NEW LEADERSHIP ANNOUNCED BY
THE SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

 

Chicago - Cary McMillan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago  (SAIC), today announces new leadership at SAIC, including the appointment of prominent figures from the world of higher education. Walter E. Massey, Ph.D. will serve as SAIC's President, effective September 13, 2010 and Elissa Tenny, Ed.D. has been appointed to the newly created position of SAIC Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, effective August 16, 2010.  Anthony Jones, CBE will continue to serve as Chancellor for SAIC while Lisa Wainwright, Ph.D. will continue as Dean of Faculty.

"We have brought together these exceptional individuals whose varied strengths complement one another perfectly," says McMillan.  "Dr. Massey's extensive background as a leader in higher education, the business world, and the foundation community will be a strong asset for SAIC.  For her part, Dr. Tenny has a proven track record of outstanding accomplishments in the areas of curriculum development and academic strategic initiatives.  With Chancellor Jones and Dean Wainwright, both of whom have well established reputations in the world of art and design education, SAIC's new leadership possesses the vision and experience to build on our distinguished history and to attain even higher levels of accomplishment as the world's foremost institution for art and design scholarship and education."


About Walter E. Massey, Ph.D.

President Walter E. Massey, Ph.D. is President Emeritus of Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA), having served as President from 1995 to 2007.  Immediately prior to that post, Dr. Massey was Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of the University of California system, where he was responsible for academic and research planning and policy, budget planning and allocations,
and programmatic oversight of three national laboratories that the University manages for the Department of Energy.  Massey has also been Professor of Physics and Dean of the College at Brown University.

A distinguished physicist, Massey served as director of the Argonne National Laboratory and Professor of Physics and Vice President for Research at the University of Chicago during the period of 1979 to 1991.  Massey was also named the director of the National Science Foundation by former President George H.W. Bush and served in that capacity from 1991 to 1993.

As a corporate leader, Dr. Massey has served as a director of Bank of America and Chairman of the Board. He has been a board member of numerous major corporations, and is currently on the board of McDonald's. Serving as a trustee of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Dr. Massey is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council of Foreign Relations.

The recipient of more than 30 honorary degrees from institutions such as Yale University, Northwestern University, Amherst and Ohio State University, Dr. Massey's research has involved the study of quantum liquids and solids, and his written work has addressed university-industry partnerships and the issue of technology transfer, addressing the allocation of skills, knowledge, and technology among institutions to ensure wider accessibility to technological developments.

Dr. Massey is a graduate of Morehouse College (Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics, 1958) and Washington University in St. Louis (Ph.D. in Physics, 1966).  He was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and currently resides
in Chicago with his wife Shirley Anne.


About Elissa Tenny, Ed.D.

Elissa Tenny, Ed.D. comes to SAIC from the distinguished liberal arts institution Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, where she has served as Provost and Dean since 2002.  Her significant accomplishments at Bennington include the promotion of interdisciplinary and integrative scholarship, crafting strategic plans for the college, enhancing curriculum planning, and faculty development. 

Prior to joining Bennington, she served in a variety of roles at The New School
in New York City from 1975 to 2002, eventually holding the positions of Acting Dean (1998-2001) and Vice Dean (2001-2002).  While at The New School, which houses the internationally recognized Parsons School of Design, Tenny's focus included promoting quality and creativity in academic programs and student services, as well as growing overall enrollment by 30%.  She holds a Doctor of Education degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Arts in Media Studies from the New School for Social Research and a Bachelor
of Arts in Business Administration from The Richard Stockton College of
New Jersey.

SAIC Faculty Accomplishments

SAIC faculty member Michael Golec (Art History, Theory, and Criticism) has been named Anschutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies at Princeton University for the Spring 2011 semester. In addition to the fellowship, Golec will be Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology. While at Princeton he will begin work on his second book, The World Turns Statistical: Reform Graphics in the United States, 1900-1940s.

SAIC's Frederick Latimer Wells Professor of Painting Jim Lutes has been awarded a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Lutes is one of 180 artists, scientists, and scholars in the USA and Canada chosen from a group of some 3,000 applicants.

Work by faculty member Stephanie Brooks (Sculpture) is featured alongside work by Robert Irwin, Rosy Keyser, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama, John McCracken and Robert Ryman in the exhibition Reflection on view at Peter Blum Gallery in New York City through July 30.

50 American Artists You Should Know, a comprehensive survey by faculty member Debra Mancoff (Art History, Theory, and Criticism) of fifty influential American artists including Homer, Whistler, Cassatt, Sargent, Hopper, O'Keefe, Calder, Pollock, Rothko, Bourgeois, Johns, Warhol and Serra, has been published in English and in German by Prestel International.

Push Comes to Shove: New Images of Aggressive Women, a new book from faculty member Maud Lavin (Art History, Theory, and Criticism), will be released by MIT Press in September. Completed with the help of her own Guggenheim Fellowship, the title follows Clean New World: Culture, Politics and Graphic Design (MIT, 2001) and Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Hoech (Yale, 1993). As editor and coauthor, Lavin has also published The Oldest We've Ever Been (Arizona, 2008) and The Business of Holidays (Monacelli/Random House, 2004).

Across the pond, alumna Monique Meloche presents alumnus Justin Cooper (MFA 2005) at VOLTA6 in Basel June 16-20, 2010. And the first European solo exhibition of work by faculty member Scott Reeder (Painting and Drawing) opened June 5 at the Luce Gallery in Torino, Italy. The exhibition of new paintings remains on view through July 24. Images and more information is available on the gallery's website.