AIA Virginia Board Chairman Robert L. Easter will have an unexpected honor to reflect on when he ends his term this week.

The American Institute of Architects presented Mr. Easter its 2023 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award earlier this month. The award recognizes architects and organizations, in part, for their “social responsibility,” according to AIA.

Past recipients include the National Organization of Minority Architects in 2007 and Habitat for Humanity in 1988. Mr. Easter founded the Richmond firm Kelso & Easter Architects (now KEi Architects) in 1983.

“It’s nice to have people appreciate your contributions. But I don’t do it for the recognition,” Mr. Easter said. “I do it to make a difference.”

It’s the way he was raised in Hampton, where he now chairs the architecture department at Hampton University.

“My parents taught their children to believe in giving back, to recognize the responsibility that comes with having the privileges and benefits that we enjoyed growing up,” Mr. Easter explained.

Mitchell Ramseur, a North Carolina architect who served on the panel evaluating Mr. Easter’s nomination, praised his “relentless pursuit and desire to give back to the youth and champion inclusiveness and universal access to architecture as a whole.” Another award juror, Ricardo Maga Rojas of Texas, said Mr. Easter’s work in academia “has been critical to increasing the pipeline for young black architects.”

Marcus Thomas is one success story. A former student of Mr. Easter’s at Hampton, he interned KEi Architects a decade ago, is now the firm’s managing principal, and is being groomed by Mr. Easter to succeed to succeed him someday, he said.

“My hope is that this shines some light on the program he has built at Hampton,” Mr. Thomas said, “and we continue to attract and retain the talent that the program deserves and continue to turn out top-tier talent that competes with the rest.”

Mr. Easter is a past president of the National Association of Minority Architects (NOMA), which seeks to foster “justice and equity in communities of color through outreach, community advocacy, professional development and design excellence.”

In 1992, he was elected to serve a two-year term as NOMA’s 15th president. During his tenure, he created the NOMA Council to recognize the extraordinary contributions its members have made to the profession. After forging an alliance with South Africa’s design community, Mr. Easter helped create a sister organization to NOMA there and traveled to Johannesburg to meet with its leadership, facilitate sessions with the South African Institute of Architects, and discuss terms for cooperative leadership, according to his AIA biography.

Additionally, Mr. Easter worked to advance critical research and documentation of African-American architects in the U.S. and partnered with AIA and other organizations to establish AIA’s first diversity conference.

The field of architecture “hasn’t always been welcoming” to Black people, he said, making it important for the profession to understand “what they miss by not honoring the abilities and capabilities” of African-American architects.

Mr. Easter’s efforts to diversify the profession date to his graduate student days at Virginia Tech. There, he was instrumental in advancing a minority lecture series that introduced an “overwhelmingly white design academy to the work of architects and planners of color,” AIA said.

And while serving in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as an instructor, he helped young officers with little experience in design, math or engineering to transition into the Corps.

Jason Pugh, the president of NOMA, said recognition of Mr. Easter is “long overdue, and we cannot thank Robert enough for his continued service, steadfast leadership and valued counsel over the years.”