Learning from Professor Marleen Davis
Marleen Davis’ legacy precedes her, entering every room alongside the click of her shoes. It filters through the architecture building and the greater city of Knoxville through whispers and spoken stories, as well as her work itself. People she’s met, things she’s done, students she’s taught, all spread her legacy and help it grow.
It grows on its own, of course, as she’s incredibly active with the community and architectural field itself. She attended Cornell University, and has since taught at Syracuse University and our own UT. During her time at UT, she was also the dean of the college before returning to teaching students.
As a woman in the architectural field during key eras of change, she has seen many of the previous conditions and the results of an ideological change. For example, when looking for schools at which to study architecture, she noticed that only two Ivy League schools even admitted women into the architecture program. Even the University of Virginia, notorious for excellence, only admitted male students. Cornell, however, accepted female students, and Marleen was one of them.
In design school, as well as in the working world, Marleen watched and took part in the rise of women participants. At school, roughly twenty five percent of her class was female, although this number varied throughout the country. Schools in the northeast were more likely to have larger numbers of women students, which might have explained why Cornell was so progressive for the time. As the years have passed, however, this number has risen. For example, our own program here at UT currently has a rough balance of fifty percent males and fifty percent females. This has been fairly consistent over the past few years, and is likely to continue in the years to come.
Marleen’s experiences in the working world, however, were different than those of her time at school. The ratio of men to women was vastly different. This might have been due to the fact that women in the architectural field were likely younger, if only because their ability to study the subject in college was limited in the past. As a result, there were fewer working women to begin with. These women faced other problems, as well. In such a male dominated field, it was easy to create a sort of boy’s club in which women were looked down upon or valued less than their male counterparts. This was not the case everywhere, of course, but some firms did think and act in this manner. Additionally, women were more likely to leave the workplace than men, primarily due to the results of starting a family. The long hours and hectic schedule of the architectural field do not work well with the amount of time and planning needed to raise children. As a result, many women who started families changed to careers with better schedules, chose part time work, or decided to stay home with their children.
In a sense, Marleen did a similar thing. She chose to focus on working in the academic field more heavily than in the practical one. The more consistent schedule and predictable (though not light) workload made raising a family easier and childcare more manageable. Plus, it gave her an opportunity to work with students and continues to allow us to benefit from her experiences and knowledge. We’re certainly happy she changed her focus to more academic affairs.
Many of our greatest resources and sources of learning are found closely nearby, so take the time to talk to people and learn from them. They probably have experiences as interesting as Marleen’s, which also shows how much things have changed over time.
To learn more, start at the simplest place and go from there: http://archdesign.utk.edu/faculty-staff/facultystaff/marleen-k-davis/