The School of Global Journalism and Communication will be collaborating with the School of Architecture and Planning in a new landscaping project.
At a press conference Monday afternoon, Dean Dewayne Wickham announced that the two schools will be working together to create a Walk of Fame that will acknowledge graduates of the SGJC, prominent individuals in the journalism fields and anyone who has made an impact on student life.
“There’s so many things we want to do on campus that at first blush you think you’ll have to go off campus to do some of these things but we’re a university,” said Dean Wickham.
“We have a school of architecture just right down the street, so I thought wouldn’t it be a great idea to get the school of architecture – the students who are here, to design this space for us to recognize and honor graduates of our program and those who contribute in other ways to the betterment of student life here on campus.”
The SGJC and SAP held a contest for the architecture students to design the Walk of Fame. The winners will not only get to see their ideas implemented, they will also receive a monetary prize.
Students worked over their winter break chiseling down their concepts in hopes of being chosen as a finalist. Of the many entrees, the finalists were Sam Quick, Andrew Ngure, Abigail Leonard and Chris Schoenster. Each group gave their presentations about their concepts and following that, a winner was announced.
“It feels great winning, going into it we had no idea what was going to happen,” said Sam Quick, a graduate student of the School of Architecture and Planning. “We felt like we had some really strong ideas and concepts.”
With the monetary prize, Quick plans to donate it to the school’s Student Architecture Association.
“We decided early on as a group that we would share the money and donate it to our student association to help support future events,” said Quick.
Towards the end of the event, Wickham announced that the winner isn’t the only one whose work will be featured. He pledged that in some way, each of the finalists will have their designs featured
The first-runner up, Andrew Ngure, whose concept includes putting panels on the wall outside the building that will be engraved with quotes, names of graduates of SGJC and prominent journalists, found this experience to be humbling.
“To come back and see my work, I think I might cry,” Ngure said. “I’d even be more happy to see people actually using this space, to see people in it and see it actually being used the way we intended it to, that would be the biggest satisfaction of it all.”
The Walk of Fame is projected to be complete by October.
