Frederick Steiner's deanship at Penn Design will begin on July 1, succeeding Marilyn Jordan Taylor. In a piece published in The Texas Tribune, Steiner reportedly rejected offers for positions at other schools in the past, but was provoked to reconsider in light of a new law allowing concealed guns in UT Austin's campus buildings, going into effect August 1.
Previously, concealed handguns were legally allowed on campus, but not inside buildings. "I would have never applied for another job if not for campus carry," says Steiner as quoted in The Texas Tribune. "I felt that I was going to be responsible for managing a law I didn't believe in." He adds: "Penn is a great institution and I am very happy to go to Penn, but I was approached ... and, if it wouldn't have been for campus carry, I wouldn't have considered it."
Academics and other members of the UT Austin community are concerned that such campus carry laws will result in a "brain drain", scaring away potential applicants and instilling fear in the classroom for both students and teachers. Such concerns are already becoming reality, according to a few instances cited in The Guardian.
Steiner's work in architecture academia is seasoned and varied, and UT Austin's Architecture school was consistently top-ranked under his deanship. The Texas Tribune characterizes his exit as a "blow" for the university.
According to a press release issued by Penn Design, before serving as dean at UT Austin for the last 15 years, Steiner spent 12 years as the director of the School of Planning and Landscape Architecture at Arizona State University, and was previously on faculty at Washington State University and the University of Colorado Denver's Center for Built Environment Studies. He is the author of many books, including The Living Landscape: An Ecological Approach to Landscape Planning, and will return to Penn Design after completing two master's degrees and a doctoral degree in city and regional planning there, as well as three years of being a research scholar at the Penn Institute for Urban Research.
94 Comments
Silly children and their deadly toys.
The chronicle posted an article in which someone (in the Faculty Senate?) suggested that faculty at the University of Houston change course content as a means to pacify angry students.
I think the grade point average at UT Austin is going to climb dramatically.
As a graduate of the program, it is a shame to lose such a great dean. This new law is infuriating to say the least; there is no need for guns in studios.
I bet the Crits are gonna be nicer.
now you can shoot your studio project if you hate it?
I can't say I hate the idea of some supremely smug critic getting a barrel in his mouth. No bullets, of course, just a tease. And the diarrhea could flow from both ends afterward.
The issue is simple:
Concern that if the professors or the dean says something mean or nasty or otherwise unacceptable to the student or if the student gets a poor grade that the student would shoot the professor.
Honestly, students really shouldn't be carrying guns with them because the simple fact is academic life is very emotional and emotions and guns do not mix well. The simple pressure of academic life is really too much for students especially in this current generations. The older generations grew up in a different time but students unless they happen to work in law enforcement shouldn't be carrying guns in a capacity to readibly use it at any time. This is because if they get emotional, they have a gun to use to apply coercion and threat to yield to their demand. This is normal human response when they are A) emotional and B) desperate and C) have something to coerce another person to their will.
This would make possible student rape situations even more concerning.
Honestly, a educational environment shouldn't be an environment where anyone under emotional reaction would be in a position where they can just pull out a gun and shoot someone.
this whole situation is fucking disgusting.
I have a couple guns for range and home defense. I support gun ownership. Never carry unless I am camping or hiking (I've seen mountain lions a few times...and get into some pretty remote places where I could potentially get stranded due to injury). My in laws own a cash business in a really bad area. They carry as they should. Even as a gun owner, I just don't understand why anyone would feel complelled to carry a gun on a campus. It's a safe place.
It might be because of the shootings taking place on campuses in the news in recent months.
There is a rationale to it, though. The people who tend to do these shootings are really a bunch of pussies. You never see this kind of gun shootings happening on military bases. There's a good reason. The people who do these gun shootings are cowards as they only would do this at places where the people they shoot at don't have guns. They are literally that pathetic. They are so pathetic and cowardous pieces of shit that they will only target places to shoot where they are by all likelihood to be the only one(s) with a gun.
The reason you don't see mass shootings on military bases is because THEY have guns, every one of them is typically issued firearms and are trained to use it effectively to kill. So it one idiot tries to do such a shooting, 20-30-50 others would light that idiot up in a heart beat.
If everyone was carrying a gun, there is a possibility that mass shooting of the kind we have been seeing will diminish. This is due to the equalization of response. By the time the idiot shoots the first 2-3 people, others with guns may take him down fairly quickly. These cowards that do the mass shootings do not want equalized balanced status quo. They want it in their favor.
It does raise other concerns. This is where if students are permitted to carry guns on campus, so shall the faculty & staff be permitted. When it is equalized status quo where it is clear that any person you looking at, talking to or whatever may also be carrying a gun. As long as there isn't an imbalance of status quo.
Either nobody is permitted to carry a gun or everyone is.
There is legitimate concerns, regardless.
It isn't the gun but the person(s) operating the gun that we have to be concerned about.
Rick, go fuck yourself, before you go vote for that douchebag Trump. Fucking retard.
You never see this kind of gun shootings happening on military bases.
A History of Shootings at Military Installations in the U.S.
Rick, the only expertise you have is idiocy. Not like it was any kind of secret, but you really don't have to go around proving it over and over again.
sameolddoctor,
I never said I am voting for Trump.
d[-_-]b,
doucebag,
NONE of those incidents parallels the mass shootings of schools, colleges, etc. and the perpetrators.
Most cases with military installations is with regards to people either drugged out and out of control or they are suffering from a relapse due to their PTSD. Occassionally, during the war on terrorism, that you might find terrorist attacks.
The PTSD and relapse situations were never part of something that the shooters of schools, colleges, etc. has. They don't suffer from PTSD in the same manner. They don't relapse those scenarios the same way because the trauma scenario is different. Soldiers relapse battles where some loser low-life piece of shit with no military or combat situations will have a fucking clue what it is like. They just don't. The low life piece of shit that shot up a theater or a college campus doesn't have that. They don't because they never experienced such.
You don't see people like the shooters of schools, theaters, colleges, etc. shooting up military installations. This is because the people that are shooting schools, theaters, etc. are cowardous pieces of shit losers that are doing such to get attention especially with the media who can't resist publishing this crap.
These people don't have the canards to shoot up a place where everyone will have a gun like a police station or a military installation. We didn't have this kind of shit so often back in the day when everyone carried a gun.
There were shootings but duels not mass shooting because the survival rate was 0%. The people will will shoot you and kill you. One man against a town just isn't going to work.
1000+ people with a gun (each with 5-10 round clips) and you have just a 30 round clip and one gun, isn't going to go very far. Only one well placed round is needed to kill a person. They don't make bullet proof masks that will stop a high velocity rifle round used to kill an elk or a bear. The weight of the laminate glass and thickness required would be too heavy.
He is leaving Austin, Texas, to go to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, because of a concern for firearms crime in Austin? Philadelphia is probably one of the worst places in the country for all manner of crimes, as well as being one of the ugliest cities on the planet. Plus the whole population takes rudeness to an epic new level there. But he will get points from the liberal crowd.
Volunteer, Philly rocks! And amazing restaurants. You must not have been there for the past decade at least. The rudeness is done lovingly.
Also, the Dean isn't leaving due to firearm crime. He's leaving because he got a better job offer at an institution where he didn't have to enforce a policy he can't ethically support: "I felt that I was going to be responsible for managing a law I didn't believe in", as he says.
If we're going to build a wall it should be between Texas and the rest of the US.
Rikki, are you a military brat?
Or ex-military?
^ I'm sure it's top secret.
Volunteer, lol. Philly is not a good place to avoid getting shot.
Academia is the closest thing to lala land. You really don't want people who are in lala land carrying guns - follow me here:
Just watched a bunch of Youtube videos with my oldest daughter (7). Just stupid Minecraft games where people are playing and filming it (doubt that's what its called). She's really into it, and these fucks get millions of views. One episode was about killing yourself to move on in levels. When I kick the kids off the computers they flip out.
recent resume on Archinect that got a lot of shit - http://archinect.com/thearchitectoflife/resume
was checking out at supermarket today, saw this Former Bachelor Contestant Lex McAllister Dies After Apparent Suicide, apparently the third to do so.
School shootings in general increase.
Random shootings in general increase.
Reality is only real on Facebook, instagram - internet.
In lala land, everything is theoretical, reality is essentially conceptual now, I foresee more school shootings if you can carry on campus.
You don't like your political science teacher, you did some Acid or Shrooms or just hung over from the other night, your girlfriends texts you that you are done and then your Professor asks you to listen - so you shoot the fucker.
hell in a hand basket is coming.
Olaf,
Exactly a concern I do have. It is a balancing act. Either no one carries guns or they all carry guns. If certain people carry guns than it will always be the law enforcement that is never there when you need it or the criminals / other people who don't give a f--- about other people.
We have a generation of people who can't handle reality because they were sheltered from it and when reality hits them, they don't know what to do. It is a sad situation but customarily, these problems didn't really exist back in the days when everyone or more or less everyone carried a gun of sorts. Aside from a few incidents where a person suffering from PTSD and loses it and go out on a wild shooting spree because they are relapsing a traumatic situation (usually a battle where they saw their close friends die in battle or something). Now, not everyone with PTSD does this but that is a situation that does occur once in awhile.
Soldiers suffer from PTSD especially when they go to war. War is that ugly that it does this to them.
However, for those who aren't literally 'out of their mind' so to speak like most of these assholes who does those mass shootings. They are in full conscious awareness of where they are even when they are acting out of control but they are clearly cognizant of the reality they are in. They just are cowardous losers who prey on people at places where they are least likely armed in anyway to pose a threat to them like a turkey shoot. They know what they are doing. They choose where to do something because these losers don't know how to confront a man to man honorably. They don't know how to be honorable and confront their issues like a man.... mano y mano. An honest duel if a real man to man talk it out isn't an option.
While a school shouldn't be a place to carry guns because it isn't a place that duels should occur unless in say a boxing ring or something. Honestly, I would recommend resolving issues peacefully through talk.
People also need a real discipline in their lives. Carrying guns carries responsibility. Responsibility requires a discipline of responsible conduct that must exist FIRST by experience with lesser things. This also means use of guns should never be used to settle disputes of disagreements. People should not kill each other just because there is a disagreement. Guns as with any other weapon is a tool of self-defense if someone else attacks you with a weapon. A person should not use a gun unless a gun is being used by the other party. If a person uses a fist, then you should not respond with anything more than a fist. Hand to hand for hand to hand type attack. Maybe a foot but response should be comparable for ethical fighting. If a knife or gun is not used, then you should not use a knife or gun in response.
It is that simple.
This also means if the attack is words, then you should only attack back with words as a response. Hence the principle of the great debate. The argument. The game of wit.
This ethical discipline is lacking in our younger generational culture. It isn't that there isn't or that the ethical discipline doesn't exist any any of the younger generation but it is lacking in terms of demographics. Demographically, people in our younger generation lacks discipline, ethics, morals, etc. because they do not have responsible parental teaching due to the increase in divorce rates, the single parent upbringing and other societal issues including the lack of parents being around to provide proper discipline.
We need to restore the holistic 'nuclear' household in order to restore the moral and ethical and discipline health of our citizenship.
The FBI crime rate for Austin, Texas, is 271.3 violent crimes per 100,000 people, relatively low. The crime rate for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is 497.5 violent crimes per 100,000 people. I am sure the professor and his family are special snowflakes who are immune from becoming victims of violent crime because they are so wonderful.
Actually, the crime rate for the two counties that make up the two million population of the city of Philly is 937.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The earlier figure (497.5) was for the six million area population around and incuding Philly. Basically the good professor has moved to a place with 345% more violent crime than Austin.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/6tabledatadecpdf/table-6
Hope this copied without error.
Statistics are great, but you guys are still missing the point. He's not leaving due to crime, he's leaving due to a university policy.
The FBI 2013 crime stats with the 937.7 figure was based on "Delaware" and "Philadelphia" counties in Pennsylvania which has (according to the FBI chart) 2,114,504 people. That is right up there with Memphis, Tennessee, which is totally out of control. I would defer to your knowledge since you are a resident, but you have to look at the overall quality of life in Philly compared to Austin, that city's 271.3 crime rate just being one factor.
I have visited Philly numerous times and had a good friend who lived in the 'burbs. My vote goes to Austin, where I have family, but that's just me. I would not move my family to Philly for any job, and you certainly would not want to retire there, unlike Austin.
Moaaaaaaar guns!
Idiots. Anyone arguing in favour of gun ownership and carry "rights" has already lost.
agree with Donna. and you guys should split up the stats.
How many schools that allow you to carry have shootings vs schools that don't?
Non Sequitur,
What are you going to do when China declares war on the United States and sends it's army of 500 MILLION soldiers armed with guns?
Cry for the police to come and help and save you. What kind of neutered world are you delluded to want to live in?
We're going to depend on you Rick, and you personal arse-nal, to stop the invasion.
Although you would probably have far more success if you just annoy them to death. You know, like you do to everyone here.
RickB, Im sure you are not voting for Trump because you live in the middle of nowhere, with no access to a voting station. Wonder how you get internet.
Yes, I am sure China will declare war on the US, its biggest market to sell crap. Are you running out of reasons to justify the 2nd amendment?
The biggest threat to our nation is from ignorant dickholes like you. The actual reason you are dangerous is because you are ignorant AND talk a lot, like Trump.
sameolddoctor,
In Oregon and Clatsop County, we have something called ballots mailed to us and I can simply walk the few blocks or so to the County office where you turn in the ballot.
My point with China isn't about whether we will have a war with them in the next few years. The simple fact is the right to bear arms includes the rights to own guns and any other weapon. Before long, China doesn't even need the U.S. because United States is a bankrupt country that is committing suicide by gutting itself, collecting mountain of debt and when it guts its military to a skeleton of its former self and when you take guns and weapons from the citizenship, there won't be a damn reason for China to hold off.
Add to that is when YOU let the GOVERNMENT take away rights, it creates a precedence that we can NEVER EVER reverse without dissolving this country and starting all over.
You seem to forget about precedence and how that works in law. When a precedence is established that all future cases must follow that precedence. If we the people say it is okay for the government to take away any of the Bill of Rights, the principle of precedence in law and how law is administrated in this country under the judicial system is that you are automatically okaying all future amendments or removal of the rights in the Bill of Rights. When government takes a right away from the citizens, it NEVER EVER comes back. You have to dissolve that government in order to do so because there is no other LEGAL way to do it. Government will never let you just dissolve it so it usually requires a bloody civil war which would probably wreck the entire economy of the United States and plunge us so far out of relevance that by the time we get back on our feet and stabilize things, we will be a third world economy and no, we wouldn't be China's biggest market.
You are not thinking 4 dimensionally. You are not thinking of geopolitical changes. I am not talking something in the next 1-3 years. I am looking at 100-200 to 300 years into the future. Every big decision, you need to see things through to the end of civilization on this planet when the ultimate day comes that Earth is incinerated by the Sun.
If the government takes away the right to bear arms and takes your guns away and your ability to rise up and revolt, you can downright kiss ALL your rights away because we would cease to be a country of free people and become a country of prisoners. It would literally be a police state with politicians becoming dictators and they will become RULERS over the people and when they take your right to bear arms, then they can take your right to free speech, and any of your other rights. One by one. When you don't have guns, then YOU don't have any means to fight this country with guns, missiles, bombs, nuclear/biological/chemical weapons (Weapons of Mass Destruction), we would have to depend on a foreign country coming in to save us.
There is a duty set forth in the Declaration of Independence that is our citizenship's MORAL duty to each other to protect against both foreign and domestic tyranny.
Tyranny doesn't just happen over night. It may take small steps but each step towards absolute control over the people. When that happens, what are we as people? Free people or government slaves.... chain gang prisoners of a ruthless political power.
You think I am painting a picture of next 5 years. No. I'm illustrating the outcome of a path that you take yourself down by letting even ONE of the sacred rights of the Bill of Rights... especially the one that gives teeth to the words spoken if or when there is a time. Just because we may be the top military / economic power house. That is not a static guarantee. We are already slipping and we had lost a lot of power and stability just in the last 10 years. 15-20 years ago, we wouldn't even had thought we had this big recession.
Lets remember the British empire. 250 years ago, no one would have ever thought that the British empire would crumple. No one would have that that the empire that the sun never sets would ever crumble apart into a miniscule island country that it is pretty much today. The British empire is no more. It's just the UK. In it's hey day, it'd effective military and economic power and outreach would be effective triple that of the U.S. even in its hey day.
When you give up your right to bear arms, you give up your freedoms and your other rights because once they take your guns away, you lose it forever and you will lose your 1st Amendment rights and then you will never be able to fight the government to restore. Once it is taken away, it never comes back.
That is how god damn fucking serious it is. You just signed yourself effectively into prison and slavery. The government then OWNS you and can then eradicate the Constitution as we know it and Bill of Rights.
I may picture this more rapidly but it happens over decades, or even a century. People who don't look beyond tomorrow never sees the outcome beyond the horizon.
Frankly, it doesn't even have to be China.
Remember this, giving up the 2nd Amendment right *IS* giving up all the other rights of Bill of Rights.
If you don't believe in the 2nd Amendment rights and the rights of the Constitution being the supreme right of ALL American citizens that is above all other laws, then you can go to some other country and get the fuck out of my country you 'misfit'.
Go back to the Queen of England you piece of shit lobster.
Confused, when did this become a thread about the voting rights act and other tyrannies of those who govern?)
In the big scheme of things this is not a big deal. It's not uncommon for faculty, and administration to "vote with their feet" because they feel that the institution they are at provides a safe space. This is only news because a highly respected Dean has decided to depart based on what is (nationally) considered to be a controversial decision made by the University system.
Someone else will replace him, and that appointment process will almost certainly include discussion about firearms on campus. Perhaps that person will in total alignment with the system, perhaps only partially.
The real news will be whether this will have a significant impact on the overall performance of system to attract and maintain caliber faculty (and grant funds by default).
Marc,
It gets political, Constitutional rights not voting rights as that is just one of those rights of the Constitution. The topic is inherently political in nature when it relates to gun rights. If you let politicians have their way about gun rights, you are opening the pandora's box for all the other rights to be systemically removed in tiny little ways.... then we are not free people but prisoners in a jail. If Trump's grand wall is built not just on Mexico but also on the Canadian border and then a wall along the coasts, we might as well be wearing orange jumpsuits.
Marc, the above is in response to the shorter post.
Marc,
At first, I suspects it may cause a disruption but over time, people will simply get use to it. Students will. They just aren't accustom to it because over a period of time, we had became a society where carrying guns is unusual but lets remember Texas is a state where carrying guns is not unusual. Much like any frontier town. In Oregon, carrying guns is not unusual. Students doing an early morning hunt in the woods and then going to campus in the late morning or mid-day isn't unusual in the smaller towns.
The urbanites who never see how that cow is killed, slaughtered and cut up so they can have that fancy steak at the restaurant or the hamburger at the burger joint. They can't stomach it because they can't handle the sight of blood or anything that doesn't fit their neutered utopian view of the world because they are isolated. They see guns and they either think gangs or some sort of backwood hill billy reality tv.
This used to be a tad bit normal to see a person with a pistol on the hip, a rifle on the back/shoulder.
This was normal. The carrying of a gun wasn't someone out to kill people. It was because people going into town for supplies and going out into the frontier for food or whatever. Part of the way of life.
If someone wants to kill people do you really think they care whether guns are allowed in the place they plan on doing the killing? The liberal witch hunt on guns is irrational. Sure I wish all the guns in the world would magically be replaced by kittens, but until that happens I will support my right to Defend my home. Would anyone actually rather not have a gun during a robbery? That's just a very naive and foreign mindset to me.
jla-x,
You are right about that.
A lot if not a profound majority of the cases we are seeing of mass shootings at colleges, schools, theaters, etc. are all perpetrated by a bunch of cowardous douce bags who would not have committed such a heinous crime because A) they would be too chicken shit to do so. B) They would likely not get away with killing that many people because people will take the necessary action and kill that mother f---er(s) before the a--hole(s) gets very far.
The reason that these places are targets is because they can literally get away with killing so many people long before the person gets killed by the police when they do finally arrive. In that time, if people on campus were armed and therefore ready to respond, the perpetrator would have been either shot and killed or sufficiently injured to a level that it would discontinue his/her mass murdering.
You can't wait for 5 or 10 minutes or the police to arrive. Sometimes the necessary action that saves lives has to be taken within the first 60-120 second.
Effective real-time response will more likely stop this person within the first 1-2 person shot than the average of 10-20 people being shot and killed or injured when the police responds. This is because in the time it takes for a report to be made and police to arrive on scene, 10-20 people can be killed in that time frame. Even more depending on the weapon used to kill.
People like that, you don't try to apprehend. You just shoot the f---er(s). Incapacitate or kill. Whatever it takes.
You can't sit around thinking about it when they are spraying bullets at people.
One time a visiting crit told me my project was great but why not just do it upside down? Glad I didn't have a gun then....
For better or worse, America as a whole is gun country, and now it's just permitting into the safe bubbles
Hey Balkins, please refer again to my earlier point:
" Anyone arguing in favour of gun ownership and carry "rights" has already lost."
Non Sequitur,
ANYONE arguing to get rid of their gun rights lost their freedom and lost.
Non Sequitur..... welcome to your orange wardrobe:
You let the government take away one of your rights, you are signing off the rest of your rights because you just authorize the government the authority to adopt and make laws that abridges and revokes your rights.
This is what happens to people when the people lose their rights and can not fight back against tyranny that takes total control.
If you really want to see the outcome... look to the outcome of Auschwitz.
Think of what it means to be a prisoner of a dictator/regime with absolute control. They have the guns, you don't..... what are you going to do about such a tyranny.... cry your way just to have your skull smashed and cracked open bleeding to death in muck while getting kicked and beaten but what are you going to do about it? You can't architect a scheme out of it. Think about the outcome when you give away your rights.
Then again, architects are a bunch of fascist loving assholes anyway. Non Sequitur, you're a fascist-loving / Nazi prick. You seem to be the kind of person who would condone the Nazi movement and other such regimes. Is that what you want to be associated with. Take away the 2nd Amendment rights, you signed this country to that very future where government has absolute control over the people who will have nothing to be able to protect themselves. You can't see beyond tomorrow. How many have to suffer and die because of the short-sightedness.
There will never be a time when humans will naturally evolve to the point where humans will never resort to use of guns or other weapons. It is genetically impossible. In 2 million years, humans are no more evolved genetically in brain / cognitive development. It's the nature of emotions and extreme emotions that is behind violent actions.
I rather have the right to bear arms than not having those rights because there will never be a time that we will have or live in a utopia where weapons will never be a need. The very human nature prevents that from being a possibility.
You want to trust that the government politicians knows what is best and good for you? Really? The very people who serves public interest groups? Are you kidding.
You are effectively handing over complete and utter control over. You can't give up one of the rights without effectively giving up all your rights because you create a precedence for the government take the rights away as they see fit. When a precedence is made, it can NEVER be reversed. A precedence like that is permanent. There is no reversal. Once the precedence is made that the government can take rights away, they can then take your rights away any time in the future and you can NOT ever reverse it.
The government would then have to be utterly destroyed and a new government instituted. A new country will have to be formed. The United States would fall, millions will die or injured in the process.
This is what happens because people with such power over people will not give it up peacefully.
They always do it kicking and fighting so it will always be bloody and messy.
Idiot.
good lord. a right does not mean 'i get to do whatever i want'. this is jurisprudence 101. rights exist in a social context and are reciprocal. you don't have the right to yell "i have a bomb" on an airplane. you also don't have the right to purchase a howitzer. american legal jurisprudence in the 21st century allows for the possibility of 2nd amendment rights existing in the context of restrictions on the sale and carry of firearms.
#archinect140wordsorless
Rick, I'll never harass you for your educational choices or many other things you carry on about here, but your slippery slope attitude towards guns is wrong. Flat out silly. Like Dangermouse said, our rights are limited all over the place already, and as a society we've agreed that it's acceptable.
Back to topic: Excellent interview with Dr. Steiner this morning on NPR about his reasons for leaving Texas. He's very well-spoken and discusses the fact that architecture school is already an emotional environment even without worrying constantly whether the student or professor you're critiquing is carrying a gun.
^ so Donna, is the psychotic student jacked up on ambien going to change his mind about killing peers because it's illegal to bring guns on campus? Serious question
Or is it really a non-issue? If you were in a situation where some nut job was shooting at you would you rather be with or without a gun?
I personally think it's a stupid idea to bring a gun on campus since it's a safe place but I also see the legitimacy of the argument that gun vs gun is better than gun vs waiting to get shot.
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