Intensive investment in developing innovative partnerships and exploring cross-disciplinary collaboration is paying inspiring dividends throughout the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP). A full roster of announcements has been issued in recent months, marking the launch of new departments, the establishment of innovative degree programs, and the forging of new connections with a growing faculty.

Led by AAP, the new multicollege Department of Design Tech builds upon the strengths of design and technology disciplines and departments across the university, bridging fields and faculty drawn from the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, the College of Human Ecology, Cornell Engineering, and Cornell Tech. Jenny Sabin, Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture, will serve as the inaugural chair, and Architecture Associate Professor Timur Dogan is among the inaugural faculty.

Expanding graduate offerings in the Department of Art, the new interdisciplinary, low-residency Image Text M.F.A. works across disciplines to create new possibilities for creative practice and dialogue at the intersection of visual media and the literary arts under the direction of founding faculty directors Nicholas Muellner and Catherine Taylor.

Directed by Architecture Associate Professor Jesse LeCavalier, the new post-professional M.S. in Advanced Urban Design — the first architecture degree program at Cornell to be fully delivered in New York City — sits at the intersection of design, community, ecology, and technology in order to ask big questions, address contemporary challenges, and invigorate public spaces with creative and critical research and design practices. The city will serve as both setting and subject.

In addition, inaugural faculty drawn from both AAP and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business have been appointed to the multicollege Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate, led by Acting Chair and CRP Associate Professor Suzanne Lanyi Charles.

As Cornell students, staff, and faculty return to campuses in Ithaca, New York City, and Rome, the impact of these developments, in addition to special guest lectures, curated exhibitions, and guided field trips, promises to fuel an inspired spring semester imbued with what AAP Dean J. Meejin Yoon refers to in her January message to the AAP community as a renewed sense of humanity, and, quoting celebrated poet Rainer Maria Rilke, a "…new year, full of things that have never been."

Continue reading on the Architecture, Art, and Planning website.