Director of Academic Affairs Patricia DeChiara Retires After Nearly Four Decades

After almost 40 years at Yale and in her role as Director of Academic Affairs, Patricia DeChiara retired from the School of Art on July 31, 2017. Pat has worked with five Deans from Andrew Forge in the early 1980s through the past year of the School’s first woman Dean Marta Kuzma. Over the years, she has treasured her relationships with so many incredible faculty among them all the named classrooms in Green Hall from Paul Rand (with whom she recalls many wonderful lunches at his favorite deli in Westport with her close friend the designer Philip Burton), Gabor Peterdi (who always sat in her office before his first morning class recounting endless fascinating stories of his early years as a printmaker in Paris), and of course Robert Reed who she considered a dear friend and whose classroom dedication she helped organize just last month.

Over the years, Pat has admitted and shepherded over 2200 students through the MFA program and has stayed in touch with many cheering their accomplishments. Although she is looking forward to having the freedom to travel more extensively with her husband Jim Goodridge and daughter Anna who just graduated from Johns Hopkins University, spending more time visiting family and friends and increasing her volunteer activities (she is currently a Grants Committee member of the Guilford Fund for Education and is Co-Advisor of the Youth Advisory Group of the Guilford Foundation), she will deeply miss working with the wonderful students, faculty and staff who have made her career so very rewarding.