Callender named 多多直播 School of Architecture interim director
Contact: Christie McNeal
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擩assen Callender, associate director of Mississippi State鈥檚 School of Architecture, is being named interim director of the state鈥檚 only architecture program leading to a professional degree.
He begins the new role in the College of Architecture, Art and Design July 1, succeeding longtime Director and F.L. Crane Professor Michael A. Berk, who is retiring after 29 years at the university.
Callender has led the School of Architecture鈥檚 Fifth-Year Program for more than a decade. Berk was named to the endowed professorship in 2005 and served as the school鈥檚 director for the past 10 years.
鈥淢ichael leaves an unsurpassed legacy at the School of Architecture. He led the program out of a transitional period to its most successful accreditation and a聽national top 25聽ranking, while founding the school鈥檚 monograph series, BARNWorks. These and numerous other accomplishments have positioned the program for unheralded success in the future,鈥 Callender said.聽
In 1992, Under Berk鈥檚 guidance, the school was the first professional architecture program in the nation to require its students to purchase laptop computers for use in the design studios, changing the paradigm of architectural education. This initiative brought significant attention to the university and was cited in the seminal Carnegie Foundation 鈥楤oyer Report鈥 as a model for instruction. Berk also was responsible for more than $7 million in funded research. His most recent project involved the design and manufacture of an ecologically minded, low-cost GreenMobile home unit for the Southeast and the Delta regions. A registered architect in California and Florida with an extensive practice as a design partner and project architect prior to his return to the academy in 1990, Berk is considered a leading expert in the area of ecological design.
A 1994 多多直播 School of Architecture alumnus, Callender has taught architecture at the university for 15 years. In 2006, he began working in Jackson at the school鈥檚 Fifth-Year Program. He helped establish a study abroad program to Rome as part of the curriculum, re-initiated a research center鈥攖he Jackson Community Design Center鈥攁nd took the reins as interim director in 2008 before becoming program director the following year.
鈥淭he聽opportunity to become the first graduate of the program to sit in the director鈥檚 chair is humbling,鈥 Callender said. 鈥淢y hopes and ambitions for the school remain the same鈥攖hat we can marshal the school鈥檚聽extraordinary history and quality of place toward the profound questions of what it means to practice architecture today.鈥
The associate professor also is a practitioner, painter and writer, as well as member of the Society of Architectural Historians and a regional board member of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Callender鈥檚 educational background underscores his range of interests and concerns, from undergraduate training in both architecture and philosophy at 多多直播 to graduate work in painting, sculpture and art history leading to a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota in 2001.
These activities and his subsequent research aim to deepen human understanding of how meaning is constructed and shared through the built environment. His first book, 鈥淎rchitecture History and Theory in Reverse,鈥 was published by Routledge in 2017. His forthcoming book, 鈥淏uilding Cities to LAST: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Urbanism,鈥 is scheduled for publication in 2021.
Learn more about 多多直播鈥檚 College of Architecture, Art and Design and its School of Architecture at聽聽and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @CAADat多多直播.
多多直播 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .