M. Victoria Liptak is associate dean of the Woodbury University School of Architecture and associate for academic quality in the Office of Academic Affairs. She served as dean of the faculty and president of the Woodbury University Faculty Association, an elected position, from August 2007 through August 2011. She is slated to serve as interim senior vice president for Academic Affairs in 2012-13. Her long-term interest in advancing sustainability on campus found its first outlet in co-coordinating the Toyota Motor Company Green Lecture Series from 2002 through 2005, culminating in a joint effort with the City of Burbank to bring William
McDonough to speak on the campus in 2005. She served as a founding member of the President’s Task Force for a Sustainable Campus from 2006 through 2009. She was an invited panel participant in College of the Canyons’ 2008 Focus the Nation conference. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from UC Santa Cruz and a Master of Architecture from SCI-Arc. Her research interests include the pedagogy of critical thinking and creativity, faculty teaching effectiveness, and rapid modernization in Turkey. She strives to develop a perspective on humankind and its artifacts that reaches beyond traditional architectural boundaries.