Dear Faculty,

Welcome back!

I am incredibly excited about this academic year and I am looking forward to working closely with faculty leaders and Academic Affairs staff on various key initiates. We will be looking at pathways for transfer students, enhanced relationship building among academic programs and across the college, and opportunities for furthering faculty development. I also look forward to experiencing the student projects and work that come out of your classes this year - my favorite part of the job.

Campus planning will play a critical role in all our work this year and I invite you to visit the NEW CAMPUS tab on the CCA website for ongoing updates about campus planning projects and unification. Please remember to periodically check back for updated information on the various projects we are undertaking with the future goal of a unified campus.

We begin the new year with a carefully planned reorganization of the Academic Affairs team. As a reminder, Tom Haakenson has joined the faculty with a position as Associate Professor of Critical Studies and Visual Studies and will be working with me and the AA staff this year on various projects, including transitioning the new Associate Provost of Faculty and Academic Partnerships once the position is filled. When you see Tom, please join me in thanking him for his contributions to Academic Affairs over the last three years and wishing him well in his new commitment to the college.

Lisa Stoneman's position has been recast and as of August 1st, she has been promoted to Associate Provost for Academic Administration. Her areas of responsibilities will include: academic operations, budget, strategic and campus planning as they relate to academic programs and initiatives and faculty employment and labor management.

Lisa received a BFA from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MFA from SFAI and has a stellar twelve year work history with CCA. She began her career at CCA in 2005 and has worked with the First Year program, the Design Division and Academic Affairs in various roles with widespread responsibilities. She has most recently served as Senior Director of Academic Administration and has made critical contributions to the implementation of Workday, the collective bargaining agreement for our unionized unranked faculty and both campus planning and college-wide partnerships with Academic Affairs. Lisa brings a proven commitment to CCA and well deserved leadership respect to her new role and I am thrilled to build upon my collaboration with her.

Dominick Tracy's position has also been launched with expanded responsibilities and oversight. As of August 1st, he has been promoted to Associate Provost for Educational Effectiveness. Dominick's responsibilities include accreditation and assessment, curriculum and program review and development, academic policies and procedures and ELL strategic efforts.

Dominick joined CCA in 2006, providing administrative support and oversight for the Humanities & Science division as its first Assistant Director and the H&S advisor. There, he led the effort to create two minors (Visual Studies and Writing & Literature), helped launch the MFA in Comics, and sat on the joint committee that revised the undergraduate general education programming in 2013. In 2015, Dominick took on the role of Director of Learning Assessment and Accreditation, collaborating with faculty leaders in designing and implementing learning assessment across the college while leading our very successful WASC reaccreditation process this past year. Prior to joining CCA, Dominick taught literature and composition courses as a Lecturer in the English Department at UC Davis, where he’d earned his PhD. Again, I consider myself lucky to have such proven and committed leadership capacity within my team.

Review and bookmark CCA’s ACADEMIC AFFAIRS section on the website - it is a resource for vital information.

Please read on for important updates and information and an invite to Faculty Happy Hour!

Faculty Governance Leadership

I want to thank the following faculty for their leadership in chairing faculty governance committees this year. I greatly appreciate their service to the college and look forward to working closely with them and their respective committees this year. Please visit the committee links on the Academic Affairs website for complete membership lists.

Faculty Senate President and Chair of the Executive Committee

• Emily McVarish (Graphic Design)
  

Faculty Senate Vice President and Assistant Chair of the Executive Committee

• Michelle Murillo (Printmaking)
  
  

Chair of the Curriculum Committee

• Rebekah Edwards (Critical Studies)
  
  

Chair of Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure Committee

• Jeanne Finley (Film)
  
  

New Dean Hire in Design

After a national search last spring with amazing faculty participation and leadership, I am thrilled to welcome Dean of Design, Helen Maria Nugent.

Helen Maria comes to us from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she held a series of leadership positions since 1997, including chair of the Designed Objects program; director of the MDes, MFA, and BFA Pathway programs; and director of the First-Year program.

In 2013, Helen Maria was appointed by the National Young Arts Foundation as a master teacher in design, where she co-developed the structure and curriculum for a new discipline category called Design Arts that integrates architectural, product, interior, graphic, and fashion design. She also leads the foundation’s National Selection Committee, which nominates young designers to the US Presidential Scholarship Program.

Helen Maria is co-founder of HAELO Design with Ron Kirkpatrick, which is an independent, research-oriented studio that pursues speculative and commercial design projects with a focus on furniture, objects, services, and exhibition design. HAELO’s curatorial and exhibition design work includes Moholy: An Education of the Senses, Thick Design, and Beyond Function: The Art of Furniture. Additionally, work has been presented at the 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, The Chicago Cultural Center, ICFF, NeoCon and Devening Projects and Editions.

Helen Maria was born and raised in Scotland and studied at the Glasgow School of Art, where she received a BFA with Honors in Environmental Art and a Master of Design.

Interim Dean in Architecture

Please join me in thanking Lisa Findley for stepping into the Interim Dean position, and for helping us launch an upcoming search for the next Dean of Architecture. Lisa has played a vital role in the life of CCA for the past two decades. She chaired the division before the director position was created, chaired the BArch Program and founded the MArch Program. She has been a stellar college-wide leader serving and/or leading all three arms of faculty governance, including APT, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, and the Curriculum Committee. Lisa's scholarship is internationally renowned and prolific. She is a dedicated member of the college and a strong advocate for the Architecture Division and I very much look forward to working with her and the entire faculty in the coming year.

Program Chair Leadership

As you likely know, we support transitions in the leadership of our academic programs and welcome our chairs to return to a focus on teaching and for faculty to rotate into a chairships and play a role in academic and college leadership. At the end of 2017, the following faculty stepped out of chair positions and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their collective outstanding contributions: Susanne Cockrell, Mark Donohue, Gloria Frym, Nataly Gattegno, Linda Geary, Tirza Latimer, Clifford Rainey, KC Rosenberg, Christina La Sala, Tim Smith, Deborah Valoma, and Thomas Wojak.

Please welcome the following incoming chairs:

Architecture

• Antje Steinmuller, BArch
• Brian Price, MArch
• David Gissen, MArch, Associate Chair
  

Design

• Corey Jones, Industrial Design
• Aynne Valencia, Interaction Design
• Kristian Simsarian, MDes in Interaction Design
  

Fine Arts

• Terri Friedman, Interim Community Arts, Individualized, and Sculpture
• Nathan Lynch, Glass and Ceramics
• Curtis Arima, Jewelry/Metal Arts (Co-Chair)
• Jordan Kantor, Painting/Drawing
• Michelle Murillo, Printmaking
• Josh Faught, Textiles

Humanities & Sciences

• Erik Scollon, First Year Program
• Jacqueline Francis, MA in Visual and Critical Studies
• Leslie Carol Roberts, MFA in Writing

Faculty Updates

Congratulations to the following associate professors who were awarded tenure this past year:

• ​Haakon Faste, Interaction Design Program
• Patricia Lange, Critical Studies

Stay tuned for an announcement about their tenure presentations later this year.

As part of our ongoing commitment to CCA’s ranked faculty, last year we conducted numerous searches for tenure-track and RNT faculty members and successfully hired a record number eight new tenure track professors. We are also joined by two AICAD fellows.

Please join me in welcoming the following new faculty:

Tenure-track

• Faith Adiele
• Anthea Black
• Jasmin Darznik
• Jaime Knight
• Erik Scollon
• Owen Smith
• Sam Vernonan
• Christine Wang

RNT

• Geefwee Boedoe
• Matthew Boyko
• Hugo Eccles
• George Evelyn
• Amy Gohol
• Patricia Kavanaugh
• Shalle Leeming
• Eric Olson
• Mara Holt-Skov
• Tim Soman

AICAD Fellows

• Juan Carlos Rodriguez Rivera
• Makia Sharp

You’re Invited!

Finally, I look forward to celebrating the start of the academic year with you at many events in the coming weeks, but I especially want to draw your attention to the events of Faculty Week and invite you to the All Faculty Meeting on Friday, September 1, from 10 a.m. to noon in Timken Lecture Hall on the San Francisco campus, followed by an all-faculty lunch. At the end of the day on Friday the 1st, please join us for a Faculty Happy Hour at Thee Parkside from 4:30-6:30.

I join you in great anticipation of what will undoubtedly be a productive and exciting year at California College of the Arts.

Tammy Rae Carland

Provost