Dr. C. Aujean Lee, an Assistant Professor in the Regional + City Planning Division, recently published an article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research titled “Who Gets Hired at the Top?: The Academic Caste System Theory in the Planning Academy.” The article is the first to examine detailed faculty demographics and impacts of elite hiring networks among planning faculty, where nearly half of planning faculty graduated from five universities. The article was funded by the OU Inequities in the Academic Research and Creative Activity Enterprise Rapid Response Research Seed Grant program.
The abstract of the article explains, “Faculty are predominantly hired in similar or lower ranking programs with little upward mobility, after accounting for demographics and program factors. While race and gender did not have a significant relationship to placements, the findings demonstrate how status-based inequities are perpetuated through elite programs and constrain faculty representation.”
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.
