Margaret Matz AR’83

Running for: VP Faculty / Student Liaison

Campaign Statement

A pressing concern of the CUAA membership, as it was expressed during Council Meetings, is
to attract a greater participation by younger alumni who do become de facto CUAA members
upon graduation and are always most welcome to join the CUAA. Addressing the interests of
younger membership would become a main focus of this committee for this coming year, if I am
elected to VP of Student/Faculty Liaison.

The primary role of VP of Student/Faculty LIaison involves engaging the Cooper Union Faculty
and Students and reporting back to the CUAA about their status quo as well as about the
academic initiatives which the various schools are advancing. Reciprocally, this role also
involves sharing information about the CUAA with the stakeholders of the overall Cooper Union
community.

The VP of Student/Faculty Liaison role has traditionally been carried out through the
appointments of Liaisons who vary in number according to the governance of each school and
who comprise the committee. Over the course of the past eight years, as the CUAA has
expanded and stabilized, the number of Liaisons has increased and the exchange with the
individual schools has strengthened.

About two years ago the School of Engineering welcomed several new Liaisons and is now
establishing a Liaison representation comparable to the already robust ones which the School of
Art and the School of Architecture already have had for about a decade. New Liaisons remain to
be appointed for the Humanities Department. The auxiliaries of the Cooper Union, such as the
Retraining Program for Immigrant Engineers (RPIE,) the Maroon and Golds, and the CU2AS,
have also been actively engaged with the CUAA (and vice versa) for over the past two years.
It has been very heartening to see these communities grow and thrive even during the
challenging years of the pandemic. It will be a great pleasure to continue to serve the CUAA and
the Cooper Union. I look forward to furthering the lively exchange among all these diverse
communities of the Cooper Union stakeholders through the committee’s efforts. I especially look
forward to supporting our younger generation of alumni this coming year!

Biography

Margaret Matz AR’83 is a New York State-registered architect with more than twenty years of experience in planning and design. She founded Milestone Architecture PLLC in 2010 where her projects include residential, infrastructure, institutional, corporate and retail renovations and new constructions. She has also been involved in the restoration of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Dublin, Ireland, and in Venice and Verona, Italy.

Margaret is a Disaster Management and Hazard Mitigation Expert Consultant and recently worked with the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget in New York City on the Hurricane Sandy Recovery Project. Previously, she served as project architect, project manager, senior designer and executive principal at several architectural firms, including Kohn Pedersen Fox Conway, HLW, and Butler Rogers Baskett.

Her work has been recognized through an Annual Award Interiors Feature for the Carmelo Pomodoro showroom, an Annual Interiors Award for the Yumesaki USA showroom, an Abraham Kazan Award for Excellence in Structural Engineering, and a Peter Bruder Memorial Fund Prize for Urban Design.

She has published and lectured on art and architecture topics both in the US and abroad, including courses at the New York Institute of Technology, the Pratt Institute, and the New York School of Interior Design. She is affiliated with the American Institute of Architects and the Construction Specification Institute New York Metro Chapter, and is a LEED AP certified by United States Green Building Council.

Margaret holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from The Cooper Union and a Master of Science in Art and Design History from Pratt Institute. Prior to being elected President of the Cooper Union Alumni Association in 2019, she served as the organization’s Vice President – Faculty/Student Liaison. She has also served as an elected Alumni Trustee to the Cooper Union Board of Trustees from 2019 to 2021. She also speaks, reads, and writes in French, Spanish, Venetian, and speaks Hindi.