The Cooper Union has announced an update in its search to find a new permanent Dean of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.
In a letter to the schoolwide community, the Board of Trustees announced the continuation of Hayley Eber as Acting Dean and the addition of South African-born architect Mokena Makeka as its first Special Advisor to the Vice President of Academic Affairs following an exhaustive two-year community feedback process.
The Board shared that a four-candidate review did not yield an adequate long-term hire for the Dean’s position in the view of the committee, which has been occupied by Eber on an interim basis since 2019.
The school shares: “What it generated was a new way of thinking. We conceived an entirely different leadership model — a partnership — that combines excellence and experience across the precise domains we sought to address within the School of Architecture, in particular, and for The Cooper Union, as a whole, while working within our existing budgets as we hold firm to our Plan to Return to Full-Tuition Scholarships.”
“The decision to implement this partnership model for the School of Architecture and for The Cooper Union was twofold. We determined that we could build on a position of strength and demonstrated experience by retaining [Eber] as Acting Dean, School of Architecture and advance innovation at the intersection of urgent issues including social justice, justice ecology, inclusive economies, sustainability, and climate by hiring [Makeka] in a new role. [...] Through these strategic appointments, we elevate our potential to achieve outcomes that surpass the scope of any individual effort.”
Eber and Makeka have the recent experience of working together as panelists on the Afropolitan Architecture: Imagining the African Urban Future by Design at the British Pavilion of this year’s Venice Biennale. Both are also graduates of the University of Cape Town, and Makeka comes to the newly-created position with past teaching experience at Cooper Union and the Carleton University School of Architecture in Ottawa.
“To say that Hayley and Mokena — and we — are excited about this new approach is an understatement. Their commitment and eagerness to advance and evolve curriculum, pedagogy, and interdisciplinary learning and programming together at Cooper, in collaboration with Demetrius, is undeniable,” the school said finally.
Makeka will officially assume his role on Oct. 1, 2023. The school says its process will be revisited ahead of the 2025–26 academic year after the new partnership model is given a two-year trial.
3 Comments
Cooper Union has been drinking too much Critical theory Kool-Aid and needs to focus on teaching students to do their job as expected by society which is to deliver built form with intelligence. At present you are educating scatterbrains with no building delivery leadership skills. Spend 30 days examining the 15-year project of designing- building a new airport for Berlin and see myriad ways ill-prepared architects dropped the ball wasting BILLIONS of dollars (Euros). Reading your goals for your new dean is to read a recipe for DIS-integration. GET REAL Cooper Union!!! The world does not need one more academic tribe (of many hundreds across the USA) spouting the latest woke intersectional pablum - WE are ALL for racial equity, social justice, anti-colonialism but SOMEBODY in the global room needs to know how to plan and design a building.
Meh. Bullshit.
i don't entirely disagree - cooper union really lost its way with the appointment of tehrani
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.