A nine-page grievance letter written by the South Dakota State University Department of Architecture (DoArch) Student Advisory Board (SAB) has called for attention from SDSU administration. 

The letter was posted April 14 in various buildings around campus and was also delivered to a handful of university officials. In it, architecture students outlined a list of about six grievances that they say are threatening the quality of their education. 

The DoArch student body addressed their open letter to the following individuals:

Dr. Pat Crawford – Director of the School of Design

Dr. Jason Zimmerman – Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Dr. Lynn Sargeant – Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences 

Dennis Hedge – Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs 

Douglas Wermedal – Associate Vice President for Student Affairs

Michaela Willis – Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management 

Barry Dunn – President of South Dakota State University

“The student body and SAB have brought these concerns to the administration numerous times, and they have yet to be resolved,” the letter says. “There has been a conscious effort to ignore these issues by both the School of Design and university administration. These grievances need to be taken seriously as they negatively affect the trajectory of DoArch.”

Sixth-year representative and SAB coordinator Dakota Mathews Schmidt said: “Student Advisory Board of the SDSU School of Architecture is a departmental organization made up of eight representatives from each year.” 

Of the 144 architecture students in DoArch, about 75% signed the letter, Mathews Schmidt said.

“The board wrote the letter in response to what the student body was talking about, their concerns,” Mathews Schmidt said. “We (SAB) presented the letter to the student body and collected signatures.”

Signatures that were collected from the DoArch student body were not posted with the letter in the various halls, but were given to the administrators who received the letter. Five copies of this letter were posted in the Chicoine Architecture, Mathematics and Engineering Hall, two in Grove Hall and additional copies in The Barn, McFadden Biostress Lab and Wagner Hall.

The copies in The Barn, McFadden Biostress Lab and Wagner Hall have been taken down, Mathews Schmidt said. The reasoning and individual(s) behind the removal of the letters is unknown.

The letter has caught the attention of university officials. Director of University Marketing and Communications Mike Lockrem says Academic Affairs has and will continue to meet with students on the issue.

 “The students are concerned, and they’ve raised some questions, and we’re going to do our absolute best to address both,” Lynn Sargeant, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, said. 

The SAB met with Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dennis Hedge, who was addressed in the open letter, this past Tuesday to voice their concerns and further explain the goals outlined in the letter. They will have a second meeting with Hedge April 29.

“It’s pretty important that the provost be allowed to have that conversation with them,” Sargeant said, “so they can have productive conversations. I can’t really speak on those (concerns) at the moment.” 

Prior to the release of the letter, there was a meeting held April 7 between the SAB and the Director of the School of Design Pat Crawford.

“The SAB did not see the meeting as a productive step forward, but rather a continuation of the manipulation of faculty and students, and gross mismanagement of DoArch,” the letter says. 

The letter also brings to light student worries for the future of DoArch.

“The student body identifies the program-wide downsizing, the lack of faculty retention and the insufficiently maintained fabrication lab as harming the ability of the student body’s education,” the letter says. “A lack of transparency in fiscal management, as well as inadequate lines of communication between administration and students, has caused disruption within DoArch that, if left unresolved, will continue to deteriorate the quality of education. We believe these concerns need to be addressed as it is our education that is most affected by this change in leadership.”

The students of DoArch hope to have more answers and solutions to their concerns in the future.

 “The point of the letter is a lot of our needs have not been met,” Mathews Schmidt said. 

The Collegian will continue to follow this story as more information is available.

Below is the letter as written by the SAB.

An Open Letter about the School of Design and the SDSU
Administration
From the Architecture Student Body
To the Following Individuals/ Groups: 04.14.2022
DoArch Student Body members
Dr. Crawford – Director of the School of Design
Dr. Jason Zimmerman – Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and
Social Sciences
Dr. Lynn Sargeant – Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
Dennis Hedge – Provost & Vice President for Academic Affairs
Douglas Wermedal – Associate Vice President for Student Affairs
Michaela Willis – Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management
Barry Dunn – President of South Dakota State University
PREFACE:
This letter was authored by the South Dakota State University Architecture Student
Advisory Board (SAB) representatives to relay concerns of the Architecture student
body for the purpose of making them known. The SAB is a departmental
organization of elected student representatives from each year of architecture. The
organization’s purpose is to act as the link between the faculty and the student body
on information exchange, departmental functions, and student feedback. The SAB
acts in the best interest of the student body.
SECTION 00 – INTRO
The students of South Dakota State University, Department of Architecture
(DoArch), wish to express our serious concerns. The circumstances which led to
these concerns came about after Department Head of DoArch, Brian Rex, left his
position. Since his departure it is the student’s understanding that Brian Rex’s duties
were to be assumed by the Director of the School of Design, Dr. Pat Crawford. It is
our position that school of design director has either not performed these duties to
a standard that is necessary to keep DoArch on course, or has performed them in
such a manner as to be ineffectual.
The following six sections encompass the concerns raised by the student body. The
transition of the department to a program will serve as the vantage point upon
which the student body identifies the mismanagement of student fiscal resources
and human capital. The student body identifies the program-wide downsizing, the
lack of faculty-retention, and the insufficiently maintained fabrication lab as harming
the ability of the student body’s education. A lack of transparency in fiscal
management as well as inadequate lines of communication between administration
and students has caused disruption within DoArch that if left unresolved will
continue to deteriorate the quality of education. We believe these concerns need to
be addressed as it is our education that is most affected by this change in
leadership.
SECTION 01 – Change from Department to Program
Section 01.01 – Communication of Changes: Upon the start of the 2021 Fall
Semester DoArch started an interim transition period from a department to a
program. Since the start of the school year, the school of design director has failed
to give an explanation to the student body for this transition. The first dissemination
of information regarding this change was via email communication released to the
student body on Friday September 10th, 2021 at 4:42 pm – week three of the school
year. The communication contained no explanation as to why the change was
necessary and/or how the change was going to be carried out. It was not until week
9 of the Fall semester, Wednesday, October 20th, 2021, that the school of design
director had met with the student body in-person to go over their concerns. This
meeting with the student body was short and left many student’s questions either
partially answered or not answered at all.
The student body requests an explanation as to why these changes have occurred
and for transparency and open communication from our administrative
representative on these matters.
Further, the change in leadership from the former Department Head, who has an
architectural education background to the Director of the School of Design, who
does not, is concerning for the upcoming 2028 accreditation visit done by the
National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) and if the accreditation is
unobtained, the effects this would have on the student body’s path towards
licensure. The school of design director has stated in the week 3 email that
“Accreditation of all five majors has been and will continue to be, a top priority for me.”
There has been no communication from the school of design director to the student
body as to how these changes might affect the accreditation process.
Given the far-reaching impact of this change on the student body’s education, there
needs to be clear and transparent communication about the changes, as well as
involving the faculty in these discussions, as they have gone through the process
before.
Section 01.02 – Faculty/Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA’s) Responsibilities:
With the loss of the Department Head position, there was push to delegate those
responsibilities of the Department Head onto the existing faculty and the Graduate
Teaching Assistants (GTA’s). This resulted in the positions of Undergraduate
Program Coordinator, and Graduate Program Coordinator, which do not receive
additional monetary compensation. The faculty is performing exceedingly well
under the given circumstances, but the student body is concerned with this unjust
addition of responsibilities to their already demanding workload.
Prior to the Fall 2021 semester, these responsibilities fell on the Department Head
(who also served as an Associate Professor) and was compensated with a salary of
$144,933.00. With the elimination of the Department Head position, the student
body questions where these funds are being spent, because this salary was paid for
through architectural student fees. The funds should now be allocated towards
enhancing the student body’s education. Specifically, it should be going towards the
hiring of additional faculty members to take on the responsibilities of Program
Coordinators. Since the Architecture student fees fund that salary, the student body
sees this well within our rights to take this position.
The student body requests to know where these funds are being allocated and ask
that an additional faculty member position be added to take over these
responsibilities.
Section 01.03 – Transparency, Advocacy, and Authenticity: Overall, there is a
loss of transparency in DoArch operations under Dr. Crawford’s management. The
student body is left with more questions than answers and ultimately have not been
given priority. With the transition from department to program, and the loss of the
Department Head that advocated for the student body, we have lost a valued
advocate that worked as our administrative representative. The SAB has seen a
continual blame of current issues that have been deflected onto the former
department head with the convenience of him being absent. This includes the
changes of the ARCH 292 course (to be mentioned later in this letter), mistakes in
course designations, and the approval of loaning of Architecture desks to Interior
Design.
Further, the student body wishes to be under leadership that actively pursues and
obtains solutions rather than a leadership that places blame onto others for one’s
own miscommunications. The student body also sees that the lack of any
substantive action throughout this transition by the school of design director as not
advocating on the student body’s behalf. The student body requests an actively
involved advocate who is schooled or practiced in the field of Architecture to
properly represent the students and faculty.
SECTION 02 – Faculty Retention
Section 02.01 – Filing of Old Positions: The student body takes issue with amount
of time it has taken to fill the two positions left vacant when Charles Macbride left
prior to the start of the 2019-2020 school year. These two positions will not be filled
until the coming 2022-2023 school year, or three full school years of not having an
adequate number of faculty members. The absence of Brian Rex and Robert Arlt
have been hastily addressed by the addition of two emergency faculty-hires for the
2021-2022 school year. The student body is concerned with how long it has taken
for these positions to be filled, and request that future faculty positions do not take
more than a year to fill.
Last school year DoArch had 7 faculty members, and this year there are 6. The
student body is concerned that the seventh faculty position has not been filled for
fora department of 144 students. In contrast, to the Landscape Architecture
Program that has fewer students and more faculty members. This is unacceptable,
especially considering the student discipline fees fund the faculty salaries.
Section 02.02 – Faculty Retention: The student body raises issues with the
disruption from the recent high turn-over rate of faculty members. This affects the
faculty and their ability to advocate for the needs of the students. Without change,
the work atmosphere will continue to challenge faculty retention. The student body
requests that the school of design director take faculty suggestions into account as
they have been acting in the best interests of the student body.
SECTION 03 – Fiscal Management
Section 03.01 – Discipline Fees: It is the student body’s understanding that since its
inception, the department, was meant to operate self-sufficiently, where the faculty
salaries, shop equipment, and studio space are to be paid for by student discipline
fees. DoArch students pay $467.25 per credit hour, compared to those in interior
design, and landscape architecture, who pay $29.70 per credit hour. The transition
from department to program, which sees Architecture as equal to the other
programs of the School of Design makes the disparity in fees is problematic. While
the other programs receive benefits from the tuition fees (based on residency) such
as faculty salaries, DoArch does not. The discipline fees that DoArch students pay is
grossly inflated compared to that of the other school of design programs. The
student body requests to know why there is such a large disparity in fees, and why
the transition from department to program does not affect these fees.
The student body is also concerned with where the general tuition fee that DoArch
students pay is going, and why it is not used for faculty salary.
Section 03.02 – Control of Budget: Since the leadership change, the school of
design director has taken control over the budget. Our concerns regarding the
handling of the budget are as follows:
• There has been a push to reduce the number of the GTA’s from 10 to 12
down to 5 for the 2022-2023 school year
• $250,000 has been withheld for shop equipment replacement. This could
replace the entire shop and add a 7th faculty member
• A budget for courses for the current semester has been submitted by the
faculty, and has been either ignored or rejected
• A strict approval process for necessary course-related materials/supplies has
been severely delayed or denied as to affect student success in their
coursework.
• The school of design director has examined the shipments of course-related
items purchased by the faculty
• Not advocating for the purchase of new lab computers that are necessary for
equipment (laser cutters) to function.
These problems only arose after the administrative change in the Fall of 2021. The
student body was informed during a meeting that took place October 20th, 2021 by
the school of design director that DoArch is operating at a loss for the 2021-2022
school year. The student body does not understand how this is possible. The
department has lost faculty, and has not made any large purchases of equipment
for this school year. The previous Department Head had been very transparent with
the finances and this is why it is concerning to find out that there is a lack of money.
The student body requests to have transparency surrounding were the funds from
out discipline fees are being allocated, and why DoArch is operating at a loss.
Additionally, the students see the difficulty in having one academic advisor for the
entire school of design (approx. 300 students), who handles the following: working
with transfer student placement, the transitioning of students from the previous
curriculum to the new, graduate and undergraduate elective courses, and general
course placement. The student body requests an academic advisor solely for
DoArch, so there can be effective counseling of students, especially for the discipline
fees that are charged.
Section 03.03 – Agency over Budget: As stated above, the student body is
concerned by the lack of transparency surrounding where our discipline fees are
going and who oversees them. With the strict control the school of design director is
possessing over the budget, the student body requests that the faculty have control
and an understanding of the budget, as they act in the best interest of the student
body, and additionally insist that the discipline fees stay within DoArch and be used
for the benefit of the student body.
SECTION 04 – Technology and Human Capital Management
There has been a series of needs that are essential for student success that have
not been taken seriously since the change in leadership. There are several critically
essential things that are being ignored. When these issues have been brought up,
they have either been ignored or blame was deflected onto the former Department
Head.
Section 04.01 – Printer Issues: The department printer, which is run through
printing services, is a basic necessity for the courses of DoArch, which serves all 144
students. The printing of work and assignments is a requirement of nearly all the
architecture courses. The printer issues started at the beginning of the 2021-2022
school year. Multiple requests have been made to both printing services and school
of design director to resolve these issues. Requests have been largely ignored or
dismissed and the issue has yet to be resolved. The list of problems with the printer
are as follows:
• Lack of quality
• Colors not printing correctly, such as grey printing as purple, again blame
was put on the students
• Glitches within the Paper Cut system where it takes students’ money and
does not give them correct prints or does not give prints at all
• Scanning issues. All of this is an essential function for students and is being
ignored by both print services and the school of design.
Printing Services has placed blame onto the students for their inability to resolve
these problems. The school of design director has promised to meet with the
service techs and an SAB member and DoArch faculty about these issues, but has
left out the DoArch representatives, who have knowledge of the issues.
Section 04.02 – Fabrication Lab Issues: The quality of the fabrication lab, which is
where the 3D printers, laser cutters, and resin printer are located, has seen
significant deterioration through a lack of general maintenance of the lab space and
continual issues with thirteen-year-old computers. These computers are required to
run the laser cutters, resin printers, and other shop equipment. Requests have been
continuously ignored to request the purchase of new lab computers, as well as
multiple requests for an hourly student position that would take care of the general
maintenance and upkeep of the lab. This is evidence of the continual series of gross
mismanagement of funds.
Section 04.03 – ARCH 292 Issues: School of design director has ignored student
issues with the course ARCH 292- Site Analysis and Surroundings taught by the
Landscape Architecture professor Dr. Tofte. A group of architecture students that
gathered a list of concerns of the course that they saw as problematic, and brought
them up with the instructor, Elizabeth Tofte. The group’s concerns were ignored so
the students reached out to an architecture faculty member about the issues, who
then forwarded the list to school of design director. The concerns brought forth by
the group of students were not addressed or resolved.
Additionally, there was an issue raised concerning gross negligence. Graduate
students that took the course as an elective while simultaneously were used as
GTA’s for the course without compensation.
Additionally, the instructor stated that the designation of the course was a studio
course. This resulted in second and fourth year architecture students being
concurrently enrolled in two separate studio courses in the same semester. This is
not conventional with other architecture programs globally.
Arch 292 , originally a course in the technology sequence, was altered to become a
studio course for the Landscape Architecture students and meant to bolster student
enrollment for the Landscape Architecture program. During a faculty meeting, which
was attended by an SAB representative, school of design director stated that the
former Department Head approved that DoArch students should take two studios
concurrently. This was later confirmed to not be true, in that the former Department
Head, did NOT approve the course changes. This is one of the examples of school of
design director’s deflecting blame onto others, and not taking responsibility.
These issues have been ignored or done by school of design director, and the
student body requests an explanation for why these actions have occurred, and that
they never happen again. These actions negatively impact the education of the
DoArch student body.
SECTION 05 – Senate Bill 55 Concerns
It is understood that the South Dakota Legislature passed Senate Bill 55 to have a
task force look at the administrative and program efficiencies of the South Dakota
Board of Regents schools. The task force was to produce recommendations for the
Board of Regents, State Legislature, and the Governor to implement.
The recommendations directly pertained to the “studio” course designation. “Current
system policy requires undergraduate courses to have a minimum of ten students,
master’s courses to have a minimum of seven students, and doctoral courses to have a
minimum of four students (4/7/10 ruling) (pg 53)” Those within the “studio”
designation are currently exempt from this ruling. The taskforce has recommended
“Eliminating ‘instructional method’ references from system policies and related
exceptions to minimum course section enrollment policies. In addition, the Task Force
recommends eliminating all other exceptions to the policy other than those discussed in
Section 3 of this recommendation. (pg 53)”
Senate Bill 55 Link:
https://mylrc.sdlegislature.gov/api/Documents/Bill/69629.pdf?Year=2020
Senate Bill 55 Task force recommendations Link:
https://www.sdbor.edu/administrative-offices/infogovtrelations/Documents/SB%2055%20Full%20Report.October%202021.pdf
As a part of the implementation of the new curriculum, the research studios and
building studios havebeen designated as ‘discussion’ courses, compared to the
previous curriculum, where studio courses had a course designation of ‘studio’. The
student body is concerned with the student-faculty-ratios that are associated with
these changes in course designations, in that this change in course designations, will
increase studio and other course sizes. Normalizing a high student-to-faculty ratio
and preventing the program from increasing faculty is unacceptable by the student
body. The student body is concerned with how these changes will affect the 2028
accreditation visit, and requests reassurance from University Administration that
this will not negatively impact that process, as well as being transparent about this
process with the student body and faculty.
The course designation of studio is critically essential to architecture education,
which is not being advocated by school of design, or university administration. The
student body requests that the studio classification is kept in place and upheld
through all levels of the University administration, as it is the core of architectural
education, and necessary for accreditation.
SECTION 6 – Meeting with the school of design director
The SAB met with Dr. Crawford about the above issues on Thursday April 7th. She
responded to the points and left the SAB with more questions than answers. This
meeting was a continuation of what has been happening the entire semester, the
extension of conversations in an effort to put off actually creating solutions and
silencing students’ concerns.
There was more confusion around the financial concerns, including faculty and GTA
positions, where general tuition dollars are going, and how that relates to faculty
and GTA workloads. There was continual blame put onto the faculty for these issues
and the student concerns were belittled. The SAB did not see the meeting as a
productive step forward but rather a continuation of the manipulation of faculty and
students, and gross mismanagement of DoArch.
Conclusion
It took several years to build DoArch that ultimately obtained accreditation.
Unfortunately given the current course of conduct or lack thereof by the school
of design director and the University Administration, the University risks not only
losing the Department of Architecture’s hard-won accreditation but also risks
losing students who will look elsewhere for their education in architecture. The
student body, and SAB have brought these concerns to the administration
numerous times, and they have yet to be resolved. There has been a conscious
effort to ignore these issues by both the school of design and university
administration. These grievances need to be taken seriously as they negatively
affect the trajectory of DoArch.
Sincerely
The Concerned Student Body of DoArch