Architectural Leader of the Year

Charter school matches Harris’ vision

Kirk Edward Harris Attorney and adjunct assistant professor for the Department of Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

For Kirk Edward Harris, there’s no choice but to get involved.

His teaching focus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Department of Urban Planning reflects that with its spotlight on the political economy of race and class in the post-industrial city. He also covers topics such as constitutional issues, land-use law, mediation and negotiation.

Harris is committed to supporting families and has worked with nonprofit groups in the Chicago area on parental rights. He is dedicated to education, particularly on improving opportunities for urban youth.

Those who know him say this is nothing new. Margaret Wilder, professor and senior fellow in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Delaware, met Harris when he was a doctoral student at Cornell University. She was his advisor.

“Even as a student, I would have to say, he was an activist,” she said. “He was always very cognizant of issues that affected students on campus as well as the larger university community.”

Wilder said she is a “traditional, die-hard academic,” and she tried to convert him.

It didn’t work.

“He just had this fire inside of him, this passion for having a direct role in assisting communities and affecting positive change,” she said. “Even I, with my other agenda, relented after a while and recognized this person has a mission and the passion to fulfill it.”

She said he brings his personal values to work with him and does not separate his professional goals from his personal beliefs.

“Those values have to do with seeking social justice and bringing access and opportunity to people who may be marginalized or who may need greater assistance in having an opportunity to fulfill their own capacities,” Wilder said.

Once Harris got involved at the UW-Milwaukee, he grew concerned about the local architecture and urban planning industry and the lack of minority professionals and students. He deve-loped a proposal for the School of Urban Planning and Architecture, a new charter high school with a curriculum designed around planning and architecture as well as a strong working relationship with the university.

Cris Parr, a lead teacher for SUPAR, said the school provides something that most other high schools don’t.

“There really isn’t a connection in most high schools to a university or college,” she said. “So many of our kids, especially in [Milwaukee Public Schools], don’t have that paradigm that can function in a college environment.”

SUPAR is designed to give them that chance, and it’s Harris’ leadership that made it happen, she said.

“He is amazingly organized,” she said. “He’s unbelievably calm at all times. In the middle of whatever crazed crisis situation they’re in, Kirk always has something calming and sage to say.

“He lives in Chicago, so it’s a major, major trip to get up here, yet he’s here as much as he possibly can be. He’s just an incredible influence for everybody. He becomes the pivotal person in the whole process.”

With everything Harris is involved in, Parr said she was surprised he found time for the school.

“He floats so beautifully between the worlds,” she said. “He’s got a vocabulary that would go over most people’s heads when speaking as an attorney or with UWM classes, and yet he can sit on the floor and help them measure things in the high school.

“He does not talk down to them, but helps them understand what he’s talking about. That’s a gift I don’t think many people have.”

By Janine Anderson