Office of the Provost

Provost and Academic Vice President
julia.halevy@the-bac.edu

Julia Halevy is Provost and Academic Vice President of the Boston Architectural College. She received her bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Mount Holyoke College, and her Doctor of Pedagogy, with highest distinction and honors, from the University of Florence, Italy, where she lived for more than twelve years. Julia has also completed advanced training in family and cognitive/ behavioral therapies and is a licensed psychologist in Massachusetts.

Prior to joining the BAC in 2009, Julia was Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences at Lesley University for five years, and had served Antioch University at its graduate campus in Keene, New Hampshire for twenty-one years. At Lesley, Julia fostered the development of several new academic programs and was the Founding Chair of the University Graduate Council, a group serving cross-university doctoral programs' policies and procedures, visions and values. She also served as Chair of the Academic Advising Task Force, defining a university-wide mission, standards, assessment and workload related to all advising functions. At Antioch, she founded both a master's program in Marriage and Family Therapy and the school-wide Diversity Committee. Julia has also published articles and book chapters on social network intervention and strategies for teaching courses on diversity.

Having worked for many years in institutions that provide professional education through the integration of theory and practice, Julia is familiar with nontraditional instruction and is well-versed in translating between the entrepreneurial spirit that sustains these programs and the requirements of the accrediting bodies that approve them. Over many years of consulting to nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions, Julia worked to support the development of collaborative management practices that enhance capacity to welcome and sustain inclusivity. She focuses on team-building, collective and responsible fiscal practices, and innovative program development.

Plans for interim changes in curriculum across BAC degree programs have been completed, and coursework with course descriptions have also been developed for the full rollout of curricular revisions in fall of 2013. All on-site programs will be shortened through the offering of summer courses and decreased hours required to complete Practice. A new tuition structure has been developed to allow students to take a higher number of credits each semester, and systems for examining and awarding credit for more courses through Prior Learning Assessment are being planned. Concurrent tuition has been expanded to include students who take 10.5 credits (instead of 10), and a new full-time tuition rate for students taking 11-15 credits has been developed in order to set the stage for the offering of the full curriculum revisions in fall of 2013.

In fall of 2012, many of the features of the revised curriculum were offered to students in all programs, both those who are newly entering and those who are continuing. The Heads and the Advising Team are working with students to make sure they understand their options. City Lab was offered to a volunteer group of graduate student in the fall and will be offered again on a volunteer basis to graduate students this semester.

Additionally, Heads of Schools Karen Nelson and Don Hunsicker have planned a shortened sequence of study for students to complete a BDS/M.Arch in a 4.5+ 2-year format; significant changes are occurring for the BDS and both graduate and undergraduate degree programs in Landscape Architecture and Interior Design:
Both the BID and the BLA will be offered as 5-year programs.

• The BDS will be offered as a 4-year program with majors in five areas of study.
• The MLA will be offered as a 3-year program.
• The MID will be offered as a 3.5-year program
• The M.Arch is shortening the length of Thesis and placing Comprehensive Design in Advanced Studio as well as integrating site design into the studios.

All programs will experience a more thoroughly transdisciplinary Foundation studio that integrates its teaching with the rest of the curriculum, and, in a most focused way, with the courses in media arts and design computing.

Practice has - and will continue - to change radically at the BAC. While the Practice Department continues to track IDP, NCIDQ and practice hours toward graduation, as well as to monitor and record students' skills levels, it has expanded significantly. City Lab is run out of the Practice Department, and a required, Community Practice project involvement will be required of every incoming student during their second semester of study starting in the 2013-14 academic year. Gateway projects, many of which are community based, are offered to advanced students, as well, and in the revised curriculum, students will be required to participate in at least one such opportunity.