The WSOA commemorates the impact of the Woodbury San Diego campus
The WSOA commemorates the impact of the Woodbury San Diego campus as we bid farewell to an era, celebrating its vibrant community, innovative spirit, and transformative education. From community collaborations to groundbreaking real estate development projects, the legacy of Woodbury San Diego will endure in our hearts and minds. Let’s honor this milestone and embrace the bright future ahead.
During the schools graduation, Dean Heather Flood shared a heartfelt message with San Diego students highlighting the transformative impact of Woodbury University’s San Diego campus over its twenty-six-year history, emphasizing its role as a hub for creativity and community engagement. The launch of the Master of Science in Real Estate Development (RED) program further solidified the campus’s legacy, emphasizing the intersection of design thinking and urban development. Drawing parallels between Woodbury San Diego and the historic Bauhaus, Dean Flood underscores their enduring influence on design education and urban transformation.
The Full Message From Dean Heather Flood
Twenty-Six years ago Woodbury University opened a San Diego campus to offer the Bachelor of Architecture Degree serving a border community. Located 17 miles from the US/Mexico border Woodbury School of Architecture, San Diego, resides in Barrio Logan, a dynamic neighborhood with a mix of building zones that includes residential, industrial, and commercial uses. The campus sits at the nexus of these building types, absorbing the ever-evolving challenges presented by the confluence of diverse interests and providing creative direction for future development. Community activists gathered on campus for meetings, students designed and constructed interventions in the neighborhood, civic discourse and civic disobedience took the form of Architecture.
In 2007, Woodbury School of Architecture San Diego launched the Master of Science in Real Estate Development program, otherwise known as RED. The Infamous RED program taught students how to monetize creativity while uplifting community, leaving an indelible legacy. Housing the RED program in the School of Architecture positioned design thinking as the critical skill required to transform our cities into more livable, vibrant communities, and demonstrated that progress – in its most positive and productive form – requires an artful take on business practice.
When considering the impact of Woodbury San Diego on design education, I’m reminded of another renowned academic institution, the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was established in 1919 with the mission of transforming industry by bringing together art, design, and technology. Arguably, the most famous, and infamous, school of design in the world, the impact of the Bauhaus did not cease upon it’s closing in 1933, a mere fourteen years after it opened. Rather, the legacy of the Bauhaus, like the legacy of Woodbury San Diego, was and is cementer by its faculty and student alumni who put their education to work, showing the world how important creativity is to living a vibrant life. Alumni from the RED program on our San Diego campus have built over 650 housing units, 20% of which are affordable and with a total value exceeding $260 million.
Thank you to the incredible staff and the faculty who have shepherded San Diego since the consolidation with Burbank was announced. Sandy, Susan, Kevin, Clemente, Robin, Andrew, Slade, and Jesse have kept the campus running. While educators extraordinaire, Jose Parral, Hector Perez, and Catherine Herbst kept the place humming.
To the San Diego students graduating today, we are so proud of you, so grateful for your attendance today and so honored to have you as Alumni of Woodbury University.
Heather Flood
Dean and Professor, Woodbury School of Architecture