From Sofia to Athens

Sonia Hirt, M.U.P. ’95, Ph.D. ’03, has traveled across continents and around the U.S. to fulfill her scholarly aspirations.

If Sonia Hirt, M.U.P. ’95, Ph.D. ’03, had not spotted an advertisement for a six-month scholarship in America that appeared in a local newspaper in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1992, her life story would be quite different.

She might not have left Sofia, her hometown, and come to the U.S., where she went on to earn two graduate degrees at Taubman College; launch her college teaching, research, and writing career; serve as a dean at two major universities; and receive a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship. 

Fortunately, Hirt, who earned an architecture diploma at the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Sophia in 1991, decided to take a chance and respond to the scholarship ad placed by the Open Society Foundation. To her delight, her application was accepted and she focused her sights on America.

“At the time, I thought I’d end up in New York or Los Angeles, because those were the only two U.S. cities I knew of,” Hirt recalls. “Instead, the foundation sent me a letter and said I was going to Toledo, Ohio. I called them and said that to my knowledge, the city of Toledo is in Spain.”

During her six-month scholarship, Hirt worked with a Toledo nonprofit that was renovating Victorian houses in the inner city and converting them to affordable housing units. Although the city of Toledo lacked the cachet of New York and L.A., its proximity to Ann Arbor enabled Hirt to visit the University of Michigan campus and explore its many educational offerings.

“I met with the late-Professor Mitchell Rycus at Taubman College, who explained to me the Urban Planning graduate program,” she recalls. “In 1993, I started work on my master’s degree. In the meantime, I met another student, Oliver Hirt, M.U.P. ’95, who also went through the master’s program, and we got married ― and we are still together. It was a great love story.”

Hirt says she is grateful for her experiences at Michigan and Taubman College.

“I loved all my classes and professors,” she says. “I have maintained close personal and academic relationships with three of my favorite Urban Planning professors and advisors ― Jonathan Levine, Scott Campbell, and Robert Fishman ― for more than 20 years.”

Hirt’s long-standing ambition was to pursue a Ph.D. and become a college professor. However, her growing family responsibilities, with the arrival of two additional children, delayed the start of her doctoral studies in urban planning at Taubman College until 2000. 

Embarking on a Whirlwind Academic Career

Hirt’s whirlwind academic career started before she even completed her Ph.D. at Michigan. The University of Toledo approached her and offered her a position as an assistant professor of geography and planning. She didn’t hesitate for a moment and took the job. 

A year and a half later, in 2005, Hirt accepted a tenure-track position as assistant professor in urban affairs and planning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. During her 12 years at Virginia Tech, she took a one-year sabbatical to serve as a visiting associate professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Hirt’s next move took her to College Park, Maryland, where, in 2016, she became dean of the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the University of Maryland. It was a proud moment in her life.

“This was a big breakthrough in my career, to become a dean at a relatively young age, especially being a woman and someone who came from urban planning, a relatively small discipline,” Hirt says. 

“At the time, there were very few women who were deans,” she explains. “It was also very unusual for an urban planner to become a dean, because 90 percent of the time, deans came from the architecture field, a much larger discipline.”

Hirt’s stay in Terrapin territory was a short one.

Halfway through her five-year term at Maryland, she received an offer she couldn’t turn down from the University of Georgia. In 2018, Hirt moved her family to Athens, Georgia, where she became dean of the College of Environment + Design and Hughes Professor in Landscape Architecture and Planning, a position she still holds today.

Fulfilling a Dream

Another of Hirt’s lifelong aspirations was to become a widely published, oft-cited scholar in the field of urban planning.

“I have fulfilled my dream, and I’m currently working on my sixth book,” she says. 

In 2023, Hirt was awarded an esteemed Guggenheim Fellowship to support that work. It was another milestone in her career, during which she has authored, co-authored, or edited more than 90 scholarly and professional publications with nearly 5,000 citations.

Hirt served for six years as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Taubman College under the leadership of former Dean Monica Ponce de Leon and briefly under current Dean Jonathan Massey.

“Being on the Dean’s Advisory Board helped me see from another angle exactly what deans do,” she observes. “While my Ph.D. helped me become a successful scholar, it did not teach me administrative skills. Once I became a dean, I had to learn those skills on the job.” 

After Hirt retires from the University of Georgia, she hopes to set up a Hirt family scholarship, teaching fellowship, or professorship at the University of Michigan.

“I loved my time as a student, because it was a time to explore,” she says. “I didn’t really want to graduate. That’s why I became a professor, so I can always remain a student, as well.” 

— Claudia Capos