Theoharis David, FT Faculty

Theoharis David FAIA, Tenured Professor, Architecture

Pratt Institute has been part of my life beginning with my completing my undergraduate studies here before going on to Yale for graduate work. Its environment, its students and faculty have shaped me and it is the place from which I continue to draw inspiration and challenges from my faculty peers but also from the many talented students I have taught during the last 37 years.

I have held most administrative positions in the School of Architecture, including ten years as Chair of Graduate Architecture during a critical period for the School and Institute. I have also served on policy setting Institute wide committees including the Board of Trustees and have promoted Pratt internationally through the conceiving of foreign studies programs and exchanges. I have also served as President of the Faculty. All this while maintaining a full time international architectural practice.

This background and life experience which continues to evolve, has given me a perhaps unique educational and professional perspective which could address, as a member of the Senate, imaginatively the multiple needs of the entire Pratt community.

If elected, I would represent the interests of the School of Architecture in a dynamic way, with my true constituency being our students. The most effective way I could serve them is to make sure that we have in place all the conditions required to recruit, reward and retain the best faculty possible. It is after all the entire faculty with the support and understanding of the administration that must create and breathe life into Pratt???s ever expanding educational goals and dreams.

Ayse Yonder, FT faculty

Ayse Yonder Professor, Graduate Center for Planning & the Environment

I am an architect & planner by training. I have been a full-time faculty member at Pratt since 1988 and served two terms as chair (1991-1994 and 2001-05) of the Graduate Center for Planning & the Environment. I taught at two other planning programs before coming to Pratt, and worked on planning projects through PICCED. I am especially interested in improving the relations between the Faculty Union and the Senate, and exploring ways to promote university community relations & interdisciplinary initiatives.

Jeffrey Hogrefe, PT faculty

Jeffrey Hogrefe, Adjunct Assistant Professor, UG Architecture

With an education on both undergraduate and graduate levels at UC Berkley in Architecture, Geography, History and Semiotics I am a writer and a critic and I have taught at Pratt in that capacity since fall, 1999, when I was assigned to teach a freshman English course in a section that was dedicated to architecture students. As a participant in the School of Liberal Arts and Science's Pilot Program to Improve the Freshman English Curriculum I developed a freshman English course that was cross linked and integrated with a first year architecture design studio. Under the aegis of an interdisciplinary relationship between SLAS and Architecture I have developed, as well, dedicated writing components in history and theory courses and in the fifth year Degree Project.

Under my initiative the School of Architecture, in 2006, received a $10,000 grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts to further develop and to document what has evolved as the Architecture Writing Program: Language/Making, which I currently coordinate. Proposing a synthesis of the language pragmatics outlined in the Deleuzian Abstract Machine in a series of linked courses in writing and design I am currently preparing a paper on the experimental curriculum for publication in an upcoming issue dedicated to interdisciplinarity in the Journal of Architectural Education. I have also served as an invited critic on reviews in studios in all of the five years of the undergraduate architecture program and I have a broad knowledge of the curriculum both in the School of Architecture and SLAS.

As a senator I would represent those constituents who are concerned about the overall general education of students in Undergraduate Architecture, particularly with regard to the relationships between "languages" and "grammars" within and between the disciplines, and the role of knowledge producion in a design studio. I have been a member of the Senate committee on assessment and this fall I was assigned by the Senate to conduct a roundtable discussion group on the Sudio as a Model for the Academic Course, which included a cross section of faculty from various discplines. In the spring semester I will be organizing in the same capacity a roundtable on the topic of Formalism in 2007.

Inquiries on my positions in any relevant topic are encouraged.
It would be a pleasure to represent your interests on the Senate.

Nicholas Koutsomitis, PT faculty

Nicholas P. Koutsomitis , AIA; Adjunct Associate Professor, UG Architecture

My desire to serve on the Academic Senate stems from my understanding of the need for continuous involvement by an experienced and active Part Time faculty member on this body. If elected I will represent the interests of the committed Part Time faculty members, who comprise a very significant component of the professional education process at Pratt, with great care. Having been involved in several committees, including Peer Review CommIttees as both member and chair, and also chair of the National Career Day Event of the National Institute for Architectural Education, I understand clearly the time commitment and effort required to be part of a working body of faculty members whose intended purpose is to serve the academic needs of the Institute at large. I have been at Pratt, first as a student and then as a faculty member since 1975, and have a deep understanding of the needs of the Institute and the effort required to address them. If elected to the Academic Senate, I will commit the time, effort and resources necessary to accomplish the tasks at hand.

I am certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards and I am an active member of both the American Institute of Architects, where I have served on the Board of Directors of the NYC Chapter, and the American Association of Museums.

Marc Schaut, PT faculty

Marc Schaut, Adjunct Assistant Professor, UG Architecture

I believe that my experience through active participation at various levels of governance at Pratt has afforded me knowledge of the many critical issues facing our institution.

I have contributed to the institute???s collective efforts toward accreditation (NAAB and Middle States), student learning assessment, and the development of an intellectual property policy. My current involvement with the curriculum and coordination within the Department of Undergraduate Architecture provides me with the insight necessary to be an effective advocate for both faculty and students. Having taught nearly every year in the five year Architecture sequence, I have an intimate understanding of our curriculum. As the coordinator of the first year studios and an instructor in the fifth year thesis studio I have been directly exposed to the needs and direction of our diverse student body from incoming freshman to graduating seniors.

I look forward to further contributing to the School of Architecture and Pratt Institute as a Senate representative.

Coordinator, First Year Studio, Undergraduate Architecture
Academic Senate
    Strategic Planning Faculty Focus Group
    Student Learning/Academic Planning and Assessment Committee
    Faculty Representative, Board of Trustees??? Academic Affairs Committee
    Board of Trustees??? AAC Intellectual Property Policy sub-committee

Caleb Crawford, UG Chair

Caleb Crawford, Asst Chair, UG Architecture
Caleb Crawford dropped out from fine arts at the University of Michigan & film at Hunter College before finally completing his B Arch at Pratt Institute. He then went on to obtain his M Arch at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Among others, he has worked for Johnson Fain & Periera in Los Angeles, & M. Paul Friedberg & Partners in New York. With his partner & wife, Annie Coggan, he started Coggan + Crawford Architects in 1995. He is a registered architect and a LEED Accredited Professional. Their work has been reviewed in Interior Design Magazine, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, & Surface. He has taught at Penn State & at Pratt Institute where he now serves as Assistant Chair.

Evan Douglis, UG Chair

Evan Douglis, Chair, UG Architecture; is the principal of Evan Douglis + Associates, an architecture & multidisciplinary design firm committed to innovative design. Established in 1990, the firm???s unique & cutting edge research into self-generative systems, membrane technology, contemporary fabricational techniques & multi-media installations as applied to diverse projects, has elicited international acclaim. The emphasis of this multi-task research & design lab is placed on synthesizing a broad-based ecology of theoretical & pragmatic concerns, en-route to discovering new paradigms of haptic interaction in the beginning of the new millennium. Evan Douglis is currently the Chair of the Undergraduate School of Architecture at Pratt Institute. While teaching as an Adjunct Professor at Pratt Institute since 1992, Douglis was also an Associate Assistant Professor at Columbia University, the Director of Columbia University???s Architecture Galleries & a Visiting Professor at The Cooper Union. He has also taught in various programs throughout the US & abroad. In 1999, the Architectural League of New York recognized him as an ???Emerging Voice??? in architecture. He also received a NYFA Fellowship in Architecture & Environmental Structures in 2002. Columbia University Books will publish Auto Braids / Auto Breeding in the fall of 2004, based on a selection of his teaching studios. In collaboration with Monacelli Press, Columbia University Books will also co-sponsor Architectures of Display: The Columbia Work of Evan Douglis, highlighting ten years of his exhibition installations as Director of the galleries. Douglis studied at the Architectural Association in London prior to receiving a B Arch from The Cooper Union & an M Arch from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University

Anna Laura Wolf-Powers, Grad Chair

Anna Laura Wolf-Powers, Chair, Graduate Center for Planning & the Environment

I have been serving on the Academic Senate for the past two years and have found it an invaluable way of learning about and participating in the life of the institute. The Senate provides me as a faculty member and chair with the opportunity to convey the academic priorities of the architecture school to the administration -- in particular, the need to support faculty research and to help part-time faculty participate more fully in important institute functions by being compensated for the time they devote. I hope that my participation makes me a more effective member of the faculty and a more effective chair.