Michael Speaks Reappointed to 5-Year Term as Architecture Dean

Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer Gretchen Ritter today announced that Michael A. Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture, has been reappointed to a five-year term as dean.

Today’s announcement follows a comprehensive decanal review that took into account the feedback of key stakeholders, including School of Architecture faculty, staff and Advisory Board members.

“With Michael’s deanship has come a new era of success for the School of Architecture,” Ritter says. “He has extended the school’s reach and enhanced its already strong academic program. I know the school will continue to flourish with him at the helm and I look forward to our continued work together.”

Speaks was named dean of the School of Architecture in 2013. His accomplishments since then include the establishment of the Harry der Boghosian Endowed Fellowship Program for emerging professors in architecture, the Patrick Ahearn Workshops, the Design | Energy | Futures post-professional M.S. degree program and the Hal and Nina Fetner Architecture + Real Estate Summer Internship Program.

In addition, Speaks established the China studies program, including studios in Beijing and Shanghai, the Three Cities Asia Summer Studio Program, a research partnership with the Institute Building Research in Shenzhen and a high school recruiting initiative. He also established a faculty and student exchange, research and project collaboration with Ewha Womans University, Yonsei University, Korea University, University of Seoul, Yeungnam University and Pusan National University in South Korea; and a scholarship program for overseas study in arts and design, organized by the Taiwan Ministry of Education.

He was selected three times as a Design Intelligence Most Admired Educator and served as an advisory group member for the Syracuse University Campus Framework and Campus Framework Refresh.

“It has been an honor and privilege to lead this great school of architecture over the last several years and I look forward to continuing as we prepare, this fall, to celebrate our 150th anniversary,” Speaks says. “With our incomparable students, faculty and staff to thank, the Syracuse University School of Architecture has become the best single-discipline, global school of architecture in the U.S. and in the world.”

Previously, he was dean of the University of Kentucky College of Design, and director of the graduate program and founding director of the metropolitan research and design postgraduate program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. He earned a Ph.D. at Duke University.