Brown will soon welcome back Josef Mittlemann '72 P'00 P'04, an adjunct lecturer in engineering who has spent the past year working with one of New York's leading real estate firms.
Mittlemann plans to commute between Providence and New York City in the spring, balancing his teaching duties with his role as the chief operating officer of Silverstein Properties, the leaseholder of the World Trade Center site.
Mittlemann will teach his popular course EN 194, Sec. 6: "Entrepreneurship and Good Work: Engineering Dreams" -known to students as EGW - and a new course, EN 194, Sec. 25: "Land Use and the Urban and Suburban Built Environments."
In his current position as the COO of Silverstein Properties, Mittlemann manages the internal workings of the organization. He said he looks forward to incorporating his work with Silverstein into his duties as a professor. Students in both of his courses will visit New York City to tour the World Trade Center site and get a feel for the company's operation.
"The World Trade Center project is really a laboratory for what I teach," Mittlemann said. "We deal with transitions from academia to the workplace. We deal with concepts of what underpins coalitions in both private and public sector organizations. The World Trade Center project (represents) the ultimate collaboration - and sometimes lack of (it) - between government, public forces, private enterprise (and) industry areas. It's just so mammoth a project."
Mittlemann added that he misses his students, mentioning that he receives two to three e-mails a day from them. He emphasized the immediate sense of satisfaction that comes from teaching, in contrast to the many years he believes it takes to make a difference in New York.
Mittlemann described the two classes he will teach next semester as "mind-broadening."
"One of the main concepts of EGW is this whole idea of creating collaborations and associations among groups," Mittle-mann said. "What is entrepreneurship, and how does one use it to accomplish the goals or visions that one has? We use these theories and perspectives in the course for students to design and shape their personal life visions."
In the past, EGW has attracted about 100 students each semester, and admission to the course has required an interview. Mittlemann said he usually takes seniors and a few juniors.
"Land Use" will "introduce the development of the urban and suburban landscape from both a public and private sector viewpoint," Mittlemann said. He identified the course's objective as twofold.
"The course will expose the student to sociopolitical and economic forces at work, and how land development satisfies a population in economic growth," Mittlemann said. "It will also engage the student in this notion of creativity and opportunity. How do creativity and opportunity manifest themselves in the use of the environment?"
Mittlemann said the course grew out of a real estate Group Independent Study Project he supervised for four semesters. He emphasized that "Land Use" will not take a preprofessional approach.
"I am very interested in an academically strong class, where we examine ideas of culture and what gives rise to things," he said. "We approach land use and built environment in a very rigorous way."
Students expressed enthusiasm upon hearing of Mittle-mann's return to campus. Enis Taner '06 said he hopes to take EGW.
"Professor Mittlemann does a great job of blending academic theory, practical cases and real-world application," he said. "Now he has a great perspective on what is going on in the world, and I'm hoping to draw from that."
Brad Rifkin '09 said living in Columbia, Md., one of the country's first planned cities, sparked his interest in real estate. He hopes to take "Land Use" with Mittlemann.
"I hope to see if real estate is a direction I want to go in life," Rifkin said. "I've always had an interest in real estate, but I'd never really learned about it."
Both courses will be offered on Mondays - "Land Use" from 9-11:45 a.m. and EGW from 1-3:45 p.m. - and Mittlemann said each course will likely be capped at 24 students.
