The New School board of trustees in May announced the appointment of Joel Towers, a professor of architecture and sustainable design and the former executive dean of Parsons School of Design at The New School, as the tenth president of the university.
Towers will assume his new position as head of The New School on Aug. 1, 2024. He succeeds Donna Shalala, who has guided the university as interim president since last August, and Dwight McBride, who served as The New School’s ninth president from 2020 to 2023.
“During his 20 years at The New School, President-elect Towers has prioritized excellence in teaching and learning, with a deep commitment to our students and a passion for the mission of The New School,” said Linda Rappaport, chairperson of the board of trustees and co-chairperson of the presidential search committee. “Joel brings a track record of success in sound financial stewardship and consensus-building, as well as a clear understanding of both the complexities and possibilities for our storied and unique academic institution.”
Dominique Bluhdorn, a trustee and co-chairperson of the presidential search committee, said, “Joel brings a rare combination of qualities: a deep understanding of The New School, an important record of academic and leadership success, the intellectual vision to tackle complex strategic issues, and an unwavering dedication to student-centric higher education. We are excited about The New School’s future under Joel’s leadership.”
With more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 126 degree programs, The New School touts itself as the only university to combine world-renowned, comprehensive design, social sciences, humanities and performing arts schools. Its core commitments include research and scholarship, creativity and social engagement.
“I am deeply humbled and honored to become the next president of this extraordinary university that has inspired and supported me for the past 20 years,” Towers said. “As I look to The New School’s future, I’m fully dedicated to the work ahead. We will continue to strengthen our commitment to academic excellence and freedom, and foster openness and mutual respect. I look forward to collaborating with all our faculty, students and staff to advance knowledge, research and creative practice, hold complexity and contribute in profound ways to a world desperately in need of creativity, care and collaboration.”
Towers is also the co-director of The Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School. His work focuses on sustainability, resilience and the development of policy and design-based solutions to climate change and the construction of healthy environments.
In 2009 Towers was appointed executive dean of Parsons School of Design, serving as head of the college for a decade. Under his leadership, Parsons completed major curricular reforms, launched new graduate and undergraduate programs, and built an integrated 26,000-square-foot, cross-disciplinary Making Center facility. To expand the school’s reach and research capabilities, he supported multiple industry-leading design and research labs and expanded the ranks of full-time faculty. Today the school is one of the most internationally diverse in the United States, with nearly half of its undergraduate students coming from other countries. Under Towers’s leadership, Parsons consistently ranked as the top school for art and design in the United States, a position it still holds today.
Towers joined Parsons in 2004 as a member of the full-time faculty and the first director of sustainable design and urban ecology. In 2019 he was appointed by then-Mayor de Blasio to co-chair the New York City Panel on Climate Change. The N.P.C.C. was created by local law in 2012 to regularly assess the current state of the science on climate change and provide actionable policy recommendations to the mayor and New York City Council. The panel recently completed its most recent report, NPCC4.
Towers received a B.S. in architecture from the University of Michigan and a master’s of architecture from Columbia University. Prior to joining The New School, he worked with William McDonough Architects. In 1992, he co-founded Sislian Rothstein and Towers Architects (SR+T).
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