Dear Fine Arts Community,
I write to share an important update about two changes that are forthcoming in the School of Design and Creative Technologies.
Assistant Dean Doreen Lorenzo will retire from UT on Feb. 28. Doreen joined the college in 2016 to launch the Center for Integrated Design, which offered human-centered design coursework to students from across the university. She brought her deep experience and connections in the design industry to help reshape the offerings in our college and to cultivate critical relationships that continue to benefit our students and programs. In 2017, she was appointed to lead the newly created School of Design and Creative Technologies, and she has worked closely with department leadership during a period of tremendous growth in enrollment and program development.
Both the Department of Design and the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies have grown in their own strengths, operational complexity and curricular focus over the past nine years. The evolution has reached a point where allowing them to lead their own academic destinies will best set these departments up for future success.
To that end, we are moving toward separating the Department of Design, led by Karol Murlak, and the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies, led by Michael Baker, into two stand-alone departments. We will be sunsetting the School of Design and Creative Technologies as an umbrella unit.
We’ve already been working over the past year to separate the faculty governance of the two departments, and the academics of both departments now operate independently. I have high confidence in Karol and Michael as they lead their respective departments into this next chapter.
We are also working through plans for the administrative staffing structure to allow it to evolve past the separation. We’ll be separating the communications portfolio, including websites, social media channels and recruiting materials for each department in time for the next recruiting cycle in 2026-27. New websites will be stood up for each department by the start of the new recruiting cycle on Aug. 1.
I want to extend my warmest thanks to Doreen for her steady and transformative leadership in overseeing two emerging departments into maturity. Her industry experience and collaborative relationships, both on and off campus, have been instrumental in building critical support for the school’s programs. She has forged meaningful new connections across campus that increased visibility for the great work happening in our college throughout her tenure. Her warmth and sense of humor make her a joy to work with, and I hope you’ll join me in wishing her all the best as she begins her next chapter in California.
Sincerely,
