: Spring 2024 commencement speaker Gail Anderson laughing with A&A Dean B. Stephen Carpenter II.

A&A Dean

Office of the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture

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Welcome
Office Overview
Contact the Dean
Leadership Perspectives Video
Notes from the Dean
A&A Dean's Circle
Movers Shakers...

The College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State

Welcome to A&A

Our diverse community of faculty, staff, students, and administrators is dedicated to the success of our programs and the college as a whole.

As dean, I am committed to supporting the myriad ways creativity and innovation manifest in visual, performing, design, and scholarly pursuits. Our college creates knowledge and reinvents existing modes of meaning-making across a wide range of disciplines.

My vision for the college rests on three key priorities: supporting student success, cultivating a culture of critical creativity, and increasing our influence and visibility. We strive to be an epicenter of artistic and design innovation, research, creative activity, and cultural production.

In the College of Arts and Architecture, we create and reinvent artistic, research, design, and performance possibilities. Simply put, #WeCreate.

I invite you to explore our departments, schools, programs, and initiatives. Join us in our mission to push the boundaries of creativity and scholarship.

Script writing that reads B Stephen Carpenter

B Stephen Carpenter II
Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture
The Pennsylvania State University

Overview of the Office of the Dean

The Office of the Dean provides leadership for the college and all its operations through the administration of financial services, facilities, and human resources.

A primary goal of the office is to provide support to students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends in order to advance the college’s teaching, research and creative activity, and service missions. The office oversees the implementation of college and university policies and procedures, and takes step towards supporting the college’s efforts in reaching its strategic planning goals.

A&A 2026–2030 Strategic Plan

Contact Dean Carpenter

So as a kid growing up with my brothers, we realized that anything we wanted, anything we could imagine, we could probably make. We'd use old copper pipes or molding for baseboards — any items that my dad was saving for home repairs that would allow us to make those visions or those ideas a reality. My parents really encouraged us to think, to ask critical questions, and then to make other possibilities out of what was given to us.

My undergraduate ceramics professor showed me that you could take clay and sawdust and create vessels that would render water with waterborne disease potable. Seeing what is available and making something different out of it, it can quite literally change the direction of people's lives. Here at Penn State, our faculty are encouraging students to look into the world, to recognize structures and systems and practices and question them in positive ways — through their work as designers, architects, historians, teachers, musicians, actors, writers — and transfer that knowledge out into other realms. Regardless of the medium, if they can imagine a solution, if they can imagine a response to a social issue, they can realize it.

Clay just became a natural material for me to use.If you don't like what you have, you can kind of mold it back together and form a new object. If we give ourselves a set of parameters, we're already confined. But if we allow ourselves to even question the initial notion of those parameters, other possibilities open up. That is what we do in our college. We see the world as it is and imagine it in other ways — and then use our disciplinary practices to make those other ways a reality.

I'm Steve Carpenter, and I empower people to question answers and assumptions in order to make possibilities possible.

Notes from the Dean

Archived Dean's Messages

October 12, 2026

The past few weeks have been filled with celebrations of achievement, generosity, and engagement, marked by the dedication of the newly named James P. and AJ Jimirro Playhouse Theatre in the School of Theatre, the opening of the Poblete Studio in the School of Music, and our annual college-wide Alumni Award and donor appreciation events. If any college knows how to fill the first half of the semester with events of recognition and celebration, it is without a doubt the College of Arts and Architecture.

A highlight of the donor appreciation event was my conversation with three Landscape Architecture alumni: Andy Witkin (1979), president and CEO of Witkin Hults + Partners; Philip Adiutori (2002), principal and design director of Studio MÀKIA in Florence, Italy; and Delaney Beal, (2026) who interned at Studio MÀKIA this past summer.

Philip and Andy connected thanks to their continuing engagement with the College of Arts and Architecture. Their casual chats over coffee about how to best set up students for success led to Andy funding an internship at Philip’s firm. Delaney was selected after an application process on campus. She says the experience “fulfilled her educational dreams within Penn State” (see full article about the evolution of the internship and Delaney’s experience).

Student success. Alumni engagement. Faculty, staff, and alumni working together to help our students launch their careers, equipped with a strong Penn State education and the skills, mindset, and determination to pursue their dreams. That is what alumni partnerships can do.

Like the internship at Studio MÀKIA, the Jimirro Playhouse Theatre and the Poblete Studio are examples of the generosity of donors and the commitment of alumni who recognize the role they can play in setting up our students for the next stage of their lives.

The Poblete Studio is part of a commitment from Blue Band alumni Mark and Carol Poblete that establishes the School of Music Wellness Endowment, a fund dedicated to supporting mental health and wellness programs for music majors and ensemble members. Carol, a music teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia, said she and Mark wanted to promote a holistic approach that includes social and emotional wellbeing (read more about their gift here).

Media visionary Jim Jimirro, founder of The Disney Channel and Disney Home Video, has said “communications was my vocation, but theatre was my avocation.” The Jimirro Playhouse, which was named with a gift from Jim and his wife, AJ, reflects Jim’s longtime love of the theatre – he was involved in Thespians as an undergraduate – and his desire to do more in that industry. He decided there was no better place than Penn State to do just that (read more about the Jimirros’ gift here).

I am sharing just a few examples of alumni generosity and engagement. Every time one of our alumni makes a gift, mentors students, or sets up networking opportunities, their engagement matters. Attendance at a performance, exhibition, or lecture matters, too.

Please check our calendar and attend an event when you are in town. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing engagement and support.

B Stephen Carpenter II
Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture
The Pennsylvania State University

Visionary Leaders Creating Success

A&A Dean’s Circle

Mission: To provide the dean with critical feedback and visionary perspective on the current state and future success of the College of Arts and Architecture.

Dean’s Circle Members

Mary Lou Belli

Television director, author, alumna

Emmet Cohen

Pianist, composer

Kim Cosier

Art education scholar, activist, retired professor

John Hoke III

Architect, designer, chief innovation officer, alumnus

Brian Kappel

Graphic designer, entrepreneur, alumnus

Terry Kidd

Higher education administrator, technology scholar

Michael McIntyre

Chief executive officer, creative marketing leader, alumnus

Nicole Robinson

Higher education administrator, music education and diversity scholar

Mark Shulman

Live event producer, alumnus

Jerilea Zempel

Artist, activist, retired university artist-in-residence

two capital letter "A"s connected by an ampersand

Conversations with Notable A&A Alumni

Movers Shakers Designers Makers

In the “Movers Shakers Designers Makers” video series, Dean Carpenter takes the opportunity to talk with A&A alumni about professions, practice and Penn State. From gorillas and activism to pedagogy and Peachy Paterno, the topics are timely and free-ranging – laugh, learn and enjoy.

Watch the Movers Shakers Designers Makers Playlist on YouTube

Watch the latest...

Recent M/S/D/M episodes

Delroy Lindo

Sharif Bey

Dan Barefoot