A team of Gibbs College of Architecture faculty, led by professor Somik Ghosh of the Haskell and Irene Lemon Construction Science Division, was recently awarded a $95,600 Homebuilding Education Leadership Program (HELP) grant. HELP grants are sponsored by the National Housing Endowment of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
Ghosh commented, “This grant from NAHB will help us build upon our efforts to educate students across the OU campus about the homebuilding industry and its opportunities.”
According to the National Housing Endowment (NHE), the purposes of the HELP grant program are two-fold:
The OU team, which also includes director of Construction Science and professor Ben Bigelow, professor Suchi Bhattacharjee (Interior Design), and instructor Bryan Bloom (Construction Science), will focus on a number of milestones over the four year period of the HELP grant.
For example, the team will work to create an undergraduate certificate program in entrepreneurship and housing, as well as provide additional education and experience in homebuilding for three faculty members.
The team will also engage OU students, public school students and Home Builders Association members through an annual Open House event related to homebuilding. Graduate student research projects that look at National Association of Homebuilders economics will also be funded, in part, through this grant.
Director Bigelow commented, “This grant is a great opportunity for OU to elevate what it does with housing, and particularly in educating the next small business owners in homebuilding, development, real estate, and design.”
For more information, please contact Somik Ghosh (somik.ghosh-1@ou.edu).
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In May, students from the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture's Architecture, Environmental Design, and Interior Design programs participated in an intensive five-day Studio in Residence at Taliesin West, the iconic winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
