Academic Dean Representative to the Board, 2023-2025
Before joining Syracuse University, Speaks was dean of the College of Design and professor of architecture at the University of Kentucky from 2008-13. As former director of the graduate program at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles, Speaks has taught in the graphic design department at the Yale School of Art, and in the architecture schools at Harvard University, Columbia University, The University of Michigan, UCLA, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and the Berlage Institute and TU Delft, in the Netherlands.
Speaks has published and lectured internationally on contemporary art, architecture, urban design and scenario planning. His essays and exhibitions in the 1990s were among the first to introduce a new generation of Dutch architects and planners to a broader audience in North America. He has also played an important role in recent debates about city branding and alternative models of city planning, authoring a series of essays and advisory studies, as well as overseeing scenario studies commissioned by city and regional governments in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Speaks was founding editor of the cultural journal “Polygraph,” and former Senior editor at “ANY” in New York, where he also edited the book series, “Writing Architecture,” published by MIT Press. In addition, he served for many years on the editorial advisory board of “a+u” in Japan, and as a contributing editor for “Architectural Record.”
Speaks is serving the first year of a two-year term as academic dean representative during the 2023-24 academic year. He participates, ex officio, on the Board Academic Affairs Committee and reports to the Board at Executive Committee and full Board meetings.