Theodore C. Landsmark Gives Address to Hillier College Class of 2021
The graduating Class of 2021 was honored and feted in all of the ways possible; they walked across the stage in caps and gowns and were acknowledged in person by remarks from the Dean followed by a return to Weston Hall for a reception and balloon release, and then joined again for a virtual celebration awards ceremony and showcasing their work, with family and friends invited. Dean Kolarevic delivered remarks and introduced the guest speaker for the event, Dr. Theodore "Ted" Carlisle Landsmark, American educator and attorney and currently Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University. Jihye Son was chosen to address the graduating class.
Dean Kolarevic acknowledged we have still not returned to ‘normal’, as families and friends were not able to join the in-person events, and the remarkable resilience demonstrated by students. “The Class of 2021 is special, because the challenges you overcame to reach this point were unprecedented. On top of everything else, your world was turned upside down by a global pandemic that claimed so many lives, caused massive economic damage and completely changed the ways we live, work, and learn. Yet you adapted and, once again, overcame every obstacle put in your way. For many of you, these included the loss of loved ones, personal illness or that of family members and friends, anxieties related to the virus itself and the indirect suffering it has caused, unforeseen economic hardship, as well as unwanted and unnatural separation from one another. You faced each of these head on, and you succeeded.”
Introducing Dr. Landsmark, Kolarevic said, “What I know about Ted is that he is a fearless, committed fighter, whether he is fighting for racial and social justice, new urban policies or changes in architectural education.”
In his remarks, Dr. Landsmark noted that the designers in the class of 2021, “are among the best and the brightest ever, because of the diversity of places you’ve come from, and because of what you’ve learned. You are the most resilient and tenacious of graduates because you’ve learned from environmental crises and climate change, from black lives matter demonstrations, from refugees housing crises, from the COVID health challenges, from food and hunger crises, from political disruptions that have taken place here in the United States and abroad, and from personal losses you’ve transcended both space and time and developed skills unlike the skills developed by any other class of students in design education.”
Landsmark reminded students that if they want to have an impact on these conditions they will need to, “be the policy makers, and not wait for others to control our creative destinies. We need to be the decision makers ourselves… We need to sit on corporate boards, city councils, in university board meetings, school boards, bank lending committees, zoning boards with religious leaders, on museum boards, where real, raw power is shared.”
To navigate and review each segment of the program: the student showcase loops for the first 29 minutes, at 29:15 Michael Smullen, Executive Director, Alumni Relations, introduces Dean Kolarevic, at 34:00 min. Dean Kolarevic introduces ‘Ted’ Landsmark, at 48:55 Gernot Riether, Director of the School of Architecture delivers his remarks, at 50:48 John Cays, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Interim Director of the School of Art + Design delivers his remarks, at 53:00 the Awards are announced, at 1:01:45 Jiyhe Son delivers the class address, at 1:05:45 video messages from the class and faculty are played, closing and balloon release at 1:17:15.
