An ethnographic inquiry into a curriculum culture: Studying how a liberal arts approach and leadership studies may be embodied and enacted in the design studio within an architectural professional education

The purpose of this critique is to understand the nature of a studio curriculum culture within a professional architecture education program with a liberal arts approach by utilizing ethnographic methods. The goal of this examination is to be descriptive and critical with reference to an emergent understanding of professional architectural leadership. Using Dewey, this analysis draws on sources of McElfresh-Spehler and Slattery highlighting prophetic leadership and critiques that leadership is normally taught in a lecture formatted, professional-practice course to National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) satisfaction. My critique suggests curriculum changes for practicing leadership in studio so graduates may embody and enact inspired, visionary leadership for immediate implementation in the field. Graduates who discuss leadership in lectures try these concepts for the first time.;My purposefully chosen setting allowed me to look for openings where emergent understandings might invite critical, reflective inquiries. Three themes emerged. Choice development is encouraged through liberal arts. Leadership is practiced by role playing. Equality is fostered within democracy. Scholarship of Henderson and Gornik supports these themes with their 3S curriculum design referring to the integration of subject matter, self, and social ways of understanding. Using Badiou’s analysis of ethical fidelity, beginnings of a sketch position the themes around a democratic circle wherein positive possibilities are imagined.;Implications of this study relate to the manner in which curriculum decisions are made regarding power structures and relations, 3S understanding and prophetic leadership. Further ethnographic investigations of studio curriculum cultures would enhance our emergent understanding of professional architectural leadership.