USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE OFFICE OF THE PROVOST
London / Melbourne / Sydney
15th February 2018
Maria Esnaola Cano architect |FulbrightMichael Scholar W. Quick, Ph.D. Lecturer at USC Schooland of Architecture Provost Senior Vice President LA Forum Board of Directors for Academic Affairs Co-founder|KnitKnot architecture Los Angeles | +1(626)375-6632 | esnaola@usc.edu
MEMORANDUM
LOS ANGELES • 02/26/2018
Maria Esnaola,USC Lecturer at USC School of Architecture To: Faculty To whom may concern
Watt Hall 204, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0291
From:
Michael W. Quick Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Date: January 6, 2016 Dear Committee Members, Ref: Amy Brar - AFK Work Reference Arney Fender Katsalidis Architecture / Interiors Level 1 44—46 Scrutton Street London EC2A 4HH United Kingdom T / +44 20 3772 7320 afkstudios.com
Amy Brar worked with us at AFK for 8 weeks and have been enthusiastic and helpful in assisting us with a project in Mill Hill London. She helped us on an important stage of winning work in producing diagrams for major presentation and assisting us on Revit for drawings and scheme representation. She was kind, helpful and always willing to sure her point of view to a particular matter and design issue which has been refreshing from a young architectural student. Within a short period she began to feel part of our team and showed confidence in working to tight deadlines. I’m sure Amy will be a great asset wherever she goes and given the right environment, I’m sure she will prosper and be an intelligent designer. She came across very academically focused and would explore the subject matter given to her. With a bit of focus and mentoring, I have no doubt she will use her research skills to help her working career. I therefore have no hesitation to recommend her for her next job and please contact me if you would like further information. Yours sincerely,
Subject:
Faculty Governance
It is my pleasure to write this letter in support of Amy Brar’s job application to your firm. Amy was part of the fifth year Undergraduate Comprehensive Studio I taught the past Fall 2017 at a smart,upon creative and highly motivatedvote student with admirable optimism sense of IUSC. have She beenisreflecting the upcoming unionization in three units of the university. Asand I mentioned when I wrote you earlier, the crucial simple fact that union gained tractionher at USC demonstrates a companionship. All being attributes for efforts studio have culture I support application. feeling by some of our faculty that the university is not doing enough to address the needs and concerns of our full-time part-time faculty, anddevelopment that perhaps more gains could be made through During the and fifteen weeksnon-tenure-track of the comprehensive of the project Amy demonstrated collective bargaining.
great sensibility and commitment. She has an active mind and a fantastic imagination for the production designthe strategies. workcompletely through the comprehensive As I have saidofonnarratives numerousand occasions, success ofHer ourwillingness university istobased on the success of design problems helped her improve her technical abilities and critical thinking. our faculty. And for our faculty to succeed, we must ensure that we are addressing their needs and
concerns. I remain fully committed, as always, to working with each faculty member, and with the Academic Senate and other faculty bodies, to make USC a place where faculty is wellstages. It was encouraging to see Amy governance make much improvement throughout the the various project supported. Non-tenure-track faculty are indispensable to USC’s efforts in being a leading university for the Through a very diverse compendium of documents, from 1/2” constructive details to physical st 21 Century, and we must create the conditions by which each of us can become the best teacher, models at different scales, she pushed her design to a highly developed level for the final producing a researcher, clinician, creative artist, or practitioner.
documentation that integrated required NAAB performance criteria and all comprehensive aspects critical thinking, sitefardesign, structural systems, accessibility I- recognize that we are from perfect, and that there issustainable much more environmental to be done. Whensystems, the Academic Senate and life. surveyed the faculty last year asking for your priorities for the Senate’s work, many faculty said they wanted to know more about what the Senate does. I want to share with you some of the great progress we have already made our non-tenure-track are and just some of the we for In summary, Amyinissupporting a great student that excels atfaculty. design Below intuition she will besuccesses a good asset have yourachieved studio. by working through our faculty governance processes: ACADEMIC FREEDOM x
The Faculty Handbook guarantees academic freedom protection for all faculty, including full-time
Sincerely, and part-time NTT faculty. For example, just last year there were outside calls for us to discipline
James Cheung BA(hons) BArch(hons) DipPPM ARB RIBA Arney Fender Katsalidis Associate Director
an NTT professor for views he expressed in his tweets, and two years ago an outside campaign was mounted to terminate an adjunct faculty member because of a statement he made in his class. We stood by these colleagues and answered every letter and phone call with a stout defense of the professor’s academic freedom as a defining characteristic of our university. María Esnaola
3rd year Coordinator at USC School of Architecture EARNINGS AND JOB SECURITY x
Some faculty tell me that they did not realize that they could ask for review of their salary if they believe it is too low, or have a review of their workload if they believe it is too heavy. All faculty University of Southern California
3551 Trousdale Parkway, Suite 102, Los Angeles, California 90089-4019 • Tel: 213 740 2101 • uscprovost@usc.edu © Arney Fender Katsalidis Limited Registered in England No. 8532713 Registered Office 1 Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PN