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OU Construction Science Professor Bryan Bloom received the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Engaged Teaching. This award recognizes faculty that utilize innovative teaching techniques that promote community collaboration and high-quality, engaged learning. According to Ben Bigelow, “Professor Bloom’s passion is community engagement as a vehicle for giving students an unmatched learning experience. He has sustained his work for five years and, despite the additional time and pressure created by these projects, he persists.”
Since Professor Bloom joined as an OU faculty member, he has continued to develop Gibbs College’s “Design + Build” program. This program gives students hands-on experiences and real-world applications of their classroom knowledge. Over the past five years, his students have participated in a wide range of community projects, including an off-grid greenhouse for a school in Oklahoma City, and a mobile medical unit for the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes.
Dean Butzer praised Professor Bloom for his work: “[He] models transdisciplinary leadership and reciprocity, while also teaching construction best practices to our students. To accomplish this, he brings together key partners, including community members to inform project planning, architects or design faculty to conceptualize the designs, investors and philanthropists to fund the projects, and students to construct the projects.”
Congratulations to Professor Bloom for this well-deserved recognition!
Featured Image: Pictured from left to right, Jerry Puckett, Bryan Bloom and Ken Marold in front of a mobile medical unit, a previous Design+Build Project.
Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to recognize Petya Stefanoff, who is pursuing her doctorate in the Planning, Design & Construction (PDC) program, has been appointed the new role of Director of Community Development for the City of Shawnee, Oklahoma. She joined the city in 2024.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture and Design and director of the Institute for Quality Communities, has received national recognition for her book Model Schools in the Model City. The book has been named a finalist for the 2026 the PROSE Awards.
Gibbs College of Architecture Regional + City Planning Professor of Practice Vanessa Morrison and Associate Professor of Architecture Deborah Richards’ Open Design Collective received top honors at the inaugural BlackSpace Urbanist Collective Studio KIN Pitch Night Competition, held last month in Brooklyn, New York City.
