Dear Cooper Union,

As a unified community, our collective efforts are guided by and remain steadfastly aligned with The Cooper Union’s Institutional Goals and Strategic Priorities, adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2018. We are advancing Cooper Union as an institution of excellence – one where students are prepared to question and lead in a complex world, and where they learn through leading-edge models for higher education that consider the ethical, cultural, and environmental contexts and consequences of technical and creative disciplines. In short, we continue to reinforce and build on Cooper Union’s legacy and strengthen our position as a place where students build their capacity and abilities to change the world for good. We have made important progress across the board – in our academic programs, in student experiences, in our civic initiatives, in the spaces and places at Cooper and beyond where scholarly and creative exploration flourish.

Strategically aligning people – academic leaders and faculty, in particular – with this mission is central to our ability to continually deliver on it for students and the world at large. Equally vital is our capacity to infuse novel ideas, creative solutions, and unconventional approaches into our academic work in order to maximize our positive impact.

For The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, more than ever, that work is rooted in the convergence of the discipline and practice of architecture with the urgent need for the built environment to foster an equitable, accessible, healthy society and sustainable planet. It is work that is further contextualized by human experience over the course of history, including all of our histories.

This context has fundamentally shaped the agenda of the Architecture Faculty Dean Search Committee over the last two years, as its members conducted thoughtful and comprehensive processes to identify highly qualified candidates for the School of Architecture Dean. The goal was to identify candidates who would bring experience in higher education and architectural practice, interdisciplinary perspectives, global sensibility, thought leadership, and vision for evolving the academic program in ways that equip and inspire students’ transformative thinking and practice, particularly as they engage with urgent challenges such as climate change, sustainability, social and economic justice, accessibility, and inclusivity.

This past academic year, the Committee invited four highly qualified search finalists to campus to make presentations and meet with a cross section of faculty, students, and staff. Following the campus visits and presentations, invaluable survey feedback was garnered from community members. This feedback revealed that each candidate resonated with different facets of the community, with no single contender emerging as the community’s predominant choice for the role. Both of us, separately and together, considered this and the feedback received on each candidate very seriously.

And what it generated was a new way of thinking. We conceived an entirely different leadership model – a partnership – that combines excellence and experience across the precise domains we sought to address within the School of Architecture, in particular, and for The Cooper Union, as a whole, while working within our existing budgets as we hold firm to our Plan to Return to Full-Tuition Scholarships.

The decision to implement this partnership model for the School of Architecture and for The Cooper Union was twofold. We determined that we could build on a position of strength and demonstrated experience by retaining Hayley Eber as Acting Dean, School of Architecture and advance innovation at the intersection of urgent issues including social justice, justice ecology, inclusive economies, sustainability, and climate by hiring Mokena Makeka in a new role for Cooper as Special Advisor to the Vice President of Academic Affairs. Through these strategic appointments, we elevate our potential to achieve outcomes that surpass the scope of any individual effort.

Hayley brings to the partnership her strong relationships with Cooper stakeholders including faculty, students, staff, alumni, and external partners. She has great familiarity with Cooper’s legacy of leading pedagogical practices. She offers a sense of stability, unwavering consistency, and a profound grasp of Cooper's institutional culture, drawn from her multifaceted experiences. These experiences include her current role as Acting Dean, her past tenure as Associate Dean from 2019 to 2022, her ongoing involvement as a teaching faculty member, and her unique perspective as a proud Cooper alumna. All of this is also informed by the experiences of Hayley’s own architectural practice as founding principal of Studio Eber here in New York as well as EFGH, another architectural firm she co-founded and led from 2007-2015, and her commitment to education, which, in addition to Cooper, includes faculty time at Princeton University and her role as board member and Public Director for Educational Affairs for the New York Chapter of the AIA.

Mokena, one of the four finalist dean candidates identified by the Faculty Search Committee, brings to Cooper a wealth of global experience and a commitment to social transformation, particularly within urban environments focused on spatial and ecological justice. His expertise spans diverse domains, encompassing infrastructure, urban development, climate-smart design, land use planning, rural development, communications, and transportation. His work focuses on design and regenerative development, inclusive economies, geo-political economics, and the post-colonial landscape of the African continent and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Currently serving as principal of Dalberg Advisors and office director for Southern Africa, Mokena has also led the international, award-winning architectural and urban planning firm Makeka Design Lab/Works. He is a board member of the Green Building Council of South Africa, President of the South African Institute of Architects, a past member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Design, and a member of the WCS Young Leaders in Urbanism (Singapore). Mokena has also taught as an adjunct professor in Cooper’s School of Architecture (2020-2021). With this and his impressive interdisciplinary training and knowledge, he will also be a natural collaborator with and resource for the Schools of Art and Engineering and HSS.

In addition to their accomplishments and professional experiences, Hayley and Mokena are also colleagues, having collaborated most recently in May 2023 as panelists on Afropolitan Architecture: Imagining the African Urban Future by Design at the British Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. They also have the shared experience of being graduates of the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

To say that Hayley and Mokena – and we – are excited about this new approach is an understatement. Their commitment and eagerness to advance and evolve curriculum, pedagogy, and interdisciplinary learning and programming together at Cooper, in collaboration with Demetrius, is undeniable.

As Acting Dean, Hayley is diligently preparing for the upcoming academic year, while Mokena will officially assume his role on Oct. 1, 2023. This partnership model will be in place for two years, at which point, we will collectively evaluate the ongoing needs of the School of Architecture.

We want to particularly thank the members of the Architecture Faculty Search Committee for their dedication and comprehensive work and for bringing Mokena forward.

This is a transformational moment. The Cooper Union is entering the 2023/2024 academic year with a new, creative, fortified model for its academic leadership. With Demetrius’ leadership as Cooper’s first Vice President of Academic Affairs, the new partnership within the School of Architecture with Acting Dean Eber and new Special Advisor to the VPAA Makeka and the academic leadership of Dean Essl and Associate Dean Farmiga in the School of Art, Dean Shoop and Associate Deans Savizky and Shay in the School of Engineering, and Associate Dean Ayad in HSS, Cooper has a dynamic group of visionary scholars and leaders with the depth and breadth of experience to meaningfully catalyze the academic change and innovation we’ve been pursuing and are committed to achieving.

With gratitude,

Laura Sparks                                         Demetrius Eudell