The School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Brandon Vickerd as Dean, effective July 1, 2025.
A faculty member since 2004, Professor Vickerd is a Full Professor in the Department of Visual Art & Art History (VAAH). He is a widely respected artist, educator and academic leader with a strong record of achievement in both scholarly and creative practice.
With extensive administrative experience in AMPD, Professor Vickerd has served on and Chaired Recruitment & Retention and Tenure & Promotion Committees in VAAH, the VAAH Executive Committee, the L.L. Odette Sculptor in Residence Committee, as well as policy, planning, and student awards committees, among others. He was a key participant in the expansion of the MFA program in studio practice and in the development of the PhD in studio practice at York, one of the very first of its kind in English-speaking Canada.
Collaborating with units across the university, Professor Vickerd proposed and helped implement the first AMPD-specific course at York’s Las Nubes campus in Costa Rica, where he has recently been teaching. He has successfully secured ongoing external funding for York’s Digital Sculpture Laboratory and has worked to advance decolonization, equity, diversity and inclusion in scholarship and practice, supporting communities of practice rooted in equality and respect.
A recipient of numerous grants and awards from municipal, provincial and national arts councils and governments, SSHRC and other institutions, Professor Vickerd is widely recognized for his sculpture practice, which is primarily site-specific and located in the public realm.
With dozens of solo and group exhibitions and public art commissions to his name, Professor Vickerd’s work has been reviewed in both art and news media, and he has presented his research at conferences, festivals and seminars across North America.
Since 2015, he has secured over $2,750,000 in external funding to support research projects in the field of public art. Recent and current projects include Seeing Animals, commissioned by the City of Surrey, BC; A State of Rest, commissioned by the City of Ottawa, ON; The Heights, commissioned by the City of Toronto and the Duke Heights BIA; Alouette, commissioned by Passages Insolites (Quebec City); and Float, commissioned by the Regional Municipality of Halifax, NS.
We also express our heartfelt appreciation to Dean and Professor Sarah Bay-Cheng for her exceptional leadership and service as Dean over the past six years. Her vision and commitment have left a lasting impact on AMPD.
We now look forward to this next chapter and invite the community to join us in welcoming Professor Brandon Vickerd to his new role as Dean.