Dear Alumni:

Will Wittig

It has been a very busy time around the School of Architecture this fall with many significant initiatives moving forward.  Perhaps the biggest news this fall is that our spin-off foundation, the Volterra Detroit Foundation led by Prof. Wladek Fuchs, has successfully launched renovations of an 18th-century building in Volterra, Italy for use as an international residential college. As you might imagine there is much work to accomplish over the coming months, including raising funds to complete the furnishing of the building, but I am confident that this remarkable project will prove to be an incredibly valuable asset for the School. The project will enable the School of Architecture to restore the full semester summer program in Volterra with our first group of students scheduled to begin studies in Volterra in May 2013.

Back on the home front we continue to advance our plans to renovate the studios in the Architecture building.  To date we have raised approximately $313,000 in gifts and pledges for the Studios for Scholars project.  We have already replaced 130 drafting stools for our students this summer, and plans are being refined now for renovations next summer, guided by design ideas generated by our students in a recent all school charette. We hope to raise $400,000-450,000 in order to complete renovations in all studio spaces.

The Detroit Collaborative Design Center is wrapping up their work for this phase of the city's "Detroit Works Project."  You might be amazed to know that the Design Center has engaged over 75,000 individuals through a variety of dynamic community engagement efforts that guided the development of new planning strategies for the city.  You should expect to see public dissemination of the project summary by the end of the year, and the Design Center is currently working behind the scenes to develop plans for moving the project forward in the coming year.  Other community engagement projects have also garnered recognition this year in Architectural Record, the Huffington Post, Forbes on line, and even the Venice Biennale.

We are also currently working on plans for our 50th Anniversary (1964-2014), which we will be celebrating throughout the 2013-2014 academic year along with the 20th Anniversary of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center.  Stay tuned for a series of exciting events we hope will bring many of you back to Detroit and to campus to celebrate 50 years of excellence as we look towards our next 50 years of innovation.

Enrollment continues to be our central challenge as it is for schools of architecture across the country in relation to the significant economic challenges for our industry and the understandable trepidation in the past few years on the part of prospective students.  We did see a slight increase in new student enrollment this fall, which also included increases in geographic, ethnic, and gender diversity.  We continue to pursue a host of recruiting initiatives, and we welcome your support in spreading the word about the program whenever and wherever you can.

Finally, I am sure you are all aware that in September we opened a great new fitness center that represents the first new freestanding building constructed on campus in over 40 years. It's a wonderful addition to the physical campus that has added a new dimension to campus life for our students.  I know that many of our architecture students are benefiting from having a place to unwind and get some exercise after many hours spent in class and in the studios.

As always, I continue to appreciate your support of the School in countless ways including; providing fresh ideas about the future of the School, as co-op employers, student mentors, high school recruiters, visiting critics and lecturers, through moral support and encouragement, and of course your financial support.

Sincerely,

Will Wittig, AIA, LEED ® AP
Dean of the UDM School of Architecture

P.S. For the third year in a row, our graduates have passed the ARE exams at the highest rate of any school of architecture in the state.  Nice job graduates!