President Buchman

“Come Art Center—meet your own demand,” Dr. Lorne Buchman urged the crowd assembled for his inauguration at Hillside Campus. “Let us bring to our future the very fortitude we exact from those we educate. Some of the same magic that for 80 years, brought to life those gods of design, art and human expression. It’s a mammoth but vital task. We know how to do this—it’s in our DNA. Conjure and imagine things that don’t yet exist. Designers, design your school.”

On Thursday, April 22, Art Center ushered in a new era as it inaugurated Buchman, its fifth president and chief executive officer. Named president last year after a nationwide 10-month search, Buchman is the former provost and president of Oakland’s California College of Arts and Crafts. Most recently, Buchman served as President of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. A trained theater director and scholar, he has held a number of faculty and administrative positions at the University of California, Berkeley.

Graduate Media Design Department Chair Anne Burdick, who served as Department Chair’s representative on the Presidential Search Committee, said that while many leaders in the art and design world were interviewed for the position, just one candidate was both a team builder and a change agent. “Only Lorne had that precise combination of empathy and chutzpah,” she told the audience.

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