Robert Fishman to serve as interim dean at Taubman College

Robert Fishman, professor of architecture and urban planning, has been appointed interim dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Robert Fishman

His appointment, approved Thursday by the Board of Regents, is effective Jan. 1, 2016, and runs through June 30, 2016. Dean Monica Ponce de Leon is leaving U-M to become the architecture dean at Princeton.

In making her recommendation, Provost Martha Pollack said of Fishman, “With his years of experience as a faculty member and his knowledge of the Taubman College, I am confident that the college will maintain its momentum during this interim period.”

Fishman began his academic career as an assistant professor of history in the faculty of arts and sciences at Rutgers University in 1974, rising through the ranks to professor of history in 1988. 

In 2000, he joined the faculty of the Taubman College and was appointed as the Emil Lorch Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning from 2006-09.

“I hope to build on Dean Ponce de Leon’s achievements and to provide the best possible transition to the new dean,” Fishman said.

Fishman is a nationally recognized expert in the areas of urban history and urban policy and planning, with a specialty in the history of suburbia.

Author of two books and more than 50 book chapters, journal articles and book reviews, Fishman is a recipient of the Lawrence Gerckens Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History. 

A former president of the Urban History Association, he was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Paris.

Fishman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Stanford University and a master’s and doctorate degree in history from Harvard University.

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