New President of the School of Art institute, Chicago

2008-07-15 04:47:37 (GMT) (WiredPRNews.com - Art)

Tempe, Arizona (WiredPRNews.com) — The School of Art Institute in Chicago named Wellington Reiter, an urban designer and an architect as its next president. The choice reflects the broadened scope of the disciplines of the institute. Reiter has stood as the dean of the College of Design and architecture professor of the Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona for the past five years. He has also worked as an associate professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The former president of the institute, Tony Jones, has lead the institute for over 18 years. He will now become the chancellor for one year and will retire thereafter. As the new president, Reiter will come take his new seat beginning on August 25, 2008. Jones said that the school has sought the perfect candidate and thinks that the new president will make efforts to rebalance the curriculum which was once weighted towards fine arts but now includes fashion, humanities, design, architecture, technology and media.

Reiter said that he will try to smoothen out the relationship between design and art and will break down the walls if open settings help in discourse and instruction. The reputation of the private school is wide-spread. Around 18% of graduate and undergraduate students during the last fall belonged outside the U.S. Reiter said that there is still a requirement for raising the profile of the institute and make its engagement with Chicago deeper.

The president of ASU, Michael Crow, said that Reiter worked as a force for ASU and for the Metropolitan Phoenix. It is no surprise that other institutes have also eyed him. Reiter has worked on other projects in Philadelphia, Boston, Ft. Worth, Texas and Pittsburgh. He has also designed buildings, public art, and museum installation’ additionally, many architectural drawings done by Reither are collected in several museums.

Reiter earned his architecture degrees from Harvard and Tulane Universities. He is married and has two sons aged 17 and 20 years respectively.