The Boston Architectural College was proud to honor members of our design community at the 2011 Commencement on Saturday, May 28 at Old South Church in Copley Square. The College presented honorary degrees to M. David Lee, FAIA, and Donald L. Stull, NCARB, FAIA, Founding Partners of Stull and Lee, Boston, along with Jane Thompson, AICP, President of Thompson Design Group, and Wilson F. Pollock, FAIA, Founder and Former President of ADD Inc. David Lee provided the Commencement Address.

David Lee, Principal of Stull and Lee, Boston, is engaged in a wide range of planning, urban design and architectural projects. He has been a leader in civic visioning, and an outspoken advocate on behalf of underrepresented participants in the design process. David Lee exemplifies the best of what it means to be a successful architect as an advocate for improved architecture and urban design that serves those too often neglected in our cities, and his work leaves a legacy of beauty and pride that will inspire generations to come.

His work in Boston includes the Savin Hill MBTA Rapid Transit Station and the John D. O'Bryant African American Institute at Northeastern University. He is also known for his urban planning initiatives throughout the country, especially his involvement in reviving the Lower Ninth Ward and Holy Cross neighborhoods in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and designing of a memorial to the victims. He is currently leading a master plan update for a lakefront neighborhood on Chicago's Southside as well as his firm's effort to create a master plan for Pittsburgh's Hill District neighborhood.

David Lee has taught widely and served on numberous public commissions and boards. He chaired the Citizen's Advisory Committee appointed to create the highly acclaimed civic vision and guidelines for the strategic development of air rights over the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston, which received a national American Institute of Architects Honor Award for urban design. He is Past President of the Boston Society of Architects and received the organization's Year 2000 Award of Honor.

He received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Illinois and his Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Along with his business partner, Donald Stull, he was awarded the National Organization of Minority Architects 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Donald Stull is the Founding President and Partner in the firm of Stull and Lee, Boston, and has designed and managed a wide range of architectural and urban planning projects. His thoughtful work leaves a lasting mark throughout our region, and particularly in areas where great design has brought beauty, pride of place, and a stronger sense of community to residents and users of public places. He was an early innovator in prefabricated building component design, and is a pioneer in development of procedures for stakeholder inclusion in inner city neighborhood planning and design of public buildings.

He is a member of the College of Fellows in the American Institute of Architects, serving 12 years on its National Design Committee, past member of the Visiting Committee of the National Architectural Accreditation Board, and twice elected to the Board of Directors of the Boston Society of Architects. He has received much formal recognition for his work, which in Boston includes the interior development of South Station and the urban planning and building design of Boston Police Headquarters and Roxbury Community College.

He has served on a number of Federal, State and local entities with responsibilities related to design excellence within the public realm. These include his appointment in 1978 Boston Civic Design Commission where he served for eleven years, as well as his more recent two-term appointment to the Massachusetts Port Authority Designer Selection Panel. His extensive community service efforts have included memberships on boards and panels of civic, cultural and institutional organizations, especially related to the arts and the quality of urban life.

He received his Bachelor of Architecture from Ohio State University and his Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

As an urbanist for more than thirty years, Jane Thompson has contributed to the success of many cities both nationally and internationally, planning and designing places with reference to their individual physical, social, commercial and economic factors. She has had as great an impact on changing our design tastes as has any designer in America, and is the chief chronicler of the enterprise that presented us with a modern attitude toward life, the retailer Design Research, which was founded in 1953 by her husband, Architect Ben Thompson. Throughout her career, she has pioneered concepts for reinvestment in urban contexts across the globe, and specialized in the development of under-utilized urban and industrial land to reconnect cities to their waterfronts. Her projects include Chicago's Navy Pier, Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Times Square Center in New York.

Jane Thompson is currently President of Thompson Design Group where she directs a team on the planning, design and implementation of waterfronts and urban places, addressing not only physical organization and environment, but also inherent human issues of social exchange, commercial exchange and economic vitality. The firm's recent projects include an interdisciplinary collaboration with the environmental engineers CH2M Hill of Florida on the complete reinvention of the one-mile waterfront of West Palm Beach, and the completion of a preliminary master plan for Brooklyn's Fulton Street Mall, designed to establish this core business zone as the leading public realm of downtown Brooklyn.

Jane Thompson was educated in the fine and applied arts at Vassar College with graduate work at Bennington College and New York University Institute of Fine Arts. She has been recognized with Institute Honors from the American Institute of Architects, and with a Personal Recognition Award by the Industrial Design Society of America for a lifetime's contribution to the field of Design.

Wilson Pollock is the Founder and Former President of ADD Inc. where he spent more than 34 years leading the firm to the forefront of commercial architecture and interior design. He is a visionary who is grounded in the realities of providing clients with more than they thought they wanted, and exemplifies how collaborative design, strong business practices, a commitment to educational excellence, and balance between one's professional life and one's need for personal reflection combine to produce great design, business success, and personal satisfaction. With growth to over $20 million a year in revenues, as many as two hundred employees, and offices in Massachusetts, California, and Florida, the success of ADD Inc. is a testament to Wilson Pollock's leadership. The firm has been recognized for design excellence and client service, outstanding business achievement, community outreach and sustainability efforts.

He is a past Board Member, Overseer and has served on the External Affairs and Development Committee of the Boston Architectural College. In providing direction to the BAC's initial institutional advancement and development efforts, Wilson Pollock brought order, an insistence on achieving clearly defined outcomes, and client sensitivity to his volunteer work. The College is indebted to him for achieving those values, as we are indebted to his mentorship of scores of BAC students and alumni he has employed at ADD Inc. over the years of his leadership.

Wilson Pollock has also served as Chairman of the Editorial Board of Architecture Boston and for many years as Vice President. He is a Past President of the Boston Society of Architects, and a former member of both the Boston Society of Architecture's Corporate Advisory Council and the American Institute of Architects Large Firm Roundtable.

In 2004 Wilson Pollock received the CoreNet New England Outstanding Service Provider Award. He was a jurist for the 2000 Business Week/Architectural Record Awards and an Advisory Board member of the Boston Foundation for Architecture. He is currently a member of the Emeritus Circle of the Board of The Jackson Homestead Museum and serves as a Senior Consultant for PSMJ Resources, Inc.

Wilson received his Master of Science degree in Architecture from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pennsylvania State University where he was elected to honorary arts and architectural societies and received a 1991 Alumni Achievement Award.