 So I'm with John Hancock, the former professor at that, and I was going to ask you a couple of questions for an interview, and when did you come to UC and what brought you here? I started teaching in the architecture school here in 1978, so that's 41 years ago, and I saw an ad for the position as I was finishing out my graduate degree and it was for somebody to kind of teach architectural history and design, and I said well that looks like a job I would enjoy, and I was familiar with Cincinnati because I had relatives who lived in this area, and I really like the city, so it seemed like a good match, and so I interviewed and they hired me and I've been here ever since. And I guess you could say the interview process was pretty simple? No, interviews for jobs are never simple, it's a pretty competitive field, so there's a committee and they're going on your references, sometimes you know who the references are, sometimes you don't, and you have to give a speech in front of faculty and students, and they take you out to dinner and all this kind of stuff. Oh no, it wasn't simple, but it was a good match, it was a good match there, so. And what are you most passionate about? I mean now, you know, well the thing about being here for 41 years is that I've gone through a lot of projects and a lot of phases and a lot of, you know, I think you can say a lot of different careers while I've been here and different kinds of roles, so I guess I've been passionate about a number of different things over that amount of time. I suppose for the last half of that period, my main passion has been the ancient earthworks of Ohio and doing public education exhibits and documentaries and stuff about those, so it's just kind of a spin off from my architectural history background, but once I discovered that we have these fascinating Indian monuments and ruins here in Ohio, I became pretty thrilled with that and so it's been a lot of time on that. And I'm still working on that because I'm part of a group that's preparing the UNESCO World Heritage Domination for these sites now. What is the ancient earthworks of Ohio? Well, there's dozens and dozens of significant earthwork monuments in the southern half and central part of Ohio. They were built by a culture about 1800 years ago called the Hopewell culture, that's what it's called today. And they're pretty amazing and pretty fascinating, they're huge. Many of them are precisely geometric figures and many of them are aligned to perfect astronomical, you know, sort of like Stonehenge, only even more accurate, they were made by Indians almost 2000 years ago here in Ohio. So it's quite an amazing story, it startles a lot of people who hear about it for the first time. The architecture of these places is, let's just say unusual, it's a little hard to perceive it sometimes, partly because they're so big, some of them are sort of worn down by decades of agriculture. It's a little hard to see, a little hard to understand, so that's why I enjoy getting involved in doing educational media about these places because it was a challenge. And I guess you volunteer for the earthworks? It's a volunteer position now, he has to serve on this committee that's putting the nomination together. Oh wow, that sounds cool. It's something to do in retirement, I can keep doing my professional work to some extent in retirement and that's, you know, just enough but not too much. It's good. Good work, balance. I'm glad I'm not just working in the garden, I never did play golf, so that's not going to work for me. Why did you want to teach at UC? Why did I want to teach? Well I think what attracted me here was, initially it was that this was a good fit for my interests, at the time in 1978 there was a lot of interest in the field of architecture in historical awareness and the design students, architectural design students should know history and they should know it well and they should know how to interpret and how to base their works and principles that are rooted in the historical tradition. So this was exactly my graduate thesis topic and the director of the school at the time was fascinated by this question. He wanted to steer the school, the curriculum in a little bit of a new direction that would take more than into account and so hiring me was one of his sort of agenda things for the school and so it was a really good match, it was an opportunity to do some really intriguing things pedagogically with the coursework and so forth. So it was a sort of tailor made opportunity for me, I felt very lucky because a lot of people in the field who just get out of graduate school, they have to move two or three times before they find the school that they're really going to click with. I was here and matched what they wanted to do with the curriculum, I was able to have a lot of creative input right away. Again, like I said, I knew the city and I liked it, I liked Cincinnati, I thought it was a very beautiful city with a lot of potential and not all that potential had been realized yet in the late seventies but it was a good place So that's what attracted me here initially and then as I got into teaching for a few years I realized the students who come here in the architecture program in Indiana are really amazing. As you may know it's a very very competitive program and so the quality of the students is very high. Co-op program means that they learn a lot of their technical stuff outside the school so we can have more fun with theoretical stuff inside the school and I love that as most of my colleagues do and so it was a really good place to settle in and grow. So you felt like it was a perfect match for you? Yeah, I couldn't think of anything really that could have been better in some ways. Awesome. And then I had different opportunities along the way so eventually I started teaching graduate programs and then I ran a graduate program for a while. I was an associate dean for a while for graduate studies and research so that was pretty interesting too. And then I got a lot of external grant work to do the earthworks stuff so it became sort of a grant writer and museum exhibit designer and it was all kinds of fun stuff that we got to do eventually. What kind of museums did you design? We working with teams of students we designed the exhibit space at the Hopo Culture National Historical Park in Chillicoffee. We could still go there and we could still see our work. We designed the physical exhibit space and then we did a multimedia program as well that featured the earthworks. We did computer model reconstructions of the earthworks. That was kind of the basis for our projects that we did on the Hopo sites and then we did interactive video exhibits. In that case we did the physical space around it as well. Then we got a big grant from the NEH, the National Endowment for the Humanities, to do a traveling exhibit about more of the sites. Wow. And then that was also a physical design about a 500 square foot exhibit that could be dismounted and moved from one setting to another. We also designed that initially with the input of a studio, a DAP studio. We had it fabricated and collaborating with us and setting museum center people. They did the fabrication and they managed the travel so it went to, I don't know, probably 25 different sites around the country. And then it has now been permanently installed in the Ohio History Connections Museum in Columbus. The Ohio History Center, which you probably know well. A little bit. The archeology exhibit, the centerpiece is this thing that we did back in the early 2000s. And what was the graduate program that you hoped for on it? I started directing the Master of Science in Architecture program in the late 80s and managed it through most of the 90s. And then a little bit later, the school started a Master of Architecture that's a program for professional architecture students. The previous one has been called a post-professional program. It's for architects who are already licensed or license-able to do an academic study like history or theory or something. So that's the one I ran initially and then was involved in the EMARC program, the professional program after that. And what was the EMARC program? You said it was a professional program? It's a graduate degree for architects, for people who are going to go on practice. And we said that one up as a response to the sort of trending in the field is that the professional degree that most people expect now for architects is the masters. When I started it was the bachelors. And that's what UC was teaching back in the 70s and for Canadians. So we developed the masters and now that's what most of our students complete that degree. And speaking of UC architecture, did you have any part of building UC's architecture? I'm not sure. The person who made it all happen was Dean Jay Chatterjee. We just interviewed him not too long ago. Well there was one point before it all started, he had been Dean, I don't think he had been very long. He called me up, I think it was before email, and he said, John can you give me a list of 10 or 12 of the best known architects in the world right now? And I was teaching a course at the time called Architecture Since 1966. And this was around 1982, so it was only about 14 years worth of material in this syllabus. So I had some expertise on that and so he asked me for this list and I said it to him. And it had names on it like Peter Heisman, Michael Greys, Aldo Rossi, I don't know if we weren't studying Frank Gehry yet. But you know Guathme and I am paying, you know these people who are in my courts. And then I never, you know, I wasn't any follow-up, I just sat on the list. But then later on, of course, you know what happened, he persuaded President Steger to proceed with the signature architect program. So whether my list had anything to do with that, I have no idea. So that's why I have to answer your question, I don't really know. Because after that, no, I mean they were running and I wasn't involved in anything after that. So I had no official role in it. I just don't know whether that list was the beginning of Jay Chatterjee's research on the question of who to call, which he started doing, you know, right away practically. So you never had any role in actually designing the buildings, did you? No, we spent a lot of time interpreting the buildings in my graduate theory seminars later on. Really? Because, you know, especially our building, especially that building was very controversial, let's say, people had strong opinions about it. And so we would always, there was a discussion topic in seminar, we would consider those points of view and sort of pick them apart and try to compare them and try to say, well, you know, from what point of view is this person reviving this opinion? And so that's what we do in architecture, history and theory. So it was a very fun sort of case study to think about. And we were living in it at the time too. So we could have, we had a different, we could encourage students to have a different understanding based on how they were sort of living in it. Not just being sort of an aloof critic, but what does it mean to actually live in it? Does that affect your perception? So anyway, a lot of fascinating questions around interpreting these buildings, yeah. Okay. And how did you interpret some of the buildings that you see? Like MacMacon, for example, I know it's one of the oldest buildings. The original one? Yeah. Or the one that gets, I don't know, I guess, yeah, they haven't added to that one, I was thinking of, how do we interpret MacMacon? Well, it's a historical period piece. I think it was, you know, 30s, wasn't it? Yeah. And that's when universities wanted to try to make a connection with a certain slice of American heritage, right? Sort of the colonial Williamsburg-y kind of stuff. And so that's what they did. And you know, most buildings up until the 30s were trying to establish their cultural meaning through a, which historical style? Big pick. Greco-Roman or Gothic or whatever. So that's just what's part of that. Okay. Part of that tradition. Okay. And which style did you like more, Greco? And from the historical styles? Yeah. Well, just talking about college buildings, I remember visiting Yale and Princeton and thinking that the, what we called it collegiate Gothic, it's based mostly on a British medieval style for the residence halls, you know, like an old manor house or a courtyard with courtyard plans. And so I always thought those were particularly beautiful. Charming was that they were supposed to be intimate and domestic, but they were really very beautiful. We don't have much of that here, if any, really. But, you know, as an architectural educator, that was sort of, that's sort of back there. I mean, we don't, we don't ever really have taught the styles other than this is history. We don't do them anymore. And how would you describe UC's changes as far as like campus buildings? Spectacular. Even more than the buildings as the master plan, the landscaping, and the way it's all been tied together. When I came here in 78, this was the most, really the ugliest and the most confusing and the most depressing campus to try to walk around on. I mean, there were some buildings that were okay, you know, like, like, it's okay. The old DAP building, the original DAP building, sort of nice modern Bauhaus looking thing was okay. It wasn't air condition, but, you know, I didn't mind the look of it. And a few others. But I remember trying to walk across campus to try to get somewhere, and if you tried to go any further than Tangeman, it was just impossible. You get lost. You try to cut through teacher's college or something, and it was just, I remember just horrible experiences trying to walk across. It was so disorienting and so ugly. There were these brick buildings that sat out there in front of Tangeman. They were old, I don't know what they were originally, but I think they were like chemistry labs or something. They were just derelict, and the spaces between the buildings were depressing. It was bad. So it went from being like the worst campus I've ever seen in my life, physically, architecturally, in terms of being beautiful to, you know, one of the best in the world. And what's significant about that, I think at least for, you know, with my architect what's significant about that is they did not do it in the way that Miami did it, does it? I mean, that's an attractive campus too, in a way, but they do it by just saying everything has to be perfect, brick and white, Georgian, right? So we did it in a much, much, much more sophisticated way by having really interesting contemporary buildings by really talented designers, and all of them are good, and they're all even tap. No, I like our building. And then to bring in Hargreaves and his team for the landscape plan and just weave it all together. And at the same time make allusions to Ohio and its earthworks, you know, and the old waterways that used to course through this landscape and so, I mean, it's absolutely brilliant. So, from the worst to the best. So a transformation like almost beyond belief. It's so good. And you didn't have any part of it, you just... You just watched. You talked about it in our classrooms. Did you wish you had part of it, like some same? No, no, no. You kind of like left that to the higher-ups and CH Energy? Well, in a way, I mean, they're responsible. So they're the patrons, okay? The university is the patron. You know, it's always been the case that great architecture has its patrons. And the patron has to be the client, of course. The patron is what you call Lorenzo de' Medici, you know, he's a patron. But it's sort of the same thing. Patrons who are savvy about design want to hire the people who are going to do the most brilliant designs because then they get the glory, too. Lorenzo understood that perfectly. And I think that's what happened. I hope that this is... It collaborates with what Jay said. I think that's what happened. He persuaded Steger and the Board of Trustees that this would be good for you, see? Which it was. That's right about my problem. You're fine. So, no, I didn't... I didn't wish that I was, you know, helping to design the buildings or anything like that because it was like, no, we gotta take this to another level. I'm sure we're gonna get there. I think a few of my colleagues started this grunt old and some people said, you got a bunch of supposedly good architects on your faculty here, why aren't they designing the campus? Some of them might have felt that. But I was, as a historian, I guess I had that perspective that, you know, if you really want to rise to the top on the international stage, it couldn't just be our faculty doing these buildings. Yeah. And what did you hope students take away from your class? Well, I taught a lot of different classes over the years. So, the first class that I developed and taught was a history of Western architecture. I taught that for 15 years. And what I wanted them to take away from that was the feeling that the traditions of the architectural past are something that they are inheriting as professionals and they should have a mature and responsible attitude towards their own histories, which means that no, they're not going to go out and do Gothic buildings. They're not even going to go out and do classical buildings, although there's a little slice of practice that does that. But there's not going to be that. But that they should respect these traditions and they should understand principles that will help them do better work if they're paying attention to the buildings from the past. Okay. And what about your graduate program? In my graduate seminar, it's that I still have been teaching recently. It's based in a branch of philosophy called phenomenology. And it's not terribly far away from that same point, which is that our experience of the world, our experience of the environment, depends on our having a memory, shared memory, an understanding of the meanings that are embedded in our experience up to right now. And if we're going to talk about how we're experiencing this building, we need to kind of go down into the roots of that understanding. Okay. Our cultural memories, our human memories, even our sort of biological memories are affecting how we understand the effects of light, for example, space, enclosure, and so forth. Okay. So it's almost kind of like a philosophy class, or we read philosophy. We read this guy named Martin Heidegger, who's pretty tough to read. But architects have been reading him for 40 years now. And so I have some ideas about how we should be reading it a little bit differently and a little bit better. And so that's what I teach. Oh, nice. That's pretty cool. And what were relationships like among your colleagues at any time that you see? Generally, generally good. Did you always have someone that you can always go to for advice or for help? Yeah. Yeah, either the school director, who, you know, in the first half of my career, they were sort of the default mentor. But there were other faculty as well that would help you out or help you get published somewhere or something, answer questions about the bureaucracy or whatever it might be. So I always felt like I had what I needed that way. And then the second half of my career, I kind of became that to others. So that was, especially as an associate dean, that's your job is to help people with their projects. So that was good. Cool. And how did you see your response to your needs, like research-wise grants, money? Well, I saw a lot of transformation in that area over the years, like the campus transformed from bubbly to fascinating, wonderful. From my perspective, and I don't have maybe the best perspective on it, but from my perspective, the university's understanding of how to manage, how to help research and how to help with graduate studies, graduate programs also improved a lot. It seemed, it could have been my own inexperience and naivete, but I think in the early years, last time I was trying to run a graduate program, it seemed like there wasn't much help, there wasn't much support. And it was kind of a closed black box, if anything, about how you're supposed to ask for resources or share experiences with other colleagues trying to do the same thing and so forth. It was just a hit or miss. And I'm not going to mention any names about who was in charge in those days. And it was also true in DAP that it was mostly focused on undergraduate education. All the big programs, most all the big programs, except for planning maybe, were bachelor's degrees. And so the little master's degrees like the one I was trying to run were, again, we were sort of on our own in DAP too, where there was a lot of, it was hard for many of our colleagues to understand what graduate education needed and needed to be. And when we started up the MR program, there was a long learning curve about how to do that, what that should be like, what kind of resources it needed, and so forth. But by the time I retired, the last number of years before that, I thought things had improved a lot. I remember during my last years as a graduate program director and associate dean, I think we were working with Neville Pinto, who was then the dean at the graduate school. And things were working a lot better, I thought. Again, it could have been just that I had figured out a lot of stuff by then and through a lot of struggles. But I think there was a better understanding at the university level and a better understanding in DAP about graduate education and research. Okay. Oh, wow. So I would put that right alongside the campus transformation as something that I witnessed over those 40 years. And did you witness a Sander implosion? I was with a group of students in Greece at the time. Oh, really? So we watched it on TV, reruns of it or something. I forget how we got to see that because I don't know if it was the internet around then. I don't really remember now, but I just saw the video of it. Do you wish you were there? No, not really. I was kind of glad to see it go over. What were your thoughts on the building? It was a period piece from the 60s. And most of those are really not that great. It was just there. And that is like the history of Cincinnati. It's history have an effect on U.C.'s architecture on the campus. I'm not sure what you mean. That's kind of vague, I guess. Cincinnati is like city history. Did some of it kind of like influence the design of the buildings? The buildings on campus? I can't think of anything very specific. In general, I would just say that the buildings that were built on campus were a response to the stylistic preferences of the time in consideration of the building type, which is through most of the 19th century and into the 20th. That's how architecture happened. The architect and the client would more or less agree that this ought to be a classical building because, because, because, some precedent somewhere or because it symbolizes the right thing for this kind of institution. That's still what was going on when they built the dam building. Because they built that in their early 50s, I think. What's the most important modern design school in the world that you want to reference in the 50s? You want to reference the Bauhaus. So that's why it looks like the Bauhaus. They made it out of brick. I guess that may have a little bit to do with Cincinnati, but not probably. Brick is a lot more than just Cincinnati. They just want to warm it up a little bit, probably. But basically they built a Bauhaus a long time ago. That was the right way to say, this is a cool design school. How have students changed over time when you were at UC? Well, I think there have been several phases. Initially, I was really impressed with the students. I think we were coming out of the 60s and 70s culture and they were very, they were culturally engaged. They were idealistic. They were progressive minded. They wanted to get out and improve the world. And they wanted to understand how architecture could do that. And like I said, they were very smart. So that was good for a while. And then as we started getting into the 80s, and this is a broad general culture thing too. When I got into the 80s, it seemed like they were more interested in getting out, getting a job, making a lot of money, buying a BMW. You know what I'm saying? So that was another phase. And then the next transformation, I remember after that in the 90s, late 90s, by the late 90s, I remember teaching a research class where the students were supposed to be formulating their thesis project. So we're having discussions about topics and ideas and so forth. And this one woman, a woman from in the class was making a contribution to the discussion and she said, well, during my co-op in Venice, I was, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, she talked about it. And I suddenly realized, wow, these students have been having some amazing experiences that they didn't have when I started here. The idea of an international co-op was, you know, just nobody was doing it in the 70s and 80s. And, you know, by the last decade of my teaching, everybody, you know, at least the top half of the students in terms of talent were co-oping in, you know, Shanghai and Singapore and Paris and London and Barcelona and Venice and, you know, Milan their cosmopolitan knowledge had just exploded just incredibly. So that was the next transformation I saw in the students. Did you like that that type, or that period where students was able to experience more things outside of UC and were able to bring back the experience of UC. Yeah, they became much more sophisticated and designers because of that. And what changes did you witness at UC besides, like, the architecture portion? Well, I think there was the growth of the graduate and research concern that I talked about before. The administrative infrastructure grew a lot. You know, it's there's a kind of negative spin that can be put on that. Administrative bloat, you know? And I'm going to try to stay neutral about it because, you know, I do regret that as a percentage as a percentage of the university budget that goes to hiring research and teaching faculty, you know, that's gone down quite a bit. That's going to the administrators. It's gone up. But let me give you an example. All of these people are four and maybe it's a good thing. Back in 1983, I'd only been here about four years. I decided I wanted to do a international study program that I was going to get together a group of architecture students and we were going to go to London for a quarter, academic quarter, do it in London. I would teach the classes, they would live in the city and so forth. And so I just went to the office of the college business manager and said here are the numbers, here's what it's going to cost. I'm going to invite all these students, when they sign up they pay an extra fee and we go and that's what we did. Then I took the money and I deposited in a British bank and we did the program and everything went fine and we came home again. Now, if you want to do that, a lot of infrastructure I'm not going to use the word bureaucracy because that sounds negative but there's a lot of infrastructure to help you do that and to make sure that all the liability issues are covered to make sure that every little aspect of it is under control and there's a university office I don't know what the vice provost or something there's somebody running that so now in order to do that you need to work with these people and they help. So I'm going to try to say it's good both ways. And in the current climate, legal climate I'm certain that this is necessary. But that's how UC has changed. That's one of the ways that UC has changed probably every university has changed in the same way. And in many, many other not just for international programs but in many, many other areas the same kind of growth of a administrative support structure or monitoring structure or review structure or whatever would have you that has grown much larger. I guess you could say the more students that come into university the bigger the administration has to become to like handle. Yeah, that could be although I know if you looked at the proportions whether it would have grown even more than the proportion of students I'm not sure. But I think the ratio of faculty to administrators and the administrator level has grown a lot. Full time faculty anyway. Anyway, I want to be clear I'm not complaining about that. I'm not an expert on whether that was necessary but probably I'm sure it was to some extent. How have UC's priorities shifted since you started at UC? Well, there's a quip that maybe you're going to hear from somebody else too. The University of Cincinnati by the way I came when it was just a year or two out of being a city university. You know, I can't imagine it now. Being funded by the city are subsidized or whatever it was. I don't know what it was. But anyway, the quip is this that the university has gone from being a state supported university to being a state assisted university being a state located university. Do you follow that? The support is gone. We're nearly gone. It's shriveled up to the level of being assistance. It's not gone but it's way down. The state support is way down. Tuition is way up. Administrative costs are way up. So this is I think I forgot what the original question was. You see the priorities shifted. So this has in some ways been forced upon the university because of cuts from our beloved legislators. So the priorities have shifted to raising money getting private donors naming programs and buildings and so forth after multi-million dollar donors. The job description of provost the job description of deans the job description even of program directors is number one raise money. So that's a priority that in 78 I don't think we were worrying about that. We weren't worried about academics. Just later when you're at UC instead of teaching you're just more focused on trying to raise money for your program. Did it distract you anyway? Well I got interested in writing grants. I mean there was some there was some motivation to do that folks would say well you know we need to get the research dollars up. And of course medicine and engineering are really what's driving the research dollars to the university but I was interested I took it as a challenge to raise money for the humanities, arts and humanities I said sure why not I can do this especially when I discovered these earthworks and said uh-huh this is a question of some public interest and importance probably the NEH would be interested in this and they were. I got a whole string of grants from the NEH totaling about $900,000 to do these earthwork projects very early experiments all the way through to this big traveling exhibit and then we did a website after that a tourism website about the earthworks called The Ancient Ohio Trail and those were all NEH funded so I wouldn't want to say that there was pressure to do external funding but there sort of was at least from you know some quarters to get to external funding up because grants they don't only pay for your project but they provide money for the infrastructure the administrative infrastructure that he was talking about and it trickles down to students I mean we were able to teach some extra classes because of it and so on so it does have an academic impact too how have you seen you see connected like the city of Cincinnati well in urban planning there's been the NEH off studio I think that's kind of a big one and since then I just remember reading about broader initiatives but I haven't been involved in them but I got some of President Pinto's interests and it was also of President Oh No I think or as I know you know it's happening I'm not in on it not following it do you like the connection with the UCNC sure it's an urban university I think trying to live up to that name is significant okay in architectural terms the local architecture firms I think if sometimes that kind of a hard time recruiting our students so that's a city connection that isn't working so well and the reason for that is they all have job offers in Paris and New York and San Francisco and Portland so you know it's hard to persuade them to stay since then anyway they've already spent six years here going to school can you see or can you think of plans or ideas for DAP students to stay in Cincinnati they recruit they have a recruiting fair and of course Cincinnati is going to be a way cooler city to be in for your generation so that's probably helping do you see more DAP students especially architecture standing here or at least staying in the state of Ohio or near Cincinnati I don't know I don't have that data I'm not sure how has faculty changed over time well again I can only talk about our discipline I think that gradually there's been an increasing amount of emphasis in hiring faculty and in promoting faculty on research they talked about so the expectation that a faculty member will have an area of specialty that is publishable and tenureable that has increased over the years and that's I think from most points of view that's a good thing it makes it harder to have generalists on the faculty however in other words people who have a broad overview of the discipline as a whole instead you have an expert in computer software and graphics and you have an expert in 17th century churches or something and you have an expert in this and an expert in that and they all also teach in the design studios most of them so that's different than it was 40 years ago but probably probably for the better do you wish there was more of a service element to the students than there was a research element service yeah like probably more teaching than researching do you mean as an emphasis for faculty yeah no I don't think I really wish that I think the main balance for tenure ability is teaching and research and we have been successful during most of my time there in helping the higher administration understand that in a professional field professional or creative field like architecture research includes doing design work even if it's not built that's a plus that has helped us a lot so no I don't think that as long as there's a balance of teaching and research slash hyphen creative work together as long as there's that balance I think that's what should be service is less typically as a criteria okay and it was hard or some things that were hard teaching at UC specifically at UC or in your program are there any barriers well there were some things in the early days that probably just they don't matter now we had an awful time with instructional technology it was so primitive when I started but nowadays that's of course one of those beautifully it's always smart lecternies and all the rest of that so that's I don't think it's heard about that what was difficult nothing's coming to mind I guess it was okay pretty easy time easy not the word but it was a hard work we all do 60 hour weeks prepping for class the workloads are heavy in our college because we have studios you're supposed to typically you teach a studio class and a lecture class so the lectures, it's 3 days a week you have to prep the studio is 3 days a week for 5 hours at a time so that's 15 contact hours a week plus your lecture plus you have to do your research for your design practice so the workloads are that's my answer the workloads are hard is there anything you're most proud of at your time at UC? I have about, when I had my retirement party I made a list of the graduates alumni that I had mentored for whom I was the main mentor over the years both of the EMS program and there were about 75 of them that I was somewhat in touch with or anywhere they were that we could invite to my graduation party I wanted it to be about I wanted the students there not just the faculty and administrators so when I realized there were that many I think that's what I felt proud of 25 there maybe 25 or 30 that I really do keep in touch with visit them when I go to New York or wherever they live Bucharest, Romania it's wonderful having this network of people that I now consider to be good friends around the world tell me sometimes repeatedly what a wonderful mentor I was and how much they learned and how it helped their career and so that's the the best part of it all I think it's pretty cool that you still keep in touch with your graduate students and are you still working in architecture or are you doing something else outside of it well I'm still working in design and public education doing this UNESCO World Heritage project we just finished a little publication and I was helpful in designing that so a design work not so much me and my wife and I, we had our house so we live in now and we help friends when they need it just informally we're normally not interested in doing anything like practice anymore are your former students still like architecture or still designing many of those people, those 25 or 30 that were roughly all that I mentioned are, many of them are in teaching academic positions around the world those are more of those are from the MS Arc program from the 90s when I taught that and more of the MS Arc graduates that I mentored since then more of them are in practice so it's kind of a mix also just one more question what else would you like to tell me that we already haven't talked about in this interview well I had a few topics in mind that I wanted to cover and I think we covered them all we did excellent questions awesome, so there's nothing really much to talk about nothing left nothing springs to mind alright then I think we're done with the interview I really do appreciate you taking your time on your day doing this interview for our clients I really appreciate it thank you