A peek at future IES DEIR Committee initiatives
Since the inception of the IES Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Respect (DEIR) Committee in 2021, we have set annual agendas and goals while always keeping our core mission forefront: to be an advisory committee to the Board and the Society on matters of DEI. Several of our initial goals have been accomplished or, at the very least, started. Some, we have kept working on tirelessly. As a new year approaches, we look forward to the things we wish to accomplish in 2025 and the new projects we want to get rolling.
One of our first initiatives was to survey IES Membership to collect baseline data of what our Society looked like via numerous metrics. Though the results were not surprising then, it gave us hard data that we could use to establish agendas and identify the areas we needed to work on as a Society. It also allowed us to coordinate with other organizations better suited to implement some much-needed initiatives in our industry.
As we have performed outreach, implemented initiatives and hosted symposiums, we would like to survey our community again. This will help us see if the efforts of the Society have impacted the membership and allow us to set goals and strategize for the next three years. We expect to put this out in the first quarter of 2025, so keep an eye out for it in your inboxes and please take a few minutes to respond; your answers and input help make our Society better.
Each year, a highlight of every section and the IES Annual Conference (now re-branded as The Lighting Conference) is the Illumination Awards (IA) Gala, where we honor the best projects submitted by our members for excellence in lighting design. As the practice of lighting has evolved, so have some of the criteria we use for judging—for example, energy efficiency. For many reasons, it is infrequent that we see smaller or community-focused projects receive awards. These projects are often not as flashy or groundbreaking in their use of technology, yet their designs and impact on the lived experience for the communities they serve is huge. For that reason, we have been working with the IA Committee to establish an amended judging criteria that includes social justice and/or community impact as part of the qualification points. Another goal is to establish a Community Impact Award within the global IA as well as encourage sections to include it in their local IA. This would also provide room for additional types of firms, notably smaller, to submit for awards to gain recognition and a larger platform.
For our society to grow and increase the diversity of our lighting practice, we need to have a healthy pipeline of designers who are interested and trained in lighting. This means expanding our reach beyond the typical schools and formats in which we have recruited and assisted in the past. For that purpose, we have been talking about promoting an increase in grants, scholarships and lighting education resources for Historically Black Colleges and Universities as well as colleges that serve large Black, Indigenous, People of Color and underserved communities. Innovative thought and good design know neither cultural/societal backgrounds nor economic status. This coming year, we are doubling our efforts in this arena and hope to have updates for you in a future “Diversity” column in LD+A.
We are also slowly growing the committee, bringing in new advisory members and changing leadership roles. We believe committees need new energies and ideas to advance. We also need more hands on-deck to accomplish all of our future goals. We already admitted one new member, Quincy Drane, and there are two more candidates with whom we are working.
As you may have noticed, our dedicated page within the IES website has not been updated for a while. It was always our intention to make this a space for resources we have gathered, information on our current work and links to efforts by partner organizations. With our committee growth, and with the IES having just updated its website, we are working on gathering all the information and refreshing the site by the second quarter 2025.
There are so many more things on our to-do list: creating awareness and space for our neurodivergent members, making webinars more accessible due to language or disability barriers, creating documents for local sections and IES committees on how to diversify and be more inclusive. As we work toward all of these goals and more, we want to hear from you on what and where you’d like to us focus. Please reach out me at marielacevedo@alrinc.com and share your thoughts.
THE AUTHOR |
Mariel Acevedo, LC, Member IES, has served in the lighting industry for more than 20 years and currently works as Specification Sales for ALR in Portland, OR. She is the chair of the IES Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Respect Committee, vice-chair of the IES Steering Committee and 12-year member of the IES Leadership Forum.