Ila Berman (MDes ’91, DDes ’93) has been appointed dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, announced yesterday. Currently the O’Donovan Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo as well as a principal of SCALESHIFT design in Toronto, Berman will assume the deanship on August 15.
Over the last 11 years, Berman has led three schools in different capacities. In addition to her current role at the University of Waterloo, she has served as as associate dean of Tulane University School of Architecture and director of architecture at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
“I believe that new collaborative models of interdisciplinary research, teaching and practice are necessary to respond to the many forces – be they social, technological, environmental, urban or economic – that are dramatically changing the contexts within which we are operating,” Berman said in a statement, “and that design, in its capacity to literally ‘remake the world,’ is a critical part of this endeavor.”
Berman joins a series of other GSD alums who have won deanships in recent years. In 2015, Nader Tehrani (MAUD ’91) was named dean of Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture and Monica Ponce de Leon (MAUD ‘91) was appointed dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture. In August 2014, Amale Andraos (MArch ‘99) was appointed dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and in October 2014, Hashim Sarkis (MArch ’89) was named dean of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, after serving on the GSD faculty since 1998.
To read more, please visit the University of Virginia’s announcement.
Photo courtesy University of Virginia