On-campus interviews for the new dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, which commenced on Feb. 25, will be completed next week when two of the final four candidates will come to East Hill.
Over the past two weeks, Peggy Deamer, associate dean of Yale University’s School of Architecture and partner at the Deamer + Phillips firm; and Mary-Ann Ray, principal at the Studio Works firm in Los Angeles, have come for two-day visits, meeting with a variety of administrators, faculty members, and President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77.
While open dean searches in the past have been the norm for the University, the architecture college’s procedure this year has consisted of withholding candidates’ names and information until the day before their interview. As a result, the other two candidates’ names have not yet been revealed.
The purpose of this relatively closed policy is to allay concerns that some candidates had with informing their current employer about their new job consideration, according to search manager Michael Matier.
Matier said one of the reasons why the search committee, a group made up of faculty members and administrators, made this decision was because they wanted to ensure that the best candidates were available for selection without apprehension due to current employment situations.
The search for University president, as well as those initiated by Lehman are the only search procedures closed to the public. While stating that this type of process will hopefully not be a norm in the future as it is in other institutions, the committee in this case is pleased with their results, according to Provost Biddy Martin, co-chair of the search committee.
“[The candidates] were clearly people the search committee felt [who had] met the criteria in the search announcement,” Matier said.
While the committee is looking for characteristics which include a strong reputation, experience, capable leadership abilities and a familiarity of administrative duties, a unique requirement in this search is that the dean must be an accomplished architect – due to the fact that architecture is the largest field of study within the college.
The two unnamed candidates will also come to campus next week for two days visits. Matier said the committee will meet within a week and create a list of candidate names that will be submitted to the president. Lehman will then make the final decision.
“The quality of the candidates is excellent,” said Provost Biddy Martin, co-chair of the search committee, who also added that the first two candidates who came to campus were impressive in their interviews.
Deamer, who is also an associate professor at Yale, has also taught in institutions such as Princeton University and was the program director at Barnard College. Ray’s firm is currently working on projects with budgets of up to $40 million. She has also worked with Richard Meier’s ’56 firm on the Los Angeles, Calif. Getty Museum.
In the other ongoing College of Human Ecology dean search, Matier said the committee will likely have a list of at least three finalists for the position by sometime next week.
Archived article by Brian Tsao