Hillier College Professor Schuman Gets High Marks and Dual Honors

Hillier College Prof. Tony Schuman is being recognized again this year with the Van Houten Award for Teaching Excellence. Originally awarded last year, celebrations and the official award were postponed until this year. Schuman has also earned the 2021 designation of Master Teacher from the provost's office. The Van Houten Award for Excellence in Teaching from the NJIT Alumni Association is based on a survey of all recent NJIT graduates in every department from the past 10 years. It is given to members of the NJIT faculty who have demonstrated teaching excellence, and who have also made a positive, lasting impact on the lives of their former students. Schuman has been recognized many times over for the quality of his teaching. At NJIT he has also received an Excellence in Teaching Award. 

Schuman has been a professor of architecture at NJIT for over 40 years. He served as Undergraduate and Graduate program director, and most recently as Interim Dean. He teaches design studios and seminars focused on architecture's social dimension, and has played a key role in the University's focus on community engagement with the Newark Design Collaborative. 

Schuman is held in high regard by his colleagues and students. He is known to be a fair, open-minded, and very knowledgeable communicator. He has a clear set of values that he has pursued over a long teaching career. Tony’s focus on what he terms “architecture’s social vocation” has borne fruit at every stage of his career.

At ACSA, while serving as Northeast Regional Director, he initiated the Collaborative Practice Award, to promote and support faculty efforts at community engagement. A few years later, as President of ACSA, he commissioned the publication of the ACSA Sourcebook of Community Design Programs in Schools of Architecture in North America, the first attempt to systematically collect and disseminate this information nationally. In 2012 he was named a Distinguished Professor by ACSA, the only HCAD faculty member to be thus honored to date. More recently, Tony was invited to contribute the lexicon entry on “Community Engagement” for Architecture School:  Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America, the compendium published to celebrate the organization’s 100th anniversary.

“Tony presents a remarkably consistent and integrated pedagogy where his scholarship, service, creative work, and classroom teaching are mutually reinforcing. His student evaluations are invariably above the College and University mean, every semester for over forty years. His lifelong commitment to our College and to the university is palpable in everything he does, and it is a pleasure to work with him as the College continues to evolve,” said Dean Kolarevic.