Fay Jones School Dean Peter MacKeith to Step Down in June 2026

Peter MacKeith announced that he will step down as dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, effective June 30, 2026, in order to return to faculty and to devote himself more fully to the school's expanding initiatives in timber and wood design innovation.

"I am deeply grateful to Dean MacKeith for his extraordinary leadership over the past 12 years," said Provost Indrajeet Chaubey. "His contributions extend beyond our university and have had a profound impact on our state, our nation and the international design community. Most recently, he led the development of the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation, which will help create affordable housing for our state and region while supporting the timber industry that plays a vital role in Arkansas' economy. Peter's tenure as dean has strengthened our university's national reputation and advanced our land-grant mission, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead as he returns to the faculty."

The university will conduct a national search to identify MacKeith's successor. Plans, timeline and committee members will be finalized and announced in the coming months.

MacKeith was appointed as the fifth dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design in 2014, and he was reappointed in 2019. During his leadership, the school has grown significantly in student enrollment, retention and graduation outcomes, faculty appointments and accomplishments, curricular programs, community engagements and outreach centers, external funded research, new facilities and financial resources. Between 2015 and 2025, scholarships awarded to students more than doubled from $135,000 to $288,000.

"Since 2014, it has been my privilege to serve as Dean at the Fay Jones School and the University of Arkansas, devoting my energies to the good students, faculty and staff of the school, and to the larger project of building the school to the greatest possible level of quality, distinctiveness, impact and reputation, with benefit to students and faculty, to the university and to the land-grant mission of the institution. This nearly 12-year project as the fifth dean of the school has been one of opportunities, challenges and rewards.

"Such a project, of course, is a continuous project for any school and for any dean; fundamentally, I am as much as a steward of the strong foundations of the school constructed by my predecessors as I am of the present and future conditions for the school's ongoing success. The school has been privileged with four preceding deans since its inception as a school of the university; I feel a deep responsibility to that history and legacy and an equally deep commitment to the healthy cycles and changes of leadership necessary for any great school to continue to grow and prosper. Architecture and design culture changes, and schools (must) change as well. I depart from the deanship in the knowledge that the Fay Jones School is larger, deeper, more resourced, more impactful, more recognized and more well known for all its good qualities than when I arrived in 2014."

MacKeith recently guided the design and construction of the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation for the university's Art and Design District. This new facility, opened in August 2025, is a regional center for research and development of new wood products and new approaches to sustainable construction materials. The facility has already received national and international recognition for its design and construction quality; The Architect's Newspaper recently pronounced the Anthony Timberlands Center the 2025 Project of the Year in its annual international awards.

Simultaneously, MacKeith was commissioned in 2024 by the U.S. Department of State to serve as lead commissioner and curator for the school's national and international design leadership role of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale for architecture, showcasing the best of American architecture to an international audience. The work of the school and university was seen in this context by nearly 300,000 visitors to the Venice Biennale over the last seven months.

Recognized in 2023 as an Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Distinguished Professor, MacKeith is a nationally renowned leader in advancing the cause of a forest-centered culture and economy, and the cause of a wood-product centered approach to architecture, engineering and construction. MacKeith is also chair of the advisory committee for the Northwest Arkansas Design Excellence Program, a regional initiative of the Walton Family Foundation, and is a member of the editorial and management boards of Places Journal for architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism. In 2021, the Arkansas chapter of the American Institute of Architects awarded MacKeith the Award of Merit in recognition of his contributions to the state's architecture and education culture. He is a two-time "Design Educator of the Year" (Design Intelligence journal) and a two-time recipient of the ACSA's Creative Achievement in Design Education Award.

A 1990 Fulbright Fellow in Finland, MacKeith is honorary consul for Finland in the states of Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas and in 2014, was recognized by the president of Finland as a knight, first class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland for his contributions to the culture of that nation.

Prior to his role as dean of the Fay Jones School, MacKeith was an associate dean, professor of architecture and associate curator for architecture and design at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. MacKeith also served as the director of the Master of Architecture - International Program at the Helsinki University of Technology Finland, and he held previous academic and administrative appointments at the University of Virginia and Yale University.

MacKeith received his Master of Architecture and the Alpha Rho Chi Medal from Yale University, and he received his Bachelor of Arts in literature and international relations, with distinction, as an Echols Scholar from the University of Virginia.

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