Wellington Reiter

Wellington Reiter
President of School of the Art Institute of Chicago
In office 2008–2010
Preceded by	Anthony Jones
Succeeded by	Walter E. Massey
Personal details
Born	1957 (age 66–67) Akron, Ohio, United States
Children	2
Education	Tulane University, Harvard School of Design
Occupation	Architect, designer, academic administrator

Wellington "Duke" Reiter, FAIA, (born 1957), is an American architect and urban designer, and a Senior Adviser at Arizona State University. From 2008 to 2010 he was president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).

Biography

Reiter graduated with a B. Arch. from Tulane University in 1981, and an M. Arch. from the Harvard School of Design (now Harvard Graduate School of Design) in 1986.

He founded a consultancy, Urban Instruments (1994–2003), and was professor of practice at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1990–2003). He was dean of the school of design at Arizona State University (2003–2008).

From 2008 to 2010 he was president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), before returning to ASU in 2011, serving in a variety of roles, including as 'senior adviser to the president'.

Reiter is particularly interested in the economic, cultural, and sustainability of major US metro areas and the engagement of the colleges and universities that are embedded within them. He was involved in the conceptualization and creation of the award-winning Downtown Phoenix Campus for Arizona State University (ASU). He works to grow the University City Exchange (UCX) and advance integrative project frameworks that fuse university resources with urban development projects to address crucial issues.

He is a national trustee and chair of the University Development and Innovation Council for the Urban Land Institute.

Awards

• Arizona Architect's medal
• Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
• Wheelwright Prize

Controversy

Reiter was Dean at ASU when an African-American Associate Professor, Theresa Cameron, was fired by the ASU President, Michael Crow in 2007, for the relatively minor misdemeanour of plagiarizing parts of class syllabi from colleagues after returning to work after medical leave and being given classes for which she was unprepared. The Dean and the President, in documented email correspondence, did not support her case, against advice from the Faculty Senate which also ruled on two other minor claims. Cameron filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix seeking an injunction against the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona State University, alleging violations of federal civil rights and employment laws that make it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of disability (the Americans with Disabilities Act), gender or race. She alleged her support for a minority colleague, and an earlier appeal to Reiter about her below-average salary, compounded workplace discrimination. Cameron lost the case against ASU on appeal in May, 2011.

Reiter's term as president at SAIC was short, and media reports suggest several clashes occurred as he sought to overhaul and modernize the organization.

Books

• Vessels and Fields (monograph). Princeton Architectural Press, 1996