This month, the Barnard and Columbia College architecture department in New York is debuting a free three-week summer program designed to support low-income high school students from the Upper Manhattan and Harlem communities. Geared specifically to young women, the Barnard Architecture + Design Summer Institute is funded with a grant from the IDC Foundation and will be led by Barnard architecture faculty. Barnard and Columbia College are both undergraduate colleges of Columbia University.

“From my experience and understanding of the schools in New York City, there are limited opportunities to access design curricula and opportunities in design fields,” says Barnard architecture department chair Karen Fairbanks, who has been developing the program for over a year, “so we wanted to expand our resources to youth in the city."