Fresh Faces: New Director for Rose Art Museum, RISD Names Dean of Architecture and Design

• We're still waiting for an opera devoted to the happenings of a few years ago at Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum: secret meetings, deaccessioning schemes, legal threats, resignations, and finally, renovations! Having clarified the differences between an art museum and an ATM, the university is ready to restore the bloom to the Rose with a new director: Christopher Bedford (pictured), chief curator of exhibitions at Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts. He'll begin his new role on September 15 at the ripe old age of 35. Among his top priorities: to integrate the museum's collection into the university's curriculum and “to commission a major work of public sculpture for the exterior of the museum that connects to ideas of social engagement and social justice," Bedford said in a recent interview. "Those concepts are central to my thinking and to the core ideology of Brandeis, too.” • The Rhode Island School of Design looked across the ocean to find its new dean of architecture and design. Pradeep Sharma, who starts this fall, comes to Providence from England's Bath Spa University. As head of the Bath School of Art and Design, he managed the school's operations, finances, facilities, assessment, academic program development, as well as the student experience, all while maintaining his own ten-year-old design management and consultancy practice. With degrees in electrical and information sciences as well as industrial design engineering—and a doctorate in management in the works—he is as enthusiastic about digital technologies as he is about hands-on studio learning. "Pradeep brings a keen interest in howthe architecture and design disciplines can work together with the fine arts and the liberal arts to inform each other's practice," said RISD provost Rosanne Somerson in a statement announcing his appointment. • Meanwhile, Deborah Bright recently moved from Providence to Brooklyn, where she has been named chair of the fine arts department in the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. The photographer, scholar, art and visual culture historian, author, and administrator most recently served as professor of photography and history of art/visual culture at RISD (where she served as acting dean of fine arts from 2009-2011). At Pratt, Bright is responsible for leading the fine arts department, which offers both graduate and undergraduate degrees. She succeeds Donna Moran, who chaired the department from 2000 until last month.

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Fresh Faces: New Director for Rose Art Museum, RISD Names Dean of Architecture and Design

Stephanie Murg

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Stephanie Murg