Amale Andraos will step down as dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) in December after seven years in the role. A previous member of the school’s search committee, she was appointed in August 2014. As of July, Andraos will begin serving as special advisor to President of Columbia University Lee Bollinger with a focus on the work of the Columbia Climate School, the university’s first new school in 25 years that was founded in 2020 under Andraos. She will retain her professorship and continue her practice as co-founder of New York-based firm WORKac with her husband Dan Wood. 

“Climate Change is one of the main reasons I accepted to serve as dean seven years ago,” Andraos said in a statement, in response to Bollinger’s announcement on May 20. “I hope that in this new role as special advisor to the president, I will be able to continue to advocate for our disciplines’ urgent transformations so that they may help address the challenges already here and across our shared planet.”