Collegiate Times

Gavin Argo, a second year Architecture student, looks at the displays.

The Inn at Virginia Tech hosted the third biannual College of Architecture and Urban Studies Faculty Research Symposium on Monday and Tuesday.

Presentations Monday ran from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and included speakers from all departments in the architecture and urban studies discipline.

The symposium, organized by Robert Schubert, the associate dean of research, was a chance for all faculty, staff and students to come together and engage in discussion and debate about contemporary research.

"The best part about (symposiums such as this) is finding out what other people are doing," said Jim Jones, director for the Center for High Performance Learning Environments, who presented Monday. "We are all so busy it is difficult to find time to sit and chat sometimes so this is very useful to share our knowledge."

Twelve presentations throughout the day included the Center for High Performance Learning Environments, Virginia Center for Housing Research, International Archive of Women in Architecture and keynote speaker, Daniel S. Friedman, dean of the college of architecture and urban planning at the University of Washington at Seattle.

Of the many presenters, Friedman was the most highly anticipated.

"I'm looking forward to hearing his position on where cities are headed," Jones said. "I don't know if anyone can actually predict that, but it will be interesting to see what he has to say about it."

Monday ended with a panel discussion titled "Envisioning the City on the Horizon: Research and Scholarship in Urban Design." Friedman, along with the dean of students, moderated the panel, made up of various faculty from throughout the college.

"I think it's amazing what people are working on that you don't know about," said Sharon Dwyer, research associate with the Institute for Community Public Health. "You get so wrapped up in your own world and then you get here and you listen to the presentations and it's incredible the range and the variety of what people know."

Heather Chadwick, marketing and communications manager for University Relations, who helped coordinate publicity for the event, agreed.

"These forums are wonderful for the faculty all across the college to see what other faculty members are doing," said Chadwick.  "We get to see all of the collaboration and how things are moving forward; it's very exciting."

The symposium serves as a way for the College of Architecture and Urban Studies to gather faculty and students together in one place to talk and network and get to know one another.

"You know that there are people out there you can draw from their background and their expertise," Dwyer said. "There's no other way, there's no other place really that you can see this range of talent and ability."

The symposium wraps up today with various faculty members presenting papers on nearly 50 topics that they have given outside of the university.