College of Arts + Architecture

The First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal Committee is soliciting nominations for the 2015 award. This award recognizes outstanding scholarship, creativity and/or research among senior full-time faculty members. Each year the University with support from First Citizens Bank presents this award in order to recognize and foster the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and creative endeavors.

Performing artist CarlosAlexis Cruz is the 2014 McColl Award winner. An assistant professor of voice and movement in the College of Arts + Architecture, Cruz received the honor for the project “Nouveau Sud, Nouveau Cirque,” which translates to “New South, New Circus.”

Logan Creech, Klint Mullis and Elrica Metayer, graduates of the Master of Urban Design (MUD) program, recently won two national student design awards in China. Their project “Ribbons: Redevelopment of Xiangmen Historic Area in Suzhou,” received an honor certificate in the third International Landscape Planning and Design Competition, co-organized by the Journal of China Construction and the International Landscape Design Industry Association.

During the past academic year, the Department of Music has had access to first-class standard and digital pianos through an association with the Rockley Family Foundation.
To perpetuate this program, these instruments, along with those provided other institutions, will be sold Friday through Sunday, Aug. 8-10, at the Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts.
Individuals can schedule appointments to attend a “pre-sale” on Friday and Saturday; a final day sale will be from noon to 5 p.m., Sunday.

UNC Charlotte’s UrbanEden, built for the 2013 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, placed third in the people’s choice voting for the annual Matsumoto Prize for Modernist residential design in North Carolina.
The Matsumoto Prize is named in honor of George Matsumoto, a founding faculty member at the N.C. State University School of Design (now College of Design) who is well known for many exemplary mid-century Modernist houses he designed across North Carolina.

UNC Charlotte has been granted associate membership in the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM).
Founded in 1924, NASM is an organization of schools, conservatories, colleges and universities with approximately 650 accredited institutional members. It establishes national standards for undergraduate and graduate degrees in music.

Amber Carpenter, music alumna and harpist, won first prize in the Rosen-Schaffel Competition for Young and Emerging Artists presented by the Appalachian Summer Festival and Appalachian State University. 
Carpenter graduated from the UNC Charlotte Department of Music in 2013 with a Bachelor of Music in Music Performance (harp) and a minor in voice. She completed a graduate certificate in vocal pedagogy in May 2014.

Works by three artists comprise “CHROMA: lyrical lines and compulsive color,” which opens Saturday, July 12, at the Projective Eye Gallery in UNC Charlotte Center City.
The display will feature color-soaked abstraction in oil paintings by Linda Luise Brown, acrylics and collage works by Marge Loudon Moody and the intricate surface design on ceramic objects and installations by Greg Scott. One of the highest-selling genres, abstract art is often one of the most misunderstood, too.

Melissa Farling and Alan McGuinn, alumni of the UNC Charlotte School of Architecture, will be named Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) at the organization’s national convention being held June 26-28 in Chicago. This AIA honor is bestowed upon architects who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level and who have achieved an exemplary standard of excellence in the profession.

The Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Foundation (CMCF) has awarded the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture a $10,000 grant for the KEEPING WATCH initiative, a three-year project led in partnership with the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.
Working with historians, writers, artists, scientists and environmental experts, KEEPING WATCH is exploring three local environmental issues: plastic waste and recycling (KEEPING WATCH on PLASTICS, 2014), urban streams (KEEPING WATCH on CREEKS, 2015), and air quality and the value of trees (KEEPING WATCH on AIR, 2016).