Dr. Rachel Schreiber steps into the role of Parsons executive dean beginning July 1.
She comes to New York from the Bay Area, where she served as provost and senior cice president at the San Francisco Art Institute. She has a Ph.D. in American History, and her research explored histories of gender, labor, activism, and visual and print culture.
“The threads in my background, in terms of my scholarly and creative work, really are about how visual culture produces meaning in the world,” Schreiber told the New School Free Press.
The Free Press sat down with Schreiber to discuss her goals and experience.
As the new executive dean of Parsons, what are your top priorities upon arrival?
Well. the first order of business for sure is a big listening tour. That’s not a year-long project, I’d talk about that more in terms of the first 90 days.
Some things I really want to work on are increasing access to the education. We want to make this fabulous education available to a much more diverse and broad swath of people, in whatever ways that means — in degree programs, in non-degree programs, really thinking through in creative and innovative ways what that might mean.
I will be looking for ways to generate revenue, and new ways to generate revenue, in addition to also focusing on fundraising which is an ongoing objective and goal, for student scholarships and for also other kinds of projects. I really want to think about, and I said this in my talk, “What does it mean to be global?” We have one of the largest, if not the largest, international student populations of design and art schools. I don’t think we have recognized how deeply American-centric our higher education system is.
Just to be completely clear, you are currently not coming in planning to make any radical curriculum changes?
I need to begin by getting to know and learning and really listening, understanding what people’s needs are, and then involving faculty, students and staff and alumni and trustees and senior leadership, really everyone in determining if something needs to change. If.
The Free Press has become aware that when you were at the San Francisco Art Institute, you opposed the part-time and visiting faculty unionizing. Given the recent efforts at organizing student workers, and the fact that the part-time faculty contract is running out at the end of August, what will your position be?
The union characterized my position as opposition, but I would not characterize it that way. I did not think that was the best union for the part-time faculty. I’m a labor historian. I care about labor history, I care about workers’ rights, and I have had very successful relationships with many unions. And after that process, I was the lead negotiator for the first two years, and helped develop what I think is a really good contract which is now in place. I look forward to working with the union, and seeing if there’s anything in that contract that they feel and we feel needs to be refined to more clearly address their needs and our needs.
One of the real advantages I’ve found with contracts with the part-time faculty is that through unionization, we have the opportunity to more deeply understand each other’s relationships to the institution.
You did touch on it a little bit that you do have this experience incorporating art and social justice together. How do you plan to institute that in Parsons?
Access is really important to me and that, to me, is a social justice issue because it’s about socioeconomic diversity and racial and ethnic diversity, which tend in our society to be intermingled. How do we make sure we’re not just educating an elite group of people?
One program I am thrilled that Parsons had already decided to participate in. I actually can’t take credit for Parsons’ decision to participate in it, but I am one of the founders of a teaching fellowship program offered by AICAD, the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. Parsons is a member. Its goal is to help us diversify the faculty of our own institutions. The Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship offers one to two years of full-time or nearly full-time teaching at another member institution for graduate students of color within the association.
Seven of the alum of the program have achieved full-time teaching jobs, including Kelly Walters, who’s here at Parsons in Communication Design. She was one of the first fellows in the program.
Why do you want to take on this position, and why Parsons?
Having a school of design and art of the quality of Parsons that operates in relation to a university, and not just a university, but a university that’s oriented towards social research and social justice, is like my dream institution. I couldn’t have dreamed up a more appropriate kind of opportunity for me. I’m just so thrilled. And of course, being able to do that in New York City which is just a city of availability, the cultural richness, the diversity of the city, everything the city has to offer. I’ve lived here before, so I’m familiar with all of that. I’ve seen how it enables things to be done here.
And just to emphasize that, since I’ve been here, I’ve been so deeply impressed by the students and the faculty — their thoughtfulness, their rigor and devotion to what they do, it’s completely evident throughout every building and every space, every counter.