Carol Becker has been the Dean of Faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for over 25 years, and has written several books, including, appropriately, The Invisible Drama: Women and the Anxiety of Change. Becker wrote candidly about her rise to Dean in her essay, Trial by Fire: a Tale of Gender and Leadership, and recounted the challenges she faced in an academic institution.
interview by Natalie Edwards |
| Q. |
How do you think you changed the character and vision of SAIC during
your years here? |
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| A. |
I have been at the School for such a long time that I really have to
think back almost thirty years to what the School was like when I
first began teaching here and also when I first began to hold
administrative positions. From the very first I had the idea that the
School was a fantastically creative and energized environment for the
making of art. What I felt was missing was an intensive intellectual
environment that could match this creative spirit with a whole other
world of ideas. I wanted to see the School become as much about
thinking as about making, as much about the conceptualization of
art's place in society as about the process of making. I never saw
these as exclusive and always believed the School could be strong on
all counts. I now really believe it is. So, a good deal of what I
have been able to do is help to create so many new degrees and bring
in so many new faculty that the School is now a truly balanced
environment in which all parts of art making and the complexity of
the art world are reflected. When I first came there were only a few
degrees, now there are myriad degrees in subjects like Visual and
Critical Studies, Writing, Arts Administration, Historic
Preservation, as well as all the new initiatives in Architecture and
Design. There are dual degrees in Arts Administration and Art
History--all reflecting the changing times, the ways in which people
go out into the world and actually assume position. There were always
wonderfully innovative faculty but the more we hired new faculty, the
more they took the School farther along the path to a truly diverse
curriculum that has a strong artistic and intellectual foundation.
So, if there is a legacy here, it in being able to imagine an art
school as complex and exciting as the one we have, and in hiring
great people to make it happen and to keep it moving forward. |
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