Jason Young, professor and director of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s School of Architecture, has been named the next dean of the College of Architecture and Design effective July 1. Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick made the announcement to the campus community earlier today.
Young will succeed Dean Scott Poole, who announced in 2020 that he would step down and return to the faculty, continuing a successful 35-year career of teaching, professional practice, service, and leadership, with many accomplishments and accolades along the way.
“Jason will bring a compelling vision for design education, conviction of the important role to be played by design across the university, and a strong commitment to community engagement as he begins his tenure as the next dean of the College of Architecture and Design,” said Zomchick. “He enters that role, moreover, with broad support and deep familiarity with all of the college’s constituencies. I look forward to his leadership of the college as our university embarks on its new strategic vision.”
As dean, Young will lead a community of creative thinkers who are passionate about transforming the world through design. He’ll oversee the college’s four schools—architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, and design—which have experienced strong growth under Poole’s leadership.
“I am honored to be given the opportunity to lead the College of Architecture and Design as the next dean,” said Young. “I already know that creatives from our four schools have the capacity to further enrich communities by advancing the role design practices play in building more just and promising futures. By setting a strong example in our own region, I feel we can be a leader among design schools. I am excited to build on the momentum established by Dean Poole and would like to thank him for his leadership.”
Before joining UT, Young taught architecture at the University of Michigan; as the 2013 Howard Friedman Visiting Associate Professor of Practice at the University of California, Berkeley; in the Summer Institute for Architecture at the Catholic University of America; and as a visiting professor at the Schwerpunkt Holz in Murau, Austria, an international architecture workshop exploring the culture of wood.
Young’s academic research explores contemporary conditions of American urbanism in a post-city, digitally organized culture. He has lectured on his urbanism research at the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, ETH Zürich, the Politecnico di Torino, the Università luav di Venezia, the Rhode Island School of Design, and UC Berkeley, among other settings.
—
CONTACT:
Tyra Haag (865-974-5460, tyra.haag@tennessee.edu)
Amanda Johnson (865-974-6401, amandajohnson@utk.edu)