By Tom Bursey, President, AIA Vermont

On this upcoming Independence Day, we will gather with friends and family to celebrate our country and what it means to be American. Yet our shared sense of national identity feels frayed. 
To be an American is to live in the tension between individual liberty and collective responsibility. Our nation was founded on the radical idea that “We, the People” could govern ourselves, not as isolated individuals, but as a community bound by shared values and mutual respect. That idea is both fragile and powerful. It demands more than celebration; it demands stewardship. In Vermont that often looks like town hall meetings, helping out neighbors in need, and providing a welcoming smile.   

Architects are stewards by nature. We shape the built environment with the understanding that every decision we make affects lives.  The AIA Code of Ethics charges us to - uplift human dignity - and to place the public interest above private gain. 

• Ethical Standards (E.S.) 1.4: Human Rights: Members should uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors…
• E.S. 1.5: Design for Human Dignity and the Health, Safety, and Welfare of the Public: Members should employ their professional knowledge and skill to design buildings and spaces that will enhance and facilitate human dignity and the health, safety, and welfare of the individual and the public.
• https://www.aia.org/about-aia/professional-standards/aia-code-of-ethics-and-professional-conduct

We affirm that our profession must reflect and uplift the full spectrum of human experience, across race, gender, ability, and background.  This American family tree has lots of branches and roots.   
In a time when our shared sense of national identity feels increasingly fractured, architecture offers a quiet but profound counterpoint. Every school we design, every community center we build, every home we restore is a vote of confidence in the American experiment. We believe in the promise of this country because we see it in the faces of the people we serve, our neighbors.  Architects are by nature forward thinkers.   

Yes, Americans are restless. We are anxious. But we are also driven by a deep desire to make things better.  That drive is the foundation of our democracy, and of our profession.
To be an American, then, is to step up. To listen. To build. To bring forth an idea: that “We, the People” can forge liberty and justice together. To imagine a future that includes children playing together, and to speak that Dream to others.  America is an ideal that is becoming, it does not yet exist…   

This Fourth of July, let’s celebrate not just our independence, but our interdependence—and the responsibility we share to shape a more just and inclusive community. 
 
“We are One, but we are not the same, we get to carry each other …”