Dean's letter

Dear Alumni:

We have entered a new academic year with great anticipation of the NAAB accreditation team visiting in the spring. As part of the reaccreditation process, we submitted the Architectural Program Report (APR), which was reviewed by the team chair, David Cronrath of Louisiana State University.

He determined that all the information they needed was in the report, and the report would stand as is. The next process is to name the rest of the team and to start finalizing the agenda for the visit.

The accreditation visit will take place between Saturday, March 15 and Wednesday, March 19, 2008. As part of the visit, there will be a reception and exhibit with the alumni and faculty. The date for this reception has not been finalized, but we want as large an attendance as possible.

Professors Amy Deines and Dan Pitera will be determining the exhibition format, and then we will be putting out a call to alumni to submit work. This will surely be done in a digital process. If you want to have the work of you or your firm in the exhibit, keep an eye out for the announcement.

Steve LaGrassa has decided to step down as associate dean and return to faculty. Join me in congratulating him for a job well done. In addition, Effie Taylor has retired. These two personnel changes have caused us to reorganize our administration. Donnie Jones has been elevated to assistant dean and has taken over the administrative duties of the associate dean.

Joe Odoerfer has been named director of Undergraduate Programs in Architecture and Julie Kim has been named director of Graduate Programs in Architecture. These positions were formed to take over the academic duties of the associate dean.

Finally, we have hired two new administrative staff—Erica Stewart and Elly Gravelle—to assist Donnie and me in administering the School. If you have an opportunity to thank Steve, congratulate Donnie and welcome the new staff, please do so.

In other news, Kathy Reehil (see profile) flew in from New York to award the second Paul Reehil Memorial Scholarship to Heidi Konieczka (see story).

The lecture series got off to a great start with a lecture by David Lee, FAIA from Boston to a standing-room-only audience. This lecture was our second annual NOMA-sponsored lecture with Hamilton Anderson as a co-sponsor. We have seven lectures this year. Be sure to try to attend as many as possible.  (See lecture information.)

Sincerely,

Stephen Vogel, FAIA
Dean, School of Architecture