News Release
University holds its annual Commencement: Honorary degree to innovative architect/educator
University of Detroit Mercy will hold its annual commencement ceremony for undergraduate and graduate students on Saturday, May 10, 1:30 p.m. at Calihan Hall on the McNichols Campus. More than 750 graduates and their families are expected to attend the event, as well as "Class of 1958" alumni, who will be honored at the ceremony. Valedictorian Beth Ann Dalrymple, a mechanical engineering major, will address the audience.
During the ceremony, the University will also award an honorary degree to Maurice D. Cox, director of Design for the National Endowment of the Arts. A leading architect, educator and urban design advocate, Cox has devoted his career to improving urban design across the country.
A native of New York City, Cox received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cooper Union School of Architecture in 1983. He spent 10 years in Florence, Italy in professional practice and partnering with Giovanna Galfione in the Studio di Architettura. Six of those years were also spent as an assistant professor of Architecture with Syracuse University's Italian Program.
In 1993, Cox joined the faculty of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, where he taught graduate seminars with an emphasis on community-based collaborative efforts in urban design. In 1996, Cox with partners Craig Barton, Giovanna Galfione, and Martha Rowen founded the architectural practice of RBGC Architecture, Research and Urbanism. In 2006, he also became a partner in the Community Planning + Design WORKSHOP in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Throughout his career, Cox has been an advocate for citizen involvement in city design. He served on the city council in Charlottesville, Virginia for eight years, two of which he was the city's mayor. There he promoted citizens' involvement in the city's civil activities, which led to the creation of a new transit center downtown. Frommer's Cities Ranked and Rated selected Charlottesville as "Best Place to Live" out of 400 cities in the U.S. and Canada during Cox's term as mayor. According to Cox, "Well-designed cities are not a luxury"they are a public necessity." His groundbreaking design in Bayview, Virginia, was the subject of an award-winning documentary, "This Black Soil," which was featured in a full episode of "60 Minutes." The community-minded designer has also been featured in Fast Company magazine as one of America's "20 Masters of Design," the New York Times, the Washington Post and Architecture Magazine.
Cox served as co-director of the Brookings Institute study of downtown Detroit in 2006. His work has focused on the study of Detroit, involving his graduate students through semester-long projects. He currently is studying the shrinking population of urban cities, with a major emphasis on Detroit.
Cox's long-standing commitment to the field of architecture has earned him many awards and honors, including the Cooper Union School of Architecture's most distinguished alumni award, the Presidential Medal, and the Cooper Union John Hejduk Award for Architecture. In 2005, he received Harvard University's Graduate School of Design's Loeb Fellowship.
Release date: April 21, 2008
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