Breaking New Ground by Karamia Müller

The glass ceiling metaphor describes invisible and discriminatory barriers that prohibit individuals, typically women, from ascending professional ladders to hold senior leadership roles. Originally a term employed by gender and feminist scholars, it summons an image of a set of stairs that lead up to a transparent ceiling and continue onwards, visible beyond that glassy roof. It is a widely accepted term, used colloquially to describe planes of power with a lower ratio of women, or individuals from minority groups. 

For Professor Deidre Brown, if we are to use this image, we must account for a lot of broken glass, probably quite a few cuts, and maybe a bit of a sore head. This very award represents a breaking away from the mould. She is the first academic to be awarded a Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects Gold Medal, and she will also be the first Māori woman. This is not her first ‘first’. In 2019, she was the first Indigenous woman to lead a school of architecture. The same school where she undertook a Master of Architecture with Distinction with Associate Professor Sarah Treadwell, and then a PhD with Professor Mike Austin and Dr Mike Linzey. Since her first academic appointment in 1997 as a lecturer in Māori Art at the School of Design, Unitec, she has received 23 significant international and national awards for her academic, teaching, writing and service contributions. 

She is an award-winning curator and world expert on Māori art and art history. A grant from the Marsden Fund enabled co-writing – along with Associate Professor Art History, University of Auckland, Ngarino Ellis and the late Professor Jonathan Mane-Wheoki – a comprehensive history of Māori art. The forthcoming book, Toi te Mana, will be a historic and groundbreaking achievement. A public summary on the Marsden website writes: “Toi te Mana will set an academic precedent as the first comprehensive indigenous art history created by and with indigenous peoples.”

One may assume that such a career can only be achieved if an individual focuses solely on their own advancement and disregards the progression of others. As someone who has personally transformed under Professor Brown’s mentoring, it is poignant for me to now see, that while I felt I was the only recipient of her guidance, mentorship and academic stewardship – such is the dedication she demonstrates with her students – there were and continue to be many others. Since 2002, she has principally supervised to completion 36 postgraduate research projects and co-supervised a further five. From this cohort, Dr Charmaine ‘Ilaiū Talei (Tatakamōtonga, Houma, Tonga) was the first Master of Pacific Architecture graduate in 2007. In 2019, I would follow as the first Sāmoan woman to complete a Doctorate in Architecture. It was an accomplishment made possible by Professor Brown who I will refer to as Deidre from here on in. The idea of a doctorate was completely unknown to me as a third-year architecture student. I found the Bachelor of Architectural Studies and Bachelor of Architecture, now the Masters of Architecture (Professional), very demanding, and opportunities to learn about Māori, Pacific or Indigenous architecture were slim. Secondly, and just as importantly, as many migrant Pacific parents – my own included – drilled into their children that vocational degrees mean guaranteed employment and social mobility. You went to university, then you got a good job. The idea of a career contributing to knowledge, particularly Indigenous knowledge, felt beyond not only my reach, but my imagination. You received knowledge, you did not make it. That was reserved for a sort of person, and that person did not look like me. 

Deidre was the first Māori woman to stand in front of lectures in my time as an undergraduate student. Her lectures were what I thought university at its best was, the training grounds for self-reflexivity, criticality and rigorous thinking. I learnt about Māori architecture, not as a footnote in vernacular architecture, but as a canon. By extension I thought of Pacific architecture as canonical. Arguments emerged from my fingertips and became essays. I still think about Deidre’s comments made on the margins of my submission, igniting a passion for ideas. 

In my fourth year of architecture, she offered me a research assistant position, which introduced me to the world of research and ideas. And it was a world in which I could be a citizen, too. Some 20-plus years later I still recall Deidre explaining to me, under the lintel to her office, how she had partly conceptualised the doctoral degree to her mother, saying to her: ‘You have the D-r in front of your name, and you are called Doctor.’ That day, I began drafting in my head how I would explain to my parents I would undertake a doctorate, using Deidre’s words as a template. When I completed my own doctoral journey, it was Deidre who reached out to the university’s research communications team so that the achievement was made known to media outlets. The resulting article went viral and, as Pacific people I didn’t know congratulated me from around the world on various social media channels, I thought about something Deidre had told me. I paraphrase and hope you get the spirit of it: ‘We inspire others to reach for lifetime achievements when we reach our own. It’s important to share them. Especially for our own communities.’ 

In 2020, under her academic supervision, Matekitātahi Rawiri-McDonald’s (Te Whānau-a-Apanui) thesis Te Toi Waihanga a te Whānau-a-Apanui was the first-ever MArch (Professional) thesis written entirely in Te Reo Māori. The final crit held on the University of Auckland’s Waipapa Marae was conducted completely in te reo Māori in a landmark event for Indigenous architecture in Aotearoa New Zealand. Deidre is currently supervising seven doctoral candidates – of which three are Māori wāhine, and there’s a Pacific candidate who has set her eyes on the Vice Chancellor role. This ambitious student, in her final year of the Master’s (Professional), approached Deidre, who was Head of School at the time, and told her that a Pacific cohort of students finishing their Masters had to have their final crits at the University of Auckland Fale Pasifika. Deidre worked closely with the students to create a culturally appropriate event that honoured their mana (respect) and leadership. On the day, it was Deidre who enacted manaakitanga (hospitality), ensuring all had been welcome to the kai and beverages provided, before she sat down to eat. 

Today, Deidre is co-director of MĀPIHI, a newly established transdisciplinary research centre with a mission to improve the quality and supply of housing for Māori and Pacific people. As co-director, I have found that the tuākana-teina (elder sibling) relationship has developed again. The centre is at start-up phase and has been a parabolic learning curve for me. I am inspired by Deidre’s vision for the next 300 years, balanced against what is possible now, incrementally, and always with heart for the horizon. What lies ahead for the world continues to grow in complexity: climate, geopolitics, health, education and housing keep asking big questions of humanity. 

I began this contribution with the well-known ‘glass ceiling’ concept, but it now strikes me that Deidre’s legacy isn’t quite captured by the phrase. When I reflect on her mahi, she is in fact unique even among those who step into spaces for the first time: where there are glass ceilings, Deidre will build something new and empower those around her to do so for themselves, leading through serving, and inspiring in that service. In doing so, she role models a version of self-determination that listens deeply to hear what the future calls for us to build now. 

Kia ora Deidre.

Dr Karamia Müller is a lecturer at University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, Te Pare School of Architecture and Planning, Director of University Research, Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries, and co-director of MĀPIHI.

Above: Deidre with the MĀPIHI team. Back row, left to right: Dr Sam Manuela, Dr Kilisimasi Latu, Dr ‘Ema Wolfgramm-Foliaki, Associate Professor Vili Nosa, Dr Charmaine ‘Ilaiū Talei, Dr Tumanako Ngawhika Fa’aui, Dr Michael Davis. Front row: Peseta Fa’amatuainu To’oto’oolea’ava Lama Tone, Professor Deidre Brown, Dr Karamia Müller, Professor Anthony Hoete and Lena Henry.