The OU Carceral Studies Consortium recently announced the recipients of the Spring 2023 Community-Engaged Micro-Grants and Undergraduate Student Work Prizes. The Carceral Consortium offers two micro-grants of up to $500 to OU students, faculty and staff members to support research, mentorships and community engagement projects. Among this year’s grant recipients are Marjorie Callahan, a professor of architecture, and Kristi Saliba, an architecture student.
The Carceral Studies Consortium is concerned with the political and social systems that organize, shape, sustain and entrench practices of punishment, surveillance, incarceration and harm. Currently, over 11 million people are held in detention globally, with the United States having the highest jail and prison population rates. According to Professor Callahan, the current penal system is characterized by overcrowding and high death rates as a result of illness, homicide and suicide. At the Gibbs College of Architecture, design studios and seminars have recently taken on the challenge to create safe and healthy living environments not only for inmates but also those who visit, work and live in these facilities.
Callahan received the micro-grant for her project Jail Transition Through Architecture and Design, in collaboration with Frankfurt-Short-Bruza Architects + Engineers. The project explores innovative design ideas for future jail facilities that are disaster resilient, help improve circulations to the county courthouse, offer green and healthy living environments and remove constant and inhumane surveillance. The funding will be used to initiate conversations between students’ past findings and studio projects and the actual design firm selected to create the new local jail in Oklahoma County.
Saliba received the Student Work Grand Prize for her project, Beyond Bars and Borders: Refugee Camps as Carceral Spaces and the Architect’s Role in Humanitarian Design Solutions. Advised by Callahan, Saliba’s project documents the harsh reality of African refugee camps and explores how these conditions compare to those of carceral spaces. In her paper, Saliba explains how current architecture supports the negative treatment of both inmates and refugees.
The University of Oklahoma College of Architecture is proud to announce that Model Schools in the Model City, authored by Director of the Institute for Quality Communities, Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., has been named one of ten finalists for the 2026 ASALH Book Prize for Best New Book in African American History and Culture.
This semester, students in the LA 5535 Studio: Ecological Planning and Design, led by Prof. Afsana Sharmin, took on an ambitious hypothetical project to redesign key parts of the OU campus. Their mission: to tackle the critical real-world challenge of stormwater management through innovative green design.
Petya Stefanoff, Chair of the Educational Committee with the American Planning Association, Oklahoma Chapter (APA-OK) and Gibbs College PhD candidate, has developed a new training program for local government officials. The program, focused on land use, zoning principles, and land development, recently certified its first graduates with Certified Citizen Planner status.
