Announcement from Dean Rebecca Duclos

Dear colleagues and friends,
 
It seems like just yesterday that I was unrolling the family rugs and setting up the old steel standing desk in the EV office. But that was more than four years ago and now, here we are, in 2019 at an important juncture in my five-year mandate.
 
I wanted to let you all know that I have recently shared with the Provost my desire, in 2020, to return to teaching and research, and to give service in whatever way I can to this extraordinary Faculty following an administrative leave. In other words, I will not be seeking a second mandate, but will work every day for the next year and a half to continue stewarding Fine Arts into the future together with each and every one of you.

After what will have been eight years in senior administration (between my work at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Concordia University) I look forward to refocusing my life and work on some of the ideas and issues that have captivated me most—and that so many of you have influenced over the last few years: engaged pedagogy, student mobility, radical practice, critical curation, and the profound role that culture continues to have in addressing some of our most urgent societal and planetary issues. The list is longer, of course, and your presence in my life is deeper, than what I can possibly convey here.
 
Also, I could go on at length reflecting back to you just how much you have accomplished since I arrived, how much you have built upon the solid foundation which I inherited, and how much you have expanded upon the exquisite legacy that the Faculty of Fine Arts has thoughtfully and diligently shaped over the decades, but I will leave that for another day!
 
Later this year, an official search process will be launched so that a new dean can be in place in the summer of 2020. For now, please know how much hard work we still have to do and how much joy we still have to share!

With all warmth,
 
Rebecca