We can’t overlook the gift of gab.  As audiences read less and watch/listen more, well-coached Taubman students might distinguish themselves through their ability to verbally communicate assessments of- and ambitions for- the built environment with precision, elegance and verve.

Education is a war on ignorance, lest we forget our own.  In educating those less fortunate in comprehending what we hold as evident, we should be wary of what we've missed.  Finding the time to listen, as much as we declare, in spatializing new formalities.

App based interfaces have changed the way we live and work. To reach relevant audiences, garner data and be effective, learning new languages will help our professions thrive

A keen awareness in how to register, design with, and observe our environmental surroundings. Our earth and atmosphere are only going to get more stranded, and the world is (hopefully) going to become more concerned and pro-active in living among what was here and is here now. We have a responsibility to this, but also a necessity.

To ward off irrelevance, architecture school's inward focus will be hybridized with "specializations" - a year spent outside of architecture learning another skill set.

China’s ascendency in global urbanism and architecture is undeniable. Like the United States was in the 20th century, China today is where new ideas and cities are built. Taubman should embrace China’s role in the discipline and in the new international demographics of students coming to Michigan. Further, Taubman should extend its global profile by maintaining a permanent studio site in China as a base for faculty and students to work and research and encourage continuous exchange. 

Taubman students will need critical and qualitative skills to grasp changing conditions in an uncertain future. New paradigms will not emerge from quantifying already-known elements. Training in ethnographic methods is already common in engineering design programs, but far more radical social potential lies in Architecture. 

Speculating on the future, modeling scenarios, embracing the ideation that is used in more science based or technology driven disciplines might open up new modes of teaching and also prepare students for a wide range of possibilities as alumnae. 

I believe that to strengthen our visible presence and to enhance our recruitment for faculty and students in the future, Taubman College should explore various levels and scale of global outreach with partners outside the U.S.  We already have relationships and these could be more fully acknowledged and formally institutionalized. The form this could take would be (1) faculty exchanges with other programs, lasting from long visits of 4-5 days, to semester-long commitments; (2) jointly sponsored conferences and workshops that would rotate from (say) Mexico City to Ann Arbor; (3) joint publications on topics that push the boundaries of what we currently understand "planning," "urban design," and "architecture" to be.

TCAUP IN NEW YORK

By creating a satellite of TCAUP in New York City, the College will:

• Reinforce our academic offerings in the context of one of the world’s great cities
• Provide faculty with new opportunities for research and design
• Leverage the city’s rich architectural and planning communities (including TCAUP alumni) for purposes of teaching and learning
• Enhance our desirability for students by providing the option of a semester or two of study in New York
• Bring us to the heart of the nation’s design community to help raise our profile
• Provide a conspicuous venue for the display of our student and faculty work
• Offer opportunities for ties with other UM schools such as Law and Business
• Enjoy new opportunities for fund-raising