ASLA's current Women of Color Licensure Program provides 10 women of color with a two-year, personalized experience that includes approximately $3,500 to cover the cost of the four sections of the Landscape Architectural Registration Exam (LARE), along with exam preparation courses, resources, and mentorship from a licensed landscape architect. This is due to generous donations from Wendy Miller, FASLA, and James Barefoot; Marq Truscott, FASLA; Rachel Ragatz Truscott, ASLA; and CLARB. 

Every dollar counts! Make a difference and support the ASLA Fund initiative. 

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The Challenge

ASLA recognizes the drastic need to increase racial diversity within the profession. According to U.S. Census and ASLA data, the chart below provides detailed percentages of how the U.S. population and ASLA members identify. 

 Note: ASLA doesn’t separate Asian from Asian American members in its data.  

CLARB Council Record holder data also shows that only 7% of landscape architects are non-white and only 30% of all landscape architects are women.   

According to the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board’s (LAAB) 2020 annual report, looking at diversity within the current student polulation, slightly over half (54%) of the total enrolled landscape architecture students identify as female. 

While there is a serious need to increase racial diversity within the profession, there are also significant expenses that can create barriers to becoming a licensed landscape architect. All fifty states and the District of Columbia require licensure for landscape architects.  Aside from the cost of education, the greatest expenses to licensure pertain to the LARE. These costs include creating a CLARB Council Record, successfully passing the four-part LARE examination, and oftentimes study preparation courses and materials.

Our Solution

Annually, ASLA will support women of color on their journey to become licensed by providing funds to cover the cost of each section of the LARE as well as exam preparation assistance and resources.

For this program, each participant will belong to a cohort. Their cohort journey will require interaction with an assigned mentor and engaged participation through resources and workshops as they prepare for the LARE exams. ASLA will also provide free access to its current portfolio of ASLA LARE Exam prep resources, including the newly recorded virtual webinars produced for each section of the exam. 

There are many benefits to licensure, including its documented propensity to drive wage parity. A recent report by The Alliance for Responsible Professional Licensing report found that among highly complex, technical fields, a license narrows the gender-driven wage gap by about a third and the race-driven wage gap by about half. Specifically, in highly technical professions, after becoming licensed racial minorities saw an 8.1 percent wage increase, compared to a 2.9 percent wage increase for whites.  Additionally, females experienced a 6.1 percent wage increase after becoming licensed compared to a 0.7 percent wage increase for males.