, Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning in the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Kennedy School of Government, and acting dean of the Design School, has been annouced as the next dean of the GSD. | press release
Cambridge, MA: February 2, 2005. President Lawrence H. Summers announced today the appointment of Alan A. Altshuler, Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning in the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Kennedy School of Government, to the position of dean of the Graduate School of Design (GSD), effective immediately. Professor Altshuler has been serving as acting dean of the Design School since July 2004.
President Summers said in announcing the appointment, “Alan Altshuler is an outstanding scholar, a distinguished public servant, and an able administrator. I have known and admired Alan for many years and have been deeply impressed by his leadership, judgment, and diligence during his tenure as acting dean. I look forward to continuing to work with him in his new role as dean.”
Professor Altshuler said, “I have been profoundly impressed throughout my 16 years as a faculty member, and most recently during my seven months as acting dean, by the extraordinary talent, commitment, and warm collegiality of the GSD faculty, students, and staff. This is a place of remarkable, widely distributed creativity. So the task of a dean must be primarily to facilitate both initiatives bubbling up from below and collegial deliberations about major institutional choices. In this spirit, I am thrilled by the prospect of serving this wonderful community as dean. And I am deeply grateful to President Summers for his confidence in offering me this opportunity.”
Professor Altshuler succeeds Peter G. Rowe, Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, who stepped down as dean in June 2004 to return to teaching and research. Professor Rowe served as dean for twelve years, leading a capital campaign and increasing the size of the faculty.
The search for Professor Rowe's successor began late in the fall of 2003. President Summers was advised in the search by a faculty group of ten. President Summers also sought the advice of leading designers and scholars as well as the faculty, students, staff, and alumni of the Graduate School of Design.
Professor Altshuler has been a member of the Faculties of Design and Government since 1988. A distinguished scholar, Professor Altshuler has written extensively on urban and intergovernmental politics, land use planning and regulation, public investment decision-making, transportation, and the world automobile industry. He is the author, most recently, of Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment (with David Luberoff), which was designated “best book of the year” in 2004 by the Urban Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Among Altshuler's other books are The City Planning Process: a Political Analysis; The Urban Transportation System: Politics and Policy Innovation; Regulation for Revenue (with Jose Gomez-Ibanez); and The Future of the Automobile (with Daniel Roos and others).
3 Comments
i'm surprised
i dont think you are alone in that.
but two major factors likely prevailed: 1) president summers was instrumental in this search. 2) the role of "the dean" suggests someone who is equally skilled in $ issues, advisory boards, management, as well as academic prowess ... not an easy stock to find. in addition, i think altshuler's well-oiled relationship with the kennedy school was probably a factor as well.
at the gsd the deanship is different than those at other schools. harvard's equivalent to yale's rabert stern or columbia's mark wigley is arch dept chair toshiko mori, not Altshuler
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