Dean's Journal

The past two weeks have been dominated by responses to Hurricane Katrina. On the immediate level, nine Tulane students are now enrolled in our School (seven undergraduates and two graduate students--one in architecture and one in historic preservation). We are providing an academic base for three Tulane faculty members -- Stephen Verderber, Professor, School of Architecture, and Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine; Robert Gonzalez [B.Arch. '90], Ford Fellow; and Irene Keil, Adjunct Professor, School of Architecture. We have extended an offer to provide additional assistance to Tulane Architecture Dean Reed Kroloff [M.Arch.'86].

Our students, faculty, staff, and alumni have raised funds for hurricane victims and volunteered their time for relief efforts. A recent alumnus, Andrea Peterson [B.Arch. '05] led the volunteer efforts for the Child Inc. childcare program.

On a broader sense, the School faculty members are exploring various ideas about how to contribute to restoration efforts through our studios and our research. Certainly, the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans presents an opportunity for us to consider the role of our disciplines in shaping the built environment and the importance of understanding natural processes. I believe Hurricane Katrina and its consequences will inform the future of architecture, community and regional planning, historic preservation, landscape architecture, and interior design for years to come.

Mayor Will Wynn proclaimed Tuesday, September 6, "SolarD Day" in the City of Austin. We held a ribbon cutting celebration at the Solar Decathlon "Snap House" at 2006 Leona in east Austin to recognize the proclamation and the efforts of our students and their faculty advisors: Professor Michael Garrison, Assistant Professor Samantha Randall, and Lecturer Elizabeth Alford. Several Solar D sponsors attended the ribbon cutting, including: Kathy Zarsky, BECK; Mindy Resigner and Jonathan Seckler, AMD; Metals USA; and Andrew McCalla, Meridan Energy Systems.

The next day, we learned that our finalist entry for the Flight 93 National Memorial Competition was not selected for implementation. The winning "Crescent of Embrace" design was produced by Paul Murdoch Architects of Los Angeles and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects of Charlottesville, Virginia. (Visit the Flight 93 National Memorial website to see the winning design and the entries from all the finalists: http://www.flight93memorialproject.org/.

That evening, I had dinner with the School's student leaders. We discussed our forthcoming National Architecture Accreditation Board review, as well as my differential tuition proposal. I explained how differential tuition could help us offset reductions in state support and help the School maintain its leadership position. New revenue would be used for faculty and staff salaries, new faculty positions, state-of-the-art technologies, and financial aid. In addition to differential tuition, the students were especially interested in how they could contribute to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

On Thursday, September 8, a Site Sustainability Summit commenced at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I welcomed the 45 participants to the two-day summit on behalf of the Wildflower Center, the co-organizer with the American Society of Landscape Architects. The goal is to develop an evaluation tool to measure sustainable site design. Such a tool might be incorporated into the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification process or might function independently. The influential leaders who assembled at the Wildflower Center included Daniel Wenk, the director of the National Park Service's Denver Service Center; Casey Jones from the Office of the Chief Architect of the General Services Administration; and Dennis Carmichael, a principal of EDAW and ASLA president-elect. We made considerable progress toward developing a site sustainability evaluation tool.

As the summit was concluding, we began our third annual alumni mini-symposium in the Mebane Gallery. This annual event was conceived by Advisory Council Chair Susan Benz [B.Arch. '84]. This year's symposium focused on "leadership" and evolved from ideas suggested by David Graeber [B.Arch. '55]. This year 36 alumni and friends of the School participated, including Professors Patricia Wilson and Larry Speck, as well as former Assistant Dean and current University of Texas at Dallas Vice President Marjie French.

Darrel K. Royal Professor in Ethics and American Society Paul Woodruff, the director of the University's Plan II Honors Program, made the first presentation on "Ethics: The Difference Between a Leader and a Tyrant." Professor Woodruff argued that "leadership is essential for freedom." He explained that the concept of "leader" developed in contrast to that of "tyrant" by the ancient Greeks to distinguish a free people from those who are not. According to Professor Woodruff, a tyrant puts himself or herself over the law, is plagued by hubris, and lives in fear. The leader, in contrast, is law-abiding, is aware of her or his humanity and limitations, and displays courage.

The second Friday afternoon speaker was former Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, who addressed the subject of "Turning Loss into Leadership." He presented nine rules for turning real loss into leadership: hope matters; focus on the conditions of the situation to learn from the loss; even in despair, you have more power than you think; have a short-term focus with long-term goals; people are not always at their best; realize that you will not meet everyone's concept of perfection--so don't try; be biased toward action; avoid nitpickers, naysayers, and know-it-alls; and know your core values, assets, and weaknesses.

Professor Cynthia Rigby of the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminar then presented "Successful versus Spiritual Leadership." Within the context of organized religion, she contrasted successful leadership in a more business sense with spiritual leadership based in faith and tradition. Noting the failures and oddballs that Jesus surrounded himself with, she observed that "Jesus didn't hire a very successful staff." She explored ways to bring together successful leadership with spiritual leadership, advocating for the need to emphasize complexity and ambiguity.

After discussing Professor Rigby's lectures, the symposium participants joined other members for an Open House for the Solar Decathlon Snap House. Students are in final preparation for transporting the house to Washington, D.C. Beginning this week, the Snap House will be loaded onto trucks and will depart Austin on September 25. The SolarD house will be reconstructed on the National Mall and judged over the first two weeks in October, with a winner decided by October 15.

That evening, the symposium participants had dinner at Clint and Christie Bybee's home designed by Dick Clark [B.Arch. '69]. UT Baseball Coach Augie Garrido gave an inspiring talk at the Bybee Residence on "Leadership and Teamwork." Coach Garrido recounted the experiences of the Longhorn baseball teams in the College World Series to illustrate the importance of teamwork and the value of "staying in the moment" in pursuit of a goal.

The next morning we assembled again in the Mebane Gallery. The first Saturday speaker was adjunct professor and long-time women's rights leader Sarah Weddington, whose talk was titled "Leaders and Burnout: First Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On." She addressed the small number of women leaders we have had in our history, the general lack of leadership in our nation, how one achieves a leadership position, and how to increase the number of leaders. According to Professor Weddington, laughter and learning contribute to leadership, which requires practice, the use of a critical eye, and flexibility.

The second Saturday morning speaker was Admiral Bobby Inman, interim dean of the LBJ School, who addressed "Leadership and Command." From his military, business, and academic experiences, he noted that leadership requires caring about people, trust, communication, teamwork, and knowing when to act and when not to act.

Our final speaker was Dave Steakley, the artistic director of the Zachary Scott Theatre Center in Austin. He described a forthcoming play that he wrote called Keeping It Weird about Austin's unique personalities to illustrate the "Leadership of Creative Thinking." Dave Steakley noted that Austin's reputation as an attractor of the "creative class" is based on talent, tolerance, and technology in the community. He also observed that "the most unique inspirations come from the most unexpected sources."

Afterwards, we had lunch and I explored common and uncommon threads from the symposium. A few of the recurring themes included: the necessity to learn from personal experiences, especially loss and failures; different types of situations require different kinds of leadership and intelligence; much can be learned from responding to an emergency or crisis; one needs to know when to lead and when to follow; leaders are curious and willing to take risks; leaders must care about people; communication is important, especially candid and honest communication; and, finally, luck and instinct play roles in leadership. The participants report that they gained much from the symposium, as did I. Those who had been involved in previous alumni mini-symposia felt that this was the most sucessful event so far.

On Tuesday, September 13, I attended an Envision Central Texas Executive Committee Meeting. We continue to make progress toward advancing a regional vision for open space, responsible new development, transportation, affordable housing, and social equity.

On Wednesday, September 14, I flew to China for two weeks. I will be teaching landscape architecture and exploring exchange possibilities at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

—Fritz Steiner

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