Activist & Gadfly. Retired CEO, Entrepreneur, Professor & Architect.

Based in New York City and currently juggling words & actions to fight for justice and against discrimination, bias & hate in academia.

Introduction

Drisin’s career has spanned across both the private sector and within higher education. He successfully led businesses while serving as CEO and President. As a Senior Academic Administrator, he helped universities and organizations achieve reputational excellence. As a professor he taught, and mentored students at a number of public universities.

Drisin’s academic career and character were ravaged after being falsely accused of sexual harassment by a graduate student.  The claim against him was eventually dropped after witnesses came forward and the claim was revealed to have been baseless. Drisin sued his university and the Miami New Times and reached settlement agreements in both.  However, the damage to his reputation from the false accusation was irreparable. Drisin’s experience turned him into a fierce activist for ending discriminatory stereotyping. His activism and philanthropy focus on discrimination & bias, the creation of fair procedures & due process, and on equitable justice.

Drisin holds the Bachelor’s of Architecture degree (BArch) from Cornell University and the Master’s of Design in History & Theory degree (MDes) from Harvard University.

Drisin has been a life-long equestrian and sailor. His free-time is dedicated to riding and competing with his favorite horse Sottomarino, and cooking for his wife Karen and his three stepchildren.   

Biography

Adam Drisin has had a wide-ranging career as an entrepreneur & CEO, as a professor & senior university administrator, and as an architect.

For almost three decades, Drisin served as a full-time professor of architecture at Harvard University, Syracuse University, the University of Tennessee, FIU and a number of other institutions. In addition to his teaching, Drisin served for twenty-five years as a senior university administrator, ending his career in academia as a Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. He has been recognized for his scholarship, writing and creative design work and as a collaborative administrator, a change-agent and a transformative leader of businesses, people, and organizations.                                                                       

As a scholar of design, Drisin is known for his award-winning work as an urban designer and as a thinker and writer about the city. His writing and his design work have been published in leading journals and design magazines including, Abitare, Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, 30.60.90, Domus, Parametro, Professione e Architetti, L’Espresso and the JAE: Journal of Architectural Education.  He curated an extensive exhibition in Italy on the work of Ticinese architects Mario Campi and Franco Pessina and served as editor of the accompanying monograph. His own architectural and urban design work have been featured in the book Pensieri & Mattoni (Thoughts and Constructions) and were exhibited at the Venice Biennale and at museums in the United States, Europe and South America. Over the course of his academic career, Drisin has been awarded over eleven million dollars in grant funding and is the recipient of numerous national and international design awards. He is sought out as an architectural consultant on large-scale urban design projects and has worked with a broad range of public, governmental and private sector clients,   

From 2004 to 2011, Drisin served on the Executive Boards of the Florida American Institute of Architects, and of the Miami chapter of the American Institute of Architects.  From 2006 to 2011, Drisin was a member of both the Editorial Board, and the Design Review Board of The Journal of Architectural Education, the pre-eminent peer-reviewed journal of architectural education. He is a recipient of both the American Institute of Architects’ Education Leadership Award, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s Academic Service Award. 

Following his departure from academia, Drisin moved into the real estate development and construction sector as President of Daedalus Real Estate & Development and President/CEO of AAA Architectural Fabricators.  In these roles he was recognized for his strategic acumen and innovation. Drisin was also recognized for his ability to unleash dramatic revenue growth, and substantial increases in market share, and for strategically positioning companies for merger and acquisition. His last project (as part of a consortium) involved the design, development, construction and eventual sale of what became the most expensive hyper-luxury estate spec home ever built and sold in Florida.  The remarkable project - located in Palm Beach, sold for one hundred and twenty two million dollars.

Letters on Bias, Antisemitism & Discrimination In Academia 

Letter 01

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 On October 27, 1967, a few months after the Six Day War, Martin Luther King Jr. had dinner with students from Harvard University. Professor Seymour Martin Lipset was present and recalled how one of the students criticized Zionists. King was incensed, saying “Don’t talk like that!” and continued, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”

Letter 02

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Letter 03

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Letter 04

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Letter 07

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Recent Essays, Op-Ed’s, Musings & Scholarly Writing 

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