Professors of Interior Design Mia Kile and Dawn Loraas recently received seed funding grants from the OU Institute for Community and Society Transformation. ICAST awarded seed funding grants to seven interdisciplinary teams to aid in the development of their projects related to community and societal transformation.
Loraas and her team members Cian Brown and Megan Jester were granted $25,000 for their project, “The Impact of the Built Environment on Elementary Students’ Social and Emotional Learning.” This project addresses social and structural disparities experienced by elementary students, and assesses the built-environment and social-emotional learning curriculum of an elementary school.
Kile and her team also were granted $25,000 for their project, “Studying the Effects of Playing in the ‘OU Free Play Lab’ on 1st-5th Graders’ Overall Well-being.” This project will pilot test and quantify developmental, behavioral, neural and child well-being outcomes of introducing the OU Free Play Lab into a public school setting where children can engage in free play on a weekly basis.
Learn more about the projects and see the full list of grant recipients.
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.
