Dear Latrobers,

Happy New Year! We hope you had a festive and safe holiday with your loved ones. Latrobe is thankful to have had your support and presence throughout the year 2021 and we hope you will join us in 2022 as we host more virtual lectures and attempt to convene in person for lectures in the spring, pending infection and vaccination numbers.

This coming year, we are excited to bring to you a combination of virtual programming and in-person meetings and tours. First, we will welcome Danielle Willkens (Georgia Tech) on February 22nd over Zoom, to speak about projects from the ACCelerate festival at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, which showcases trans-disciplinary projects at the intersection of science, engineering, art, design, and technology. On March 8, we hope to meet in person for a lecture by Brian Goldstein (Swarthmore), who will present his new work on African American architect Max Bond. On April 19, Amber Wiley (Rutgers), will speak on her new research on the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation and the National Park Service’s inclusion of Black historic landmarks. In June, we hope to bring Latrobers together for an in-person tour of Dumbarton Oaks. All in-person events will follow CDC recommendations for public gatherings. If the pandemic prevents us from meeting in person for these events, we will host them virtually over Zoom; they will continue to be free of charge and only require advanced registration.

We are also thrilled to share that in 2022, we will be supporting two emerging professionals (graduate students or recent graduates) to attend the national Society of Architectural Historians conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dijia Chen, PhD candidate in architecture at the University of Virginia and winner of our 2020 fellowship, will join the new fellow at the conference. We plan to invite the two emerging professionals to share with Latrobe their research and experiences at the conference.

In anticipation of these community activities, we invite you to renew your membership for the new year. Your contribution will support the continuation of our activities, both virtually and in person. We are grateful for the support you have offered us throughout the pandemic and are excited and hopeful to transition to a new post-pandemic life.

Best wishes in the new year and feel free to get in touch,

Vyta Pivo