architecture program report woodbury university school of architecture september 2007

615 Pages·2008·19.11 MB·English

by  Kris Christ

ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM REPORT

WOODBURY UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

SEPTEMBER 2007

Yong Tang, 1st year, Instructor: V. Liptak
ARCHITECTURE PROGRAM REPORT

BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE

WOODBURY UNIVERSITY

DR. KENNETH R. NIELSEN, PRESIDENT

DR. DAVID ROSEN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

NORMAN MILLAR, DIRECTOR

CATHERINE HERBST, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, SAN DIEGO

INGALILL WAHLROOS-RITTER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BURBANK/LA

TED SMITH, JONATHAN SEGAL, CO-DIRECTORS, M.ARCH.RED

PAULETTE SINGLEY, PROGRAM HEAD, HISTORY AND THEORY

DEBRA ABEL, ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR, SAN DIEGO

BURBANK/LA
7500 Glenoaks Boulevard, Burbank/LA, CA 91510
818.252.5121

SAN DIEGO
1060 Eighth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101
619.235.2900
-2-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Woodbury University School of Architecture thanks President Kenneth Nielsen and the
many members of the university community who contributed to this report. In particular we
acknowledge the contributions of Nedra Peterson, Director of Library Services, Celeastia (Cleo)
Williams, Director of the Registrar’s Office and Financial Aid, Tamara Blok, Registrar, Richard
Nordin, Vice President of University Advancement, Kenneth Jones, Vice President of Finance
and Administration, Don St. Clair, Vice President of Enrollment Services and University
Marketing, Steve Dyer, Vice President of Information Technology and Planning, and Phyllis
Cremer, Associate Vice President of Student Development. We also thank the many staff
members who work in these offices.
We gratefully acknowledge the moral and intellectual support of David Rosen, Senior Vice
President of Academic Affairs. Thank you for your ongoing leadership in helping us to establish
and realize our vision for the School of Architecture.
Many members of our faculty contributed directly to this report; we thank you for your time and
thoughtful assessments. With gratitude we acknowledge all of the students and faculty who
contributed through their discussions, their surveys, their words of support and encouragement,
and, of course, their outstanding work. Many thanks to our alumni, who make us look good in
the practicing architecture community of Southern California and beyond.
Special thanks to Galina Kraus and Terry La Source for assembling, organizing and formatting
data for the report, all in the midst of the normal daily hubbub of students and phone calls at the
Faculty Center. And we were delighted to have discovered the precise and speedy expertise of
Institutional Researcher Nathan Garrett.
Finally, this report would not exist without the extra-ordinary work of two people in particular.
Kris Christ, terminally optimistic administrative coordinator, demonstrated unflappable patience
and good humor with the many contributors to the report and superb organizational skills in
coordinating its assembly. Hadley Arnold, wordsmith and moral compass of the Architecture
Faculty, painstakingly listened, and then eloquently represented the collective voice of the
school in her exhaustive writing for this report. We are indebted to you both for your personal
sacrifice right up to the end in making it happen.

In gratitude for their generous support of the architecture program,
we dedicate this report to Julius Shulman and
to the Raymond and Maxine Frankel family.

— Norman Millar,
Director, Woodbury School of Architecture
-3-
-4-
1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PROGRAM 8
1.1 History and Description of the Institution 9
1.2 Institutional Mission (Adopted 2006) 12
1.3 Program History 13
1.4 Program Mission 16
1.5 Program Self-Assessment 16
2 PROGRESS SINCE THE PREVIOUS SITE VISIT 26
2.1 Summary of Responses to the Team Findings 26
2.1.1 2002 VTR Conditions “Not Met” 26
2.1.2 2002 VTR “Causes of Concern” 30
2.2 Summary of Responses to Changes in the NAAB Condition 34
2.2.1 Introduction to the Program 34
2.2.2 Condition 3.5 Studio Culture 35
2.2.3 Condition 3.10 Financial Resources 35
2.2.4 Condition 3.13 Student Performance Criteria 35
3 THE THIRTEEN CONDITIONS OF ACCREDITATION 38
3.1 Program Response to the NAAB Perspectives 38
3.1.1 Architectural Education and the Academic Context 38
3.1.2 Architectural Education and the Students 49
3.1.3 Architectural Education and Registration 57
3.1.4 Architectural Education and the Profession 59
3.1.5 Architectural Education and Society 63
3.2 Program Self-Assessment Procedures 68
3.3 Public Information 72
3.4 Social Equity 73
3.5 Studio Culture 78
3.6 Human Resources 79
3.7 Human Resource Development 84
3.8 Physical Resources 91
3.9 Information Resources 97
3.10 Financial Resources 112
3.11 Administrative Structure 120
3.12 Professional Degrees 124
3.13 Student Performance Criteria 133
4 SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION 140
4.1 Student Progress Evaluation Procedures 140
4.2 Studio Culture Policy 150
4.3 Course Descriptions 155
4.4 Faculty Resumes 205
4.5 Visiting Team Report from the Previous Visit 341
4.6 Annual Reports 371
4.6.1 2003 Woodbury Annual Report 371
4.6.2 2004 Woodbury Annual Report 381
4.6.3 2005 Woodbury Annual Report 390
4.6.4 2006 Woodbury Annual Report 400
4.6.5 NAAB Statistical Reports 409
4.6.6 FTE Administrative Positions 2.4 418
-5-
4.6.7 FTE Administrative Positions 3 420
4.6.8 NAAB Response to Woodbury University Annual Reports 421
5 APPENDICES 428
5.1 Librarian’s Appendices 428
5.2 Lectures, Exhibits, Grants 442
5.3 Building Plans 450
5.4 WASC 462
5.5 Shop List 466
5.6 Annual Budgets 470
5.7 Architecture Faculty Meeting Minutes 2006-07 475
5.8 Faculty Personnel Handbook, Section C 510
5.9 Grading Study 549
5.10 Common Data Set 554
5.11 Student and Alumni Surveys-Spring 2007 (Enclosed separately) 615

-6-
1 INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAM

2007 End of Year Student Exhibition, Hollywood CCRD
-7-
1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PROGRAM

Woodbury School of Architecture: Who We Are

With facilities located in Burbank/Los Angeles, Hollywood and San Diego, Woodbury School of
Architecture offers a five-year, nationally accredited, professional Bachelor of Architecture
degree, and a one-year Master of Architecture degree in Real Estate Development. Southern
California and its megalopolis, stretching from Los Angeles through San Diego to Tijuana,
present a vital and diverse context within which to examine architecture, urbanism, culture, and
the natural environment. The School sees its student population, which reflects the region’s
vitality and diversity, as its greatest asset.

Woodbury University’s School of Architecture is committed to investigating and extending the
social, urban, economic, environmental, technological, and formal dimensions of architecture.
The School emphasizes, analyzes, and debates the role of the architect/citizen as cultural
communicator and builder responsive to societal and environmental challenges. We integrate into
the design curriculum recent innovations in computer aided design, multi-media, and sustainable
technologies. We provide students with a strong skill base, rich interdisciplinary dialog, and
generous support resources.

We are an intensely urban school that at the same time recognizes and explores its deep
embeddedness in the surrounding landscapes. We focus acutely on the distinct problems and
opportunities of socially, culturally, and environmentally sustainable space-making in Los
Angeles, San Diego, and Southern California. At the same time, we offer extensive opportunities
for international study in Latin America, Asia, and Europe.

We maintain a critical, inventive, resourceful, accomplished, passionate, practice-based, and
exceptionally dedicated faculty representing diverse interests and strengths. We train our
students, who are ethnically, economically, and academically diverse, as articulate critical
thinkers and highly capable practitioners, confident in local as well as global discourse. Issues of
sustainability, responsible advocacy, and appropriate and innovative use of materials and
manufacturing processes are raised throughout the program, and an entrepreneurial spirit of
agility and risk-taking is a hallmark of our faculty’s approach.

Director Norman Millar and the faculty of the School of Architecture are committed to delivering
on the school’s mission:

WOODBURY : ARCHITECTURE : TRANSFORMS

We believe in architectural education as transformative.

We believe in the radical possibilities of architecture’s relevance, socially, environmentally, and
formally.

We are architects and critical thinkers who produce other architects and critical thinkers.

Woodbury’s students, faculty, and graduates are committed to architecture that is:

• intelligent – articulates a critical position;
• effective – addresses the challenges of contemporary life; and
• beautiful – fully vested in the transformative power of beauty.
Woodbury students distinguish themselves in local, regional, and national design competitions
and scholarship awards; are valued in the workplace; and often go on to elite graduate schools.
Woodbury School of Architecture delivers a strong and effective education that has garnered
much regional attention and is poised to gain national prominence. Under Director Norman
Millar’s leadership, enrollment in the school has doubled since 2000.

Director’s Vision

The School of Architecture is poised to emerge as a strong international leader in architectural
education. Our vision for the next five-year cycle for the school is to solidify our commitment to
architecture and urbanism that is critically effective, by focusing on issue-oriented problems,
challenges and opportunities within the contested landscapes of the American West. Specifically
theses include:

• The influences associated with the Pacific Rim and our direct connections with Latin America
and Asia;
• The challenges associated with sprawl and the growth of our cities such as water supply,
energy, transit infrastructure, affordable housing, border issues, climate change, and natural
disasters;
• Emerging ideas about building technology, alternative practices, policy, and forms of
entrepreneurship;
• The opportunities identified with Los Angeles and Southern California as a multi-cultural center
of innovative contemporary design and lifestyle.

With this vision for the future in the mind, as well as the needs of a growing student body and
expanding faculty, Woodbury School of Architecture is currently undertaking the following major
initiatives:

• The construction of a new 19,000 square foot studio and classroom building in Burbank/LA.
Designed by Rios Hale Clementi Architects, the building will be occupied in Spring 2008.

• Expanded studio facilities in San Diego to be occupied in Summer 2008.

• Creation of a Communications Office for a rich calendar of exhibitions, publications, and
public programs featuring the work of Woodbury students, faculty, and contemporary
discourse.

• Full-Time faculty searches in core studios, urban design/landscape urbanism, and emerging
technologies.

• Development of emerging technologies tools, resources, and programs in San Diego and
Burbank/LA, including appointment of a Program Head in Technology.

• The establishment of a new two-year M.Arch. graduate program, with admission of its first
class planned for Fall 2009 and a NAAB candidacy visit planned for Spring 2010.

1.1 History and Description of the Institution
In the late 19th century, Los Angeles was a rapidly growing city with a population of
approximately 11,000. New business enterprises were being established and community leaders
looked forward to expansion and growth driven by a new real estate boom. In 1884, responding
to the needs of the city’s growing business community, F.C. Woodbury, an educator and
entrepreneur from San Francisco, arrived and founded Woodbury Business College, as it was
initially named. From the historic storefront on North Main Street in the center of the local
business community, the link between Woodbury and the economic infrastructure of Southern
Page 9
California was begun. By World War I, Woodbury had established a solid reputation for individual
instruction - an approach that continues today.

In 1926, Woodbury was chartered by the State of California as a Collegiate Educational
Institution of higher learning to confer both graduate and undergraduate degrees. In 1931, the
Division of Professional Arts was established at the college to focus on three fields of design that
are closely allied to business. With the addition of interior design, fashion design, and graphic
design majors, Woodbury became a college of business administration and design.

In 1937, in spite of a world-wide recession, legendary President R.H. “Pop” Whitten led the effort
to build new facilities at 1027 Wilshire Boulevard. For 50 years that location served as the
classroom and administrative building.

Woodbury College was accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)
in 1961. In 1969 the school changed its charter with the addition of a graduate program leading to
a Master of Business Administration (MBA). In 1972, Woodbury College became a non-profit
institution of higher learning. In 1974, Woodbury College became Woodbury University.
Computer information systems was added as a major in 1982. In 1984 the university added a
major in architecture.

In 1985, after 103 years in central downtown Los Angeles, Woodbury acquired a 22.4 acre
campus (the former home of one of the nation’s oldest convents) that straddles the border of
Burbank and Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. New classroom and administration
buildings were added in 1986 and in 1987 the university moved in.

In 1987, the Weekend College program for working adults was established with the aid of grants
from The Fletcher Jones Foundation and The William Randolph Hearst Foundation.

The North Hall residence hall was completed in 1990.

In 1994 the architecture program received its initial three-year NAAB accreditation term.

That same year, the university formally organized its undergraduate and graduate programs into
three schools: the School of Architecture and Design, which had departments of Architecture,
Fashion Design, Graphic Design, and Interior Design; the School of Business and Management,
which had departments of Accounting, Business and Management, Computer Information
Systems, and Marketing; and the School of Arts and Sciences, which had departments of
Humanities and of Natural and Social Sciences and provided all university departments a full
range of general education courses. That same year, three new Arts and Sciences majors were
added: psychology and management, politics and history, and liberal arts and business. New
architecture studios were completed in 1996. In 1997 the architecture program was reaccredited
by NAAB for a five-year term.

In spring 1998, the School of Business received its accreditation from the Association of
Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP).

In 1998, in a joint effort with Mesa Community College, Woodbury opened a facility at the Point
Loma Naval Training Center in San Diego to expand access to an accredited architecture
program to students in that border region. Also in 1998, the major in interior design was changed
to a major in interior architecture, and the university changed from a quarter system to a
semester system. In the year 2000, the university added majors in communications and
animation arts. The growing San Diego architecture program was moved to a larger facility
centrally located in the city’s downtown business district in the summer of 2001.

Page 10