Howard University Architecture Alumna and Professor Hazel R. Edwards Joins Harvard Radcliffe Institute Class of Fellows

Howard University Architecture Professor Hazel R. Edwards, Ph.D. (B.Arch. ‘86) was selected as a 2023-2024 fellow of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.  

According to the Institute, a Radcliffe fellowship offers scholars in the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and arts—as well as writers, journalists, and other distinguished professionals—a rare chance to pursue ambitious projects for a full year in a vibrant interdisciplinary setting amid the resources of Harvard. The 2023–2024 fellows represent only 3.3 percent of the many applications that Radcliffe received. 

Edwards continues to work to improve living conditions in underrepresented communities and increase diversity in the architecture, design and planning fields. Edwards coauthored and published “The Long Walk: The Placemaking Legacy of Howard University” in 1996, a history of the campus’s physical development that became the framework for its 1998 Campus Plan. She also generated significant funding for her research projects and published work on place making at other American historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In the Harvard University Press’ “Landscape and the Academy”, her essay “On Hilltop High: The Enduring and Nurturing Landscapes of Howard University” was published in 2019.  

At Radcliffe, Edwards is exploring the connections between the historic distinction of land as “ours” (Black) and “theirs” (white) articulated by sociocultural and spatial-justice practices which have impacted Howard since its founding. Was it a common practice at the time for other HBCUs to have a campus serve as an oasis from injustices Black people faced? 

A Class of 1986 graduate of the Howard University bachelor of architecture degree program, Edwards also holds a PhD in regional planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a master of architecture in urban design from Harvard University. She is certified with and an elected fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Edwards was appointed to the US Commission of Fine Arts by President Joseph Biden in 2021. In 2022, she received Architectural Record’s 2022 Women in Architecture Design Leadership Award in the educator category. 

Photo courtesy of Harvard Radcliffe Institute