Chere LeClair thinks differently than many about architecture. She doesn’t dream of building a skyscraper in Times Square or Dubai, nor does she have much desire to design mansions for celebrities in exotic locales.

Instead, during her career as an architect and teaching professor at Montana State University’s School of Architecture, LeClair has focused on equitable design and instilling empathy in her students. She’s more interested in designs that fit within the landscape and better serve communities than she is in grand architectural gestures.

On March 19, LeClair will discuss how her life experiences have impacted her trajectory in architecture and teaching as part of MSU’s 11th annual Provost’s Distinguished Lecturer Series at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 19, in the Hager Auditorium at the Museum of the Rockies. Her lecture, “Design for Equity,” is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception in the museum lobby.

During her lecture, LeClair will discuss the importance of equity in design and how that translates to communities and hopes to increase general awareness and understanding around these issues.

“Architecture is facing ethical challenges that will determine the profession’s relevance going forward,” LeClair said. “These include the impacts of the growing climate crises, increasing health and economic disparities in our communities, and environmental degradation and resulting biodiversity loss globally.”

As a fifth-generation Montanan, LeClair has deep connections with the state’s landscape, particularly the Greater Yellowstone Region. While she applauds efforts to build sustainably with a low carbon footprint, she would like to see designers take an additional step and think more holistically about the building site. Is it a greenfield site, meaning that it has never been built on before? And how does it impact wildlife habitat? For example, is the land traditionally an elk corridor? Should we be building there?

“If we’re the thought leaders tasked with designing the built environment, we must design in ways that are going to minimize negative impacts, both socially and ecologically. I think these are pieces that we need to tackle,” LeClair said. “I’m not alone in this, but it’s not always a common thread. These topics are not consistently being talked about.”

LeClair was elected to serve at the national level of the American Institute of Architects in 2014. In this role, she contributed to the creation of the “AIA Guides for Equitable Practice” and the codification of the United Nations New Urban Agenda Sustainable Development Goals into key frameworks within the AIA and curricula of architecture schools nationally. In 2021, LeClair became the first female architect from Montana inducted into the AIA’s College of Fellows.

Growing up in the Bozeman area, a young LeClair shadowed her father, Ken LeClair, a builder, to his construction sites. Those early experiences planted a seed in her imagination, and LeClair knew from early on that she would become an architect someday, but she found roadblocks while pursuing her aspiration in the 1980s and ’90s.

While preparing for college, she said she was discouraged from majoring in architecture. She was repeatedly told architecture is too hard; you won’t like it. LeClair found it very challenging to be a female architecture student, and she later faced many obstacles as a woman in the profession. These experiences shaped her desire to make the profession more equitable and provided the impetus for much of her AIA national work.

She persevered and obtained a bachelor’s degree from MSU in 1991, then earned a master’s from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. After working in Colorado for about a decade, she returned home to open a practice and begin teaching architecture courses at MSU’s College of Arts and Architecture in 2004.

In her classes, LeClair stresses the importance of empathy to her students and attempts to get them to understand the lives, motivations and desires of the people and communities they are designing for. She said that in her classes she shares her own experiences and seeks to create an environment where everyone can feel secure and connect with each other, as well as with the client.

“Part of it, how I prop that up, is I tend to be highly vulnerable myself, talk about all of our frailties, how we are all in it together and try to get the students to sync up as a unit,” LeClair said.

Just as her experiences have inspired her to tackle numerous aspects of equity, LeClair hopes the rest of the industry will focus on the bigger picture and use architecture to improve the lives of the broader community.

“In my humble opinion, if we don’t start moving in that direction, we are at risk of becoming irrelevant, because most people see architecture and architects primarily serving the wealthiest one percent, not the broader populace, to the detriment of many communities.”