Today is the final day for Peter MacKeith to be the dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. He's retiring from the post. He began his tenure on July 1, 2014, and says he knew when he began he was becoming part of a school with incredible faculty, students and legacy.
MacKeith: And it was clear that when I arrived that there was already such a strong school in terms of its programs and its students and its faculty. And of course, in 2013, the school and university had dedicated the renovated Vol Walker Hall and the newly constructed Steven L. Anderson Design Center, doubling the physical footprint of the school in the very center of the campus. In this wonderful marriage of an older building, Vol Walker Hall, and a highly contemporary building, Steven L. Anderson, that positioned the school centrally in the geography of the campus, which to my knowledge, very few other schools of architecture in the United States have that type of geographical centrality. Equally, to have that contemporary character as well as that historic character, very few schools of architecture in the United States have that. And on top of all of those advantages, to be named in honor of one of the most significant architects in the United States in the history of the United States — I say that I think knowingly and intentionally — was itself a unique and exceptional circumstance. So I arrived into a school which was moving forward, which was already strong, which was centrally located, and had these new, truly new and renewed facilities to arrive into. And I felt this was a school second to none.
At the same time, in 2014 and 2013, as the school renewed itself, you could say it was also clear that this was the first time when the three constituent departments of the school — Department of Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, and what is now the Department of Interior Architecture and Design, then Department of Interior Design — this was the first time when those three departments had been under the same roof, in the same building, at the same time in the history of the school. That presented opportunities and challenges, as they say, but those were equally magnetic as far as I was concerned. I was deeply interested in the mission of a multidisciplinary school, a school that was not simply a monoculture of one discipline or another, but one that was interdisciplinary. And truth be told, it's often thought of that deans arrive, and they believe that their mission is to build a new building. That was not necessary. In fact, it was the furthest thing from my mind, and it was almost a relief to think I'm walking into this wonderful new facility. The question was not about building a new building. It was building the culture within that new and renewed facility, a culture that would be interdisciplinary, a culture that would be mutually respectful of each other's strengths, but also would leverage all those strengths together to the greater good. And that was part of the magnetism for me.
Now, I was appointed in 2014 by then Chancellor Dave Gearhart and then Provost Sharon Gaber. And campus leadership is incredibly important for any school and college. Certainly incredibly important for any dean. And both Dave and Sharon were quite clear on what they understood to be the strength of the school, the centrality of it for the university, how important it was. But it was also clear that they saw the commitment the university had made into this new and renewed facility as a charge to the new dean, and that was very clear. The charge was, you now have all the tools and resources, or at least all the tools to move the school even further forward. So go out and build more resources for the school, go out and build more relationships for the school and go out and build more reputation for the school. What can you do in those three areas with energy, with commitment and ultimately with outcome. I took this as a fantastic pat on the back, but also forward pressure — move forward.
Kellams: We're not comfortable staying where we are.
MacKeith: We're not comfortable standing still. And you should not be comfortable standing still. We want you, and in fact we've invested in the school for it to keep moving forward. And that's been my watchwords since then as we progress through these 12 years. All of my conversations with successive campus leaders have been in that regard. So that's how I arrived, with that understanding, with that platform and with that outlook.
Kellams: Well, let's talk about a couple of high-profile achievements in reputation and advancing and expanding mission. One is represented on the shirt you're wearing in the studio right now — Porch — which took place in Venice last year. And then, of course, there is this beautiful building on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
MacKeith: Thank you for recognizing both of those. One project very much — the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation, which we opened as a university and school last August — the culmination of almost all of the 12 years of work, and certainly not only a way of building reputation and building resources and building relationships for the school, but also for the university and really across the state. And given the spotlight that that building now has, building all of those nationally and even internationally, the reach of that is — I am taking people through tours on a weekly basis from all over the country, and it continues to pay those types of dividends. But the real dividends, of course, are for our students and our faculty and for the greater good of the educational mission.
The other project which you mentioned is the well-called Porch Project, but it is — was — the exhibition of American architecture that we as a school and we as a university were asked to undertake by the U.S. State Department on behalf of the entire nation and representing ourselves at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025, which is arguably the world's most important venue for this type of exhibition. Porch, as we called it — an architecture of generosity — and its subtitle was also a culmination, I would say, of certainly the 12 years at the school for myself and my colleagues and many others, in terms of how we wanted to project the sheer goodness and the sheer vitality of what we've been working on as a school, what we believe is present in Northwest Arkansas, Arkansas, the Southeast, and what we hope is actually out there in the greater U.S. and out into the world. And by the reports that we've received and the attention we've received, we think we've achieved that. Again, both projects that were founded on those triple charges: build relationships, build resources, build reputation — do that as often as you can in as many ways as you can. And here we are.
Kellams: And then of course, part of a major mission of a dean or any educator is you have 18- to 22- to 23-year-olds coming in.
MacKeith: We do. And more than ever — it's been published many times — that when I arrived in July 2014, across the three departments, the school in total enrollment numbered 425 students. Now those renewed and new facilities were designed for a capacity of 500, maybe 550. Well, of course, the university began its growth period, then we began a growth period, but increasingly out of proportion to the university's own growth, to the point where by 2016, by 2017, we were already outgrowing that 550 capacity in Vol Walker Hall and Steven L. Anderson, and beginning to experience some growing pains and needing to think about how we would accommodate that growth. We now, as of last September 2025, are 1,100 students and it is not necessarily going to stop there. And again, the university has wanted to grow, clearly has grown and is benefiting from this growth. But we've grown two and a half times in 12 years. So yes, all of this is good. And it speaks, I think, to the quality education that we're providing to 18-year-olds, yes, to 22-year-olds, yes. But we have many students from — I don't think it's a useful phrase anymore — so-called non-traditional backgrounds. But students who come to us older, they come with families. They come having done military service. They come from many walks of life, many times of life. And we are open to all those students. And whether you are 18 or whether you're 40, the education has to deliver.
The education has to not only deliver a diploma that qualifies you to move forward into professional practice situations, towards licensure in your chosen discipline and field. But it has to, I think, accomplish things that are deeper, which have to do with, on the one hand, an understanding of the world as it is, but also an understanding of the world as it probably will be in the near future. I believe very much that our role as faculty, our role as deans and other academic leaders is to be foresighted on behalf of our students. What is the world that will be in existence in 10 years, in 15 years, in 20 years — periods or moments in time when I may no longer be alive? But I have to see forward on behalf of others and try to prepare students for those challenges that are going to be out there, that are already in many ways upon us — technological challenges, societal challenges, environmental challenges. Those are the bigger issues at the larger scale.
But for an individual — and this is quite important to emphasize — I think the Fay Jones School historically has been focused on the development of the individual identity or the individual voice of each and every student. I hear this from our alumni. I hope that this is also occurring with our students now. But individually, then it's also part of the school's responsibility to engage in discussions with students about ethical choices, to engage with students in such a way to develop their capacity for empathy, to engage with students in ways that it's not only about what we can accomplish with our hand, so to speak, or with our mind, but also with our hearts. And how we work with students in those ways is as important as the discussions we have about society, about technology, about the environment. It's a fascinating, wonderful, energizing, day-in, day-out dynamic, which is so fundamental not just for me, but for my colleagues in the school.
There are many, many people to thank within the Fay Jones School and within the larger Fay Jones family or community. Again, building the relationships — when I had very little knowledge of all the good people across the state — has been truly rewarding for me and beneficial for the school. But I need to recognize campus leadership over 12 years. I need to recognize the support that has come from both our state government as well as from our federal delegation in the national government. I very much want to recognize my colleagues on the faculty. They cannot — I can't say enough. They are very often unsung heroes altogether. But the other compelling aspect of coming here was I knew in advance a bit, but I came to know even more deeply over these last 12 years just how passionate the Fay Jones School faculty is about the work they do, the teaching they do, and how in love they are — I say that in agape, I suppose, to use the Greek word — how devoted they are to their students. It is visible. And that, I think, animates the school too. That's been the legacy that I walked into, and I think that's the legacy going forward. And it's what is the platform for the school now into the future.
Kellams: If you go into the school, there's a piano.
MacKeith: There is a piano. When I was being interviewed for the position that I'm now stepping away from — so this was spring of 2014 — I had a final set of meetings, penultimate meetings before the appointment was confirmed. I met with the faculty generally and a number of questions were asked. But one question was, if you are appointed, what would you do in the first six months? And I recognized the question for what it was. It's not necessarily a trick question, but it was a challenging question. And the safe thing to say, of course, is nothing. And truly, I think the wise thing to say is to say, I'm going to meet with each and every one of you and I'm going to understand what motivates you, what excites you, what challenges you face, where you see the dean assisting you and supporting you. And that certainly is something I undertook even in the first two months. But I said, in fact, beyond that, I don't know, because I need to know the school through its faculty. I need to come to understand the students in a more daily way. And I need to understand alumni and the range of support across the campus. So it was an answer that was clearly at some level not satisfying, which is perfectly fine too. But so there was a pause, after which I said, but I can tell you what I'll do in the first six days. At which point people got worried, leaned in, and I said: Number one, I'm going to bring the dean's office into the open common space of the school. I do not believe in a dean being back behind doors and behind layers of people. I felt for a very long time that academic leaders need to be out on the floor, so to speak, in the open. I want to move my work table into the common area of the school. I'm going to serve coffee to all comers and I'm going to be available.
Secondly, I said I myself would like to make visible, for instance, the discipline of landscape architecture more in the school. I'd like to see planted material. I'd like to see growing things. I wanted to see expressions of the natural world. So I said, I'm going to work with one of our alumni who has a floral business here, Pigmint, in town, and we're going to have fresh flowers brought in every week so that we'll have a kind of a fragrance in the school. And people were already shaking their heads.
And then the last thing I said was, I really think a school needs to have an acoustic character and really a musical character. So I'm going to — I believe the campus has a Steinway agreement and we're going to find a Steinway grand or baby grand and bring it into the school, and it'll be available for anyone to play. And people just shook their heads. What does any of this have to do with education? Well, in my view, it's everything to do with education.
And within the first week, we found a baby grand piano. We rolled it into the school, and I remember very clearly that the piano tuner came in and was going through all the keys and getting all the tones right. And as he is doing that, students and faculty are coming around. What is this? And I'm looking at the piano tuner doing his work, and a student says, what is this? I said, it's a piano. And they said, will we be able to play it? And I said, yes, this is exactly what I'm hoping for. And they went and got other people. So there's this long line, and the piano tuner hits the middle C, hits it true, puts the lid down, turns to me and says thank you, walks out. And I turn to that student and she says, can I? And I said, yes. And she goes to sit down and puts up the lid and she starts to play Chopin. And I started to cry, and I still become emotional at that moment. Because that sound goes everywhere in the school. And to my mind, of course, music and architecture are related in many ways. But of course, what is the sound of a great school of architecture? It could be Chopin, it could be Duke Ellington, it could be Bill Evans, it could be Billy Joel, it could be Lady Gaga, but it's going to be musical. That, to me, was the ambition of all this. So that was within the first six days. And that's why we have a piano to this day. And it's played to this day at all hours of the day.
Peter MacKeith, the retiring dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. Though he's no longer dean after today, he's staying in Northwest Arkansas and will return to faculty. Our conversation took place in the Carver Center for Public Radio last week.
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