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Jeff Shannon Receives 2014 AIA E. Fay Jones Gold Medal Award

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Jeff Shannon, FAIA, has devoted most of his career to practicing and teaching architecture in his native Arkansas. Educated at the University of Arkansas and at Rice University, he was dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at Arkansas from 2000 to 2013. He has won numerous teaching awards, including the Master Teaching Award (1993) and Outstanding Teacher Award (1997), both from the School of Architecture, and the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Category of Creativity (1992). As professor of architecture, he continues to teach design studio and popular courses on the history of urban form and design thinking.

As dean, Shannon developed new programs to foster leadership and life skills among students and to enhance diversity within the school. During his tenure, the school was nationally ranked several times as one of the best public university programs.

In 2009, he co-founded the publishing collaboration between the Fay Jones School of Architecture and the University of Arkansas Press, where he continues to serve as executive editor. Recent publications include Architects of Little Rock: 1833-1950 by Charles Witsell and Gordon Wittenberg and Of the Soil: Photographs of Vernacular Architecture and Stories of Changing Times in Arkansas by Geoff Winningham.

In addition, he helped raise over $63 million during his tenure as dean. This money funded the naming of the school after Fay Jones, renovating Vol Waker Hall, the home of the school, and building an addition, the Steven L. Anderson Design Center.

Shannon was chosen as one of the “25 Most Admired Educators” of 2011 in the November/December 2010 issue of DesignIntelligence, a national bi-monthly report of the Design Futures Council.

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