Associate Dean, Professor Ethel Goodstein-Murphree Named ACSA Distinguished Professor

Shawnya Meyers

Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, associate dean and professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, has received the 2022 ACSA Distinguished Professor Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, an architectural historian and professor of architecture and associate dean in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, has been recognized with a top honor by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture in its 2022 Architectural Education Awards program.

Goodstein-Murphree, Ph.D., is one of five educators selected this year to receive the 2022 ACSA Distinguished Professor Award. This honor is intended to recognize individuals who have had a positive, stimulating and nurturing influence upon students and have produced a body of work that advances understanding of architecture and/or architectural education.

Since the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award was established in 1984, more than 160 professors have been recognized. Past U of A faculty members to receive this award were Fay Jones in 1984-1985, John G. Williams in 1987-1988 and Stephen Luoni in 2019-2020.

Several other Fay Jones School faculty members garnered a significant proportion of national awards handed out in the 2022 Architectural Education Awards program. Honorees were recognized at a small in-person event held March 18-19 in Los Angeles. They also will be announced at the ACSA 110th Annual Meeting, which will be held virtually from May 18-20.

"On behalf of the school to which Ethel Goodstein-Murphree has devoted her academic career, I am so pleased for this recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the discipline, to the betterment of her colleagues and to the improvement of the lives of a generation of Arkansas students," said Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School. "The school is privileged and distinguished by her presence, energies and voice each and every day. Ethel's lifework is situated in this school and this university, but her contributions transcend this good place, having transformed the landscape of American architectural education."

Goodstein-Murphree, who has taught in the Fay Jones School since 1992, is a specialist in American architectural and cultural history. Her research focuses on Mid-Century Modernism, the controversies surrounding its preservation and the importance of placing women in its narrative. Her scholarship has told Arkansas' architectural story to a national audience, but her deepest impact has been made through service on historic district commissions in Arkansas and Louisiana and on the Board of Directors of Preserve Arkansas.

In the classroom, Goodstein-Murphree provokes emerging designers to engage the past as a lens through which the wicked problems of the present must be understood. Her former students include an Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award winner, the director of the Ian McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology, the executive director of the Mayors' Institute on City Design, five winners of the AIA's Young Architects Award and recipients of the New York Architectural League's Emerging Voices Award.

Recognition of her accomplishments include an American Institute of Architects Education Honors Award, the Louisiana Preservation Alliance Award for Excellence in Preservation Education, the Tau Sigma Delta Silver Medal, the Arkansas AIA Award of Merit and Preserve Arkansas' Parker Westbrook Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Goodstein-Murphree received her Bachelor of Architecture from the City College of New York, her M.A. in the history of architecture from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in the history of architecture from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the U of A, she taught at the University of Louisiana. In service to the profession, Goodstein-Murphree has held leadership positions in the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historian and as a member of the AIA/ACSA Research Council.

William Joseph Carpenter, FAIA, Ph.D., a professor at Kennesaw State University College of Architecture and Construction Management, nominated Goodstein-Murphree for this ACSA recognition. Carpenter said that through Goodstein-Murphree's leadership roles — as associate dean since 2009, and also serving as interim dean and interim head of the Department of Landscape Architecture during leadership transitions — she helped to cultivate relationships with the campus community and within the Fay Jones School.

Even though, he noted, it's as a teacher that she shines. "Educating students about architectural heritage and building a preservation ethic into the training of all architects have long been touchstones for her teaching," Carpenter wrote in his nomination letter. "She infuses her teaching with lessons learned in the field and the archives alike, seamlessly integrating the practice of her discipline and the communication of its ideas to her students. Her courses make architectural history accessible, enriching and intellectually empowering both to students who aspire to design practice and to a wider community of university students whose interest in the made environment both deepens their exposure to the humanities and offers a corridor to civic engagement."

Cleary Larkin, Ph.D., now a postdoctoral associate in the Florida Resilient Cities Program at the University of Florida, entered the U of A architecture program in 1994 with an interest in history that expanded to historic preservation under Goodstein-Murphree's influence as a professor.

"For over 25 years, Ethel has been a role model for me, first as my teacher, then as a woman in architecture and now as an academic. She is intelligent and driven, provides support and compassion to her students and is a noted expert in the fields of architectural and urban history," Larkin wrote in her letter of support. "As I embark upon my own academic career, I am proud to know Ethel as a professor and a friend, and I aspire to have a career as impactful upon students and the world as hers has been."

Marlon Blackwell, E. Fay Jones Chair of Architecture and Distinguished Professor at the university and recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, also has taught in the Fay Jones School for the past 30 years. In his letter of support, he noted how Goodstein-Murphree infuses both the classroom and school events with her "remarkable presence, boundless enthusiasm and dynamic speaking." He noted her distinct approach to teaching both in studio and in the classroom.

"Her command of the entire range of architectural discourse is remarkable, moving effortlessly from the traditional to the contemporary, from formal discussions to spatial typologies, from the conceptual to the social, the cultural and back again. Perhaps most remarkable is the way she makes her extraordinary depth and breadth of disciplinary knowledge accessible, relevant and useful to an ever-changing student body."

Paula May Peer, a former student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the 1980s, who graduated in a class that was 95 percent male, said it was impactful for her to study under Goodstein-Murphree, then the only female professor on that faculty. Peer, AIA, is now principal at Trapolin-Peer Architects in New Orleans.

Peer noted that, once at the U of A and then in her role as associate dean since 2009, Goodstein-Murphree helped to build the Fay Jones School into a top design school. At the same time, "Goodstein-Murphree continued to develop an award winning and critically recognized body of writings, publications and public presentations about architectural history, preservation and urban planning. Her exploration of historic precedent has continued to inspire dialogue around preservation and shape my own career," Peer said. "Her dedication to mentorship and equity is as strong as her successes in academia, and is why she is revered as a role-model to so many architects and designers."

Benjamin Ebbesmeyer, a fifth year Honors architecture student, was taught by Goodstein-Murphree for three years in the program. In his letter of support, he noted how she supported and challenged both him and his classmates in their design education.

"Dr. Goodstein-Murphree has made remarkable contributions to my individual education and the education of my peers through outstanding teaching in design history, her research and scholarship in Mid-Century Modernism and its preservation, and her pursuit of diversity, inclusivity and equity in the academy and in the profession," he said.

In addition to Goodstein-Murphree's honor, John Folan was recognized with a 2022 Collaborative Practice Award for "Constructing Inclusivity" and a 2022 AIA/ACSA Practice + Leadership Award for "Empowered Voices: Practice Chronicles." Folan is the head of the Department of Architecture and professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School, and he also directs the Urban Design Build Studio (UDBS).

Stephen Luoni and Claude Terral received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award for the "Housing at Markham Square" design studio. Luoni is a Distinguished Professor and the Steven L. Anderson Chair in Architecture and Urban Studies in the Fay Jones School, and he is director of the U of A Community Design Center (UACDC). Terral (B.Arch. '07) is a Fay Jones School alumnus and a project architect for the UACDC.

Brian Holland also received a 2022 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award for the "Remixing Mar Vista" design studio. Holland is an assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School and coordinates the school's lecture series.

And "UDBS Carb Complex 05," a studio led by professors Folan, David Kennedy and Kimberley Furlong, was selected for honorable mention for the 2022 Timber Education Prize. This was awarded by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the Softwood Lumber Board (SLB). Kennedy is an assistant professor of architecture, and Furlong is an associate professor of interior design.