larger than its current size, I think we would see specialization in terms of degree programs and training in these areas, but as we are now, we're too small to make this work. (I'm certainly open to counter arguments.)
If I understand your second question, there's a concern that because of the biases and stereotypes around HP, some employers might not want to create positions in which someone could do this work? I'm thinking of some kind of historic preservation specialist at an architecture firm, for instance. While I'm sure some employers hold these perceptions, most of these decisions come down to the bottom line - can an employer make money by offering HP services delivered by qualified professionals? Or, on the non profit and especially government side, are we able to clearly make arguments as to our value in this area? Many smaller local municipalities, for instance, hire a general planner and expect him/her to support a local preservation commission, even if this individual has no formal training in the area. How could you convince a small municipality of the value of hiring a qualified HP planner in this scenario in addition to an urban planner?
As for your last question, my thought would be that new students entering the field would be well served by a basic interest founded in people and their welfare. While I doubt anyone would enter the field without an interest in the aesthetic qualities of buildings, without the interest in people (especially marginalized populations) and the real benefits our practice brings to society, we'll have difficulty advancing the relevance of what we do.
-Jeremy
Original Message------
Hi Jeremy,
This is so cool! Your work, I believe, will help professionals more clearly and adequately explain the different manifestations of current preservation practice to laypeople as well as to professionals of other fields. Additionally, I think it will really help people who are coming into this field of practice (either students or professionals seeking career changes) to more easily assess where their interests and skills will best be applied (this tool gives direction to passion, thank you!) What I am most excited about is that your work gives fresh, and much needed, insight on the possible directions that the field can (and needs) to explore in order to more effectively "[impact] people's identity, wellbeing, and sense of place." I also believe these evolving trends will give ample space for preservationists to successfully collaborate with professionals from other fields (similar to the mission of Katie Rispoli Keaotamai's Ticco initiative) as well as expand the capacity of preservation (and preservationists) into new, innovative ways to address "making the world a better place for people"-if preservationists take advantage of the opportunity to move forward in this line of practice.
After reading the article I just have a few questions:
1) Considering the perceived relationship between preservation and architecture, and the more widely accepted correlation between preservation and regulatory compliance, do you think that some preservation job seekers are surprised by the employer requirements for sectors such as downtown revitalization and preservation advocacy? Do you think this may cause job seekers to shy away from these sectors for this reason?
2) To what extent do you think that unclear assumptions, biased perceptions, and/or unproductive experiences with current preservation practice cause employers to exclude preservation employment opportunities?
3) What advice would you give to preservation students and/or professionals who are interested in working in some of the new trends in historic preservation-diversity, inclusion, social justice and equity; climate change; technology; etc.-but encounter obstacles because of nascent cross pollination within academic programs, lack of employment opportunities that recognize and nurture these new combination of skills, and, indeed, resistance from some in preservation, and other fields, to accept these new trends because of their belief in a static definition of what their field is and isn't, what it does and doesn't do?
Looking forward to the discussion,
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Jamesha Gibson
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