S|ARC, November 2023

Greetings from the School of Architecture!

Celebrating 50 years of our program has been wonderful, and we are just getting started. Since the beginning of the school year, we’ve hosted a football tailgate, a chautauqua, and an alumni exhibit. Next spring, we’ll host a baseball tailgate, an ��Ҵ�ýapp alumni design awards program, a 50th Anniversary Beaux Arts Ball, and a vertical design review day that commemorates what we do best—design. With notable members of our community joining in, we’re excited about the events and hope everyone is able to travel to Starkville and visit with past professors, classmates, and friends.

All of this festivity has not slowed our regular activities. Our students and faculty have been traveling on field trips; hosting visiting faculty and students from the International University of Rabat, Morocco; and participating in events such as lectures, an Archi-Culture Panel hosted by the AIA Mississippi Emerging Professionals; and engaging in student organization events such as bake sales and fall festivals. Two of our students, Micah Webb and Karlton Wallace, attended the NOMA Conference in Portland, Oregon. Jay Snodgrass, a second-year student, has been selected to serve on the AIAS National Student Health and Well-being Task Force. Associate professor Alexis Gregory has been recognized with a PCI Foundation Community Engagement award. We’ve also been joined by two visiting assistant professors who bring much to the program—Emily McVey and Angela Shyaka.

The Architecture and Interior Design Career Expo will be held in Giles on Thursday, February 15, 2024—please plan to join us! You can register your firm with the Career Center on November 27, 2023, when the registration for the event goes live. We’ll also be sending out information on the 50th Anniversary events this spring, so please watch your inbox. If you know of classmates that don’t receive our newsletter, please let us know—we’re always happy to update contact information and are looking forward to connecting with all our alumni.

All the best,

Karen Spence signature

Karen Cordes Spence, Ph.D., AIA, LEED AP

Director and F.L. Crane Professor

$50,000
for the 50th Anniversary!

The School of Architecture is thriving, with students and faculty engaged in many activities. Student conference travel is a priority to enable our program to be represented and heard at the national level. Support for outside reviewers benefits our students as they hear different ideas and discuss design with practitioners. Funding for school-wide projects, such as the Chautauqua, is also valuable for our program. In order to support these kinds of endeavors and to celebrate the 50th anniversary, we’d like to invite all alumni and friends to help us raise $50,000 for the School of Architecture. This amount of money equates to $1,000 raised by each class. To meet this, a class of 25 graduates would only have to give $40 each. That is not a big ask, but together it makes a huge difference.

Would you be willing to give $50, $500, or $5,000 to help celebrate our 50th Anniversary? All gifts support the students, who make this program wonderful. Please donate today! We’ll keep a record of donations by classes, and we’ll announce those with the greatest donations! Thanks for your support.

50th Anniversary
Alumni Tailgate

Tailgating for the Arizona game in Giles brought together over 100 alumni, with graduates from the first year of the program through the class of 2023. Along with the building to tour and memorabilia to review, the food and friends made the afternoon a great event that everyone enjoyed. We will definitely be hosting more football tailgates in Giles in future years!

See more photos from the tailgate.

50th Anniversary
Chautauqua

Chautauquas were events held in the early years of this program, engaging students and practitioners in a design challenge. The event was named after entertaining and educational activities popular in the early part of the 20th century, with ties to assemblies organized at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

For our 50th Anniversary Chautauqua, Jess Zimbabwe, executive director of Environmental Works Community Design Studio in Seattle, Washington, lectured on community design. Students and faculty were divided into 28 teams and asked to make a construction from six sheets of cardboard and anything else they could find, sited on two steps of the monumental stair. Constructions were to tell a story about the team and the school and had to be connected to their neighbors. Prizes were awarded for the best story, the tallest construction, best connections, most humorous, and best team spirit, and director’s prizes were given for the cheesiest (a large container of cheese puffs) and the most Southern (a box of moon pies).

Teams began working at 3:30 pm on Friday and continued through an all-school dinner. On Saturday morning, teams began constructing. After a pizza lunch, installations began. By the deadline, 28 projects became an assemblage of cardboard creations on the stairs. The result was spectacular, but the better outcome was all the friendships made in the school.

See photos from the event.

50th Anniversary
Alumni Exhibition

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the school, a collection of work by alumni was put on display. Over 80 graduates of the program contributed a small poster showing their work. The compilation is an amazing representation of what our graduates have accomplished. The show was on display in the Charlotte and Richard McNeel Gallery in Giles through Nov. 14 and will travel to the Jackson Center this spring. It will be up again at spring events—please make sure to visit and see it!

2024 Architecture and Interior Design
Career Expo

Save the date!

The Career Fair will be Thursday, February 15, 2024, in Giles! The event registration opens on Monday, November 27, 2023. We’re interested in making connections between students and firms, for spring break externships, summer internships, co-ops, and placement after graduation. Last year we had over 60 firms and over 200 students participating. This year, we are interested in serving your needs to the best of our abilities. Let us know if you would like to participate in a mixer with students the night before or after the fair, or if you’d like a place to interview.

Field Trips

The first- through fourth-year students left campus on Sunday, October 1 to explore architecture!

First-year traveled to Atlanta to see works such as the High Museum and the Breuer Library, taking in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama along the way.
Second-year headed to Kansas City and northwest Arkansas, visiting Safdie’s Kaufman Center and Crystal Bridges, Holl’s Bloch Addition to the Nelson Atkins, and Jones’ chapels in Arkansas.
Third-year traveled to Chicago, enjoying the city by boat as well as exploring IIT, the Robie House, and the Bean, among other landmarks.
Fourth-year flew to New York, taking in everything from Diller Scofidio and Refro’s Shed and the high line to the Brooklyn Bridge and Little Island. Classes also visited firms, getting to hear about projects and practice in those venues.

View photos from all the trips.

International University of Rabat, Morocco

Four faculty members and 18 students from the International University of Rabat visited the School of Architecture for a week to experience our program and discuss the opportunity for faculty and student exchanges. It was wonderful to host them—we held fabrication workshops taught by faculty from both schools, with students teamed together to design and produce Moroccan-inspired geometrical panels. We also showed them the Mississippi Delta, taking them to the B.B. King Museum and a diner before visiting Belinda Stewart’s office. The week ended with the Kentucky football game. A future trip of a contingent of our faculty and students to Morocco is being planned. We hope to have an exchange program in the near future!

See photos from the trip.

Faculty Spotlight
Visiting Assistant Professors Emily McVey and Angela Shyaka

Emily McVey, top, and Angela Shyaka Emily McVey and Angela Shyaka have joined the S|ARC faculty for the year, teaching architectural theory and studios this fall and preparing for materials, History III, and studios in the spring.

Prior to her arrival in Starkville, Emily served as an owner’s representative at the University of Arkansas, working on projects such as Grafton Architects’ Timberland Center. She was also a designer with Hufft Architects in Bentonville, Arkansas. Her talents naturally translate to discussing materials and assemblages with students in collaborative and integrative studio.

Angela is visiting from Poland, after serving as a design associate at Dake Wells Architecture in Springfield, Missouri, working on projects such as Jarrett Middle School and Missouri State University's Mary Jean Price Walls Multicultural Resource Center. Angela’s background in art history and conceptual perspective make her a great fit for theory, history, and beginning studio discussions.

In Memoriam
Freda Wallace Harrison
SEPTEMBER 24, 1938 – NOVEMBER 4, 2023

Robert V.M. Harrison, left, and Freda Wallace Harrison

The School of Architecture is mourning the loss of Freda Harrison, who, with her husband Robert V.M. Harrison, were longtime supporters of the program.

The couple established the Robert and Freda Harrison Endowed Visiting Lecture Series in 2009. The annual lecture series has brought in countless architects and professionals in the field each year, providing an invaluable experience and networking opportunity for students.

The following year, the Giles Hall auditorium was named the Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium through the establishment of another endowment.

“The Harrisons were so kind and generous with the support they provided the school," said School of Architecture Director and F.L. Crane Professor Karen Cordes Spence. "Their gifts made and are still making a huge difference in what we are able to do for future architects of Mississippi and beyond. We are forever indebted to them.”

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to St. Matthews, 7427 Old Canton Rd, Madison, MS, 39110, or the family asks that you consider planting a tree in Freda’s memory.