Elephants Helped Us Revive Our Committee

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How to prioritize increased representation in the planning field and narrow the gap in diversity in your work and workplace
• How to reconnect with basic partners such as grade schools, local colleges, and universities that typically do not interact with private planning firms or municipal planing departments
• How to use the Diversity Committee in the New York Metro Area as a resource for organizing your own conference or equally important inclusive community event

MORE SESSION DETAILS

In April 2015, new leadership began to revive the APA New York Metro Chapter Ethnic and Cultural Committee, now re-branded as the Diversity Committee. Data and research provided by the graduate-school thesis "Elephant in the Planning Room: Overcoming Barriers to Recruiting and Retaining Planners of Color in the NY Metro Area (2016)" provided a plethora of self-reported demographic information that had never before been collected about New York Metro Area planners and their professional experiences. The group's first major event, Elephant in the Planning Room: Forum on Diversity in Planning Schools, was held to address the issues and develop recommendations for disrupting the cycle of decreasing diversity in planning schools. Since then, the committee has hosted other events that involve children and professional development for underrepresented planners, and it also staged its first annual conference, Hindsight 2017 — an event that recognized the impact of the 100th anniversary of the Buchanan v. Warley decision, and provided an opportunity for planners across the country to reflect, in hindsight, on what the profession as learned about equity and exclusivity in the work that we do and the profession itself since that ruling.