BALANCING THE BOOKS
When she arrived at RISD in late August, newly appointed Dean of Libraries Lareese Hall says she felt like she was coming home. “Every library is different and every community is different,” she explains. “What I love about RISD is that we have permission to question everything here. And I don’t need to explain myself as much as I have in the past. People understand the nuances of creative inquiry and the many ways there are to conduct research.” In her previous role as architecture and art librarian at MIT, Hall relished the challenge of connecting teaching, learning and research in a science-oriented setting. Now that she’s overseeing RISD’s core academic resources—the Fleet Library at RISD, the Nature Lab, the Writing Center and Campus Exhibitions—she has even more opportunities to make vital connections in support of student and faculty research. And thanks in part to her own undergraduate education at a liberal arts college (Oberlin) and the MFA in Writing she earned from Goddard, she’s particularly inspired by RISD’s view of the liberal arts “as an art form.” “In my own creative work, I surround myself with books, artwork, podcasts and ideas,” Hall adds. “I still remember going to the library as a kid and getting my first library card, and I want to share that sense of wonder with everyone who enters the library.”
“What I love about RISD is that we have permission to question everything here.” newly hired Dean of Libraries Lareese Hall
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RECORD NUMBER OF NEW HIRES In the fall RISD welcomed 13 new full-time faculty members—a record-breaking number for one year— in nine departments. Three new assistant professors joined the Graphic Design department: Paul Soulellis, an authority on web-to-print design, British designer James Goggin and Keetra Dixon, who’s known for leveraging emergent technologies and considers RISD students “phenomenal: hardworking, on point, smart and engaged in active dialogue.” The Sculpture department welcomed Associate Professor Lisi Raskin as department head and Assistant Professor Heather Rowe as graduate program director. Raskin, who came to RISD from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, is especially happy to lead the department since “this is an incredible and experimental moment for sculpture. Our charge as educators is to show students a very broad approach to the medium—to give them roadmaps that will help them get where they want to go.” Associate Professor of Printmaking Megan Foster 00 PR has returned to RISD—this time as a teacher—and Canadian designer Patty Johnson joined the Furniture Design department as an assistant professor, describing the move as “the best professional decision of [her] life.”