FAYETTEVILLE : UA graduate named to architecture chair
Posted on Friday, September 21, 2007
FAYETTEVILLE — Standing before a crowd in the second floor atrium of Vol Walker Hall on Thursday, Brad Workman was reminded of his days 30 years ago as a student at the University of Arkansas School of Architecture.
Back then he was defending his class projects to professors and peers.
On Thursday he was accepting an appointment as the first holder of the 21 st Century Chair in Communications Technology in Construction.
“If you were an architecture student, you lived here,” said Workman, vice president of building and plant solutions for Bentley Systems Inc., an Exton, Pa., software firm.
“It’s fantastic to be back,” he said.
Workman, who moved to Northwest Arkansas in De- cember, will keep his full-time job with the firm and work part time at the Fayetteville campus, giving lectures and advising architecture faculty on how to incorporate the latest design technology into their classes, said architecture Dean Jeff Shannon.
Workman estimates he’ll be on campus three or four days a month.
The $ 1. 5 million endowed position gives him access to $ 57, 000 a year, of which at least $ 10, 000 will be used to bring visiting lecturers to campus, Shannon said.
The architecture school uses its five endowed positions differently from other UA colleges. Instead of giving endowed positions to full-time faculty, it uses them to bring in experts who serve in a temporary capacity, often on a part-time basis.
“It allows us to leverage the position for more star power,” Shannon said. “There are four or five people in the world with his expertise.”
The $ 1. 5 million endowed chair was one of 75 endowed positions created during UA’s Campaign for the 21 st Century, which raised $ 1. 046 billion between 1998 and 2005. Those include 46 chairs and 26 professorships.
Endowed chairs typically go to full-time, salaried faculty. The endowment is invested, and a portion of annual earnings goes to professors to supplement their salaries and pay for their research, UA Provost Bob Smith said.
For example, a $ 1. 5 million chair brings in about $ 55, 000 to $ 60, 000 annually in endowment earnings.
UA Chancellor John A. White said Thursday that endowed positions are a way to attract high-profile experts to UA because they offer guaranteed funding, whereas most professors have to rely on grants from outside sources, which are often competitive.
The university has attracted “people who may have never considered coming to the University of Arkansas before,” White said, referring to 58 endowed positions that have been filled.
UA is competing with universities worldwide for faculty, he said.
Workman specializes in integrated practice, a “trend that’s revolutionizing building and construction” by bringing architects and engineers together throughout the design process, White said.
Workman’s firm develops software for designers in a variety of fields, including industry, communications and building construction.
Architects previously used computers as “electronic drawing boards,” but new technology allows them to design three-dimensional buildings, incorporating various elements such as heating and air systems and doing thermal analysis as they go.
“We can build the building and study it before actually constructing it,” Workman said.
The technology is making design more efficient and producing better products, he said.
“It is really to challenge the way in which we’re teaching architecture,” said Lynn Fitzpatrick, director of information technology at the architecture school. Fitzpatrick, who wrote the proposal for Workman’s chair, said technology is changing the way architecture is practiced, and the university needs to keep up. “These students have a completely different way of thinking about design,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think we have a challenge of meeting students where they are.” Workman, a North Little Rock native, graduated with a bachelor of architecture degree from UA in 1978. He spent five years as an architect in Little Rock, where he studied computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He then worked 11 years with Intergraph Corp. before joining Bentley Systems in 1994.
To contact this reporter: cpark@arkansasonline. com
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