Nationally Recognized Professor Has Designs on Teaching
As part of the University of Kentucky's Top 20 plan, the university's colleges work hard to attract and retain the best faculty and researchers in their fields. This particular goal of recruiting leading and emerging faculty from prestigious institutions helps UK attain higher rankings and produce students that can compete with graduating classes across the country.
Karen Lewis, assistant professor of architecture at UK College of Design, is one such rising star the university recruited as a faculty member after she completed her master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
As she began to consider a career in higher education, Lewis, whose Harvard thesis advisers included former UK professors, was influenced by their teaching experiences while at UK. Conversations with these mentors about teaching at the university would help shape her decision to join the faculty at the UK College of Design's School of Architecture.
"There is a great lineage of people who have been at Kentucky," said Lewis. "But also of people who are currently attracted to Kentucky (College of Design)."
Since arriving on campus in fall 2004, her work has regularly attracted the attention of not only members of the UK community and statewide audiences, but also national and international architecture competitions and conferences.
In late March, Lewis was recognized again nationally with a New Faculty Teaching Award presented by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS). The national honor, recognizing demonstrated excellence in teaching performance during the formative years of an architectural teaching career, was bestowed on only three professors around the country. The award, presented at the 97th ACSA Annual Meeting held March 26-29, in Portland, Ore., recognized yet again the quality of work Lewis has done as an educator and researcher while at UK.
Such impressive recognition of Lewis, the first UK College of Design faculty member to receive the ACSA/AIAS honor, has not gone unnoticed.
"The ACSA/AIAS new faculty teaching award is among the most prestigious awards young faculty in architecture can receive," said Dean Michael Speaks of the UK College of Design. "No one deserves this kind of recognition more than Professor Lewis. Her dedication to students and to a teaching and research agenda that directly impacts the Commonwealth sets a high standard for our entire college. We are all very proud of her and her students."
As the national award testifies, teaching and research, as well as the UK School of Architecture appear to be a great fit for Lewis.
"I like the research, working with students, and the opportunity to spend more time thinking about my ideas in architecture" said Lewis. "Likewise, the freedom the faculty is given to explore their own initiatives is different here than how it is at other universities. The leadership of the school continues to be very encouraging for people, especially tenure track faculty, to step out and find their own paths."
Lewis, whose design research examines the intersection of graphic and infrastructural systems, has focused on national and local issues alike since coming to UK. Locally, her work has benefited such businesses as JIF, Ale-8-One and the Bluegrass Stockyards, and ranged from a mobile fiber-optic sound sensitive wall for an Ale-8-One anniversary to an exhibit featuring analysis and proposals for the relocation of the Bluegrass Stockyards. Lewis has lectured nationally and internationally and her work has been recognized as a finalist in such international competitions as the National Park Service's Flight 93 National Memorial International Design Competition, which focused on designs honoring those lost on United Flight 93 on 9/11, and the Boston Society of Architects WindsCape Ideas Competition, which focused on designs for an off-shore wind farm in Cape Cod.
