Current students, faculty, and staff
OCAD University celebrated 11 faculty members for their dedication and career milestones, including Associate Professor Sylvia Whitton, who is retiring after 40 years, at the annual Celebration of Faculty event, which coincided with the end of another successful academic year.
“Today is a time when we can formally recognize and celebrate each others’ efforts, creativity, innovations and commitment– everything you do as faculty, big or small, to make this place work,” said Vice-President, Academic and Provost Caroline Langill in her welcoming remarks to people at the event.
Guests included OCAD U Board Chair Lanita Layton who extended her sincere appreciation to the faculty members being honoured for their years of service and demonstrating “integrity, imagination and heart” as educators, leaders and mentors.
President and Vice-Chancellor Ana Serrano also acknowledged the dedication and commitment of the faculty members and shared a very special tribute to mark the contributions of Provost Langill, whose term ends in August.
“While we will have many other opportunities to recognize Caroline, I want to extend my personal thanks and deep gratitude to Caroline for her incredible contributions to OCAD U and for her caring and thoughtful leadership – she is truly a much-loved member of our community.”
HONOURING FACULTY MEMBERS ON REACHING YEARS OF SERVICE MILESTONES
Congratulations to the following faculty members for their long service and ongoing dedication and commitment to art and design education:
15 YEARS OF SERVICE
Philippe Blanchard, associate professor and interim dean, Faculty of Art
Blanchard is a Toronto-based artist, animator and educator whose interdisciplinary practice spans animation, installation, light shows, drawing, painting, and printmaking. His work has been featured internationally, with exhibitions and residencies at Proyecto 'ace (Buenos Aires), Open Studio (Toronto), Atelier Circulaire (Montreal), ReformerArt (Shanghai), and the TextielLab (Netherlands). As an educator, Blanchard brings his diverse creative background in film production, visual effects, and studio arts into the classroom, fostering experimental approaches to contemporary animation and visual storytelling. He has held several academic leadership roles and was recently appointed interim dean of the Faculty of Art, with his term beginning this summer.
Roderick Grant, associate professor, Faculty of Design
Grant previously taught visual communication design at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As a designer, Grant has led projects in both global and local contexts. His practice centres on complex typographic, narrative, and material explorations, and he co-runs simonjames, a small studio with his partner Michelle Grant, focusing on architectural, wayfinding and editorial projects. His current research examines the future of design education in a post-pandemic world, questioning its purpose, methods and evolving relevance.
Kate Hartman, associate professor, Faculty of Arts and Science
Hartman is founding director of Social Body Lab, a research and development team dedicated to exploring body-centric technologies in the social context. Her research and practice sit at the intersection of physical computing, participatory art, design research and human-computer interaction. Her latest book is Make: Wearable Electronics (second edition) and she was an artist‐in‐residence at Autodesk’s Pier 9. Hartman’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Dr. Michael Prokopow, associate professor, Faculty of Arts and Science
Dr. Prokopow is a historian and curator who teaches courses on material culture, design history and curatorial practice. He has published widely on contemporary expressive culture, critical and postcolonial theory. His recent publications include Hurvin Anderson (2022), which received the Historians of British Art Book Prize and RESIDE: West Coast Contemporary Houses (2024). Dr. Prokopow is currently working on a study of the artist June Clark.
Dr. Barbara Rauch, associate professor, Faculty of Arts and Science
Dr. Rauch is an artist, researcher, and educator who has taught at OCAD U since 2009 across multiple faculties and programs. She was the graduate program director of the Interdisciplinary Master's in Art, Media and Design program from 2010 to 2017 and continues to supervise graduate research across diverse fields. Dr. Rauch is co-director of the Data Materialization Studio and her research explores the development of emotion with the facilitation of data analysis, using advanced technologies in 3D printing, sculpting and analysis.
Suzanne Stein, associate professor, Faculty of Arts and Science
Stein is a distinguished leader in the field of strategic foresight and innovation who is currently serving as the special advisor to the graduate dean, Strategic Foresight. With a rich academic background, which includes a PhD candidacy in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics, Stein has dedicated her career to exploring the intersections of design, technology and future studies. As director of the Super Ordinary Laboratory at OCAD U, she spearheads research initiatives that examine the forces shaping our future, utilizing foresight and ethnographic techniques to understand emerging technologies and their societal impacts.
20 YEARS OF SERVICE
Paul Dallas, professor, Faculty of Design
Dallas has built an award-winning career as an illustrator, animator and typographer and is a recipient of over 150 international awards. His work is held in the Royal Ontario Museum’s permanent collection. Renowned for curriculum innovation, Dallas developed North America's first undergraduate entrepreneurial thesis in illustration and expanded the program to include courses in concept art, animation, activism and design entrepreneurship. His leadership has driven student success, with approximately 70 per cent of graduates finding employment within a year and over 400 student awards in the past decade.
25 YEARS OF SERVICE
Alexander (Alex) Manu, professor, Faculty of Design
Manu is a strategic provocateur whose contributions have reshaped how global industries understand the nature of change, design and foresight. His influence is as intellectually rigorous as it is practical, grounded in an ethos that imagination is not ornamental but essential – a foundational asset in the architecture of strategic transformation. With a career spanning consultancy, academia, and authorship, Manu offers future-centred counsel to executive teams navigating complexity across sectors, from logistics to media, manufacturing to consumer goods. He has authored more than a dozen influential works, including his most recent book Transcending Imagination.
30 YEARS OF SERVICE
Colleen Reid, professor, Faculty of Design
Reid has held numerous leadership roles, including interim dean of the Faculty of Design (2008, 2016), associate dean, academic (2012 to 2016), assistant dean (2001 to 2007), and chair of Environmental Design in 2000. She is a practising architect and was project architect at Brisbin Brook Beynon Architects, leading major projects such as the Metro Hall in Toronto. Since founding her own practice in 1993, Reid has focused extensively on community projects, particularly for First Nations across Ontario.
35 YEARS OF SERVICE
Francis LeBouthillier, associate professor, Faculty of Art
LeBouthillier is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist, designer, researcher and educator. He has been teaching at OCAD U since 1989 and chaired the Sculpture/Installation program from 2007 to 2012. Known for his student-centred and critically engaged approach to pedagogy, LeBouthillier has taught a wide range of courses at both introductory and advanced levels in the Faculty of Art for over three decades. For more than 20 years, he has also led a parallel research practice developing high-fidelity surgical simulators in collaboration with Mount Sinai Hospital, Women’s College Hospital and the University of Toronto.
HONOURING SYLVIA WHITTON
The Celebration of Faculty event culminated with a tribute to Associate Professor Sylvia Whitton who is retiring from OCAD U after 40 years. She was presented with the designation of Professor Emerit.
A graduate of OCA (before it became OCAD U), Whitton has made significant contributions to the University since 1984, both as an educator and academic leader. She was chair, First-Year in the Faculty of Art and was the coordinator of the Florence Off-Campus Studies Program. She has also been a mentor to generations of students and a contributor to numerous academic initiatives, including Flow.
Internationally recognized as a multidisciplinary visual artist focusing on mixed media painting, Whitton is known for working with a dress motif, which symbolizes feminine experience, memory and personal narrative.
Her works are held in private and public collections in Canada and abroad and she has exhibited across Canada and internationally in Seoul, South Korea; the Guan Shanyue Art Museum in Shenzhen, China; and the Kaiping Art Museum in Kaiping, China. Her recent solo exhibition, Mantles of Gaia, was featured at the Gibson Centre for Community, Arts and Culture in Alliston, Ont.
Congratulations to Sylvia on her retirement!