The UGA College of Environment and Design welcomes its new dean, Sonia Hirt, with a public reception Aug. 22 from 4:30-6 p.m. in the Jackson Street Building.
Open free to the public, the event is in conjunction with the first Circle Gallery opening of the new academic year, Iconic American Landscapes: Photographs by Carol Betsch.
Hirt, who took the helm of the CED on July 1, holds the Hughes UGA Professorship in Landscape Architecture and Planning. She earned her doctorate in urban, technological and environmental planning at the University of Michigan and was named a Fellow by the American Institute of Certified Planners in March. Before coming to UGA, Hirt was dean and professor of the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
The Circle Gallery features five exhibits per year, with an emphasis on environmental design, historic preservation and planning. Photographs for this exhibit are part of a larger collection created by the Library of American Landscape History and donated to the CED in 2015. Betsch is a nationally recognized photographer of landscapes and uses a large-format wood camera to capture the essence of the places she documents.
