Wigington Scholarship
Created in 1992 as the Minority Architectural Scholarship, this fund was renamed to recognize the extraordinary professional and civic accomplishments of the first African-American municipal architect in the United States and the first licensed African-American architect in Minnesota. This scholarship provides tuition scholarships to minority students who wish to pursue a professional education in architecture at the University of Minnesota, and who hold promise for succeeding in an architectural career. Funding is provided through annual raffles at the AIA Minnesota Annual Convention and donations. Applications are due April 15, 2008.

Wigington Scholarship Application 2008 (PDF)


2008 Ralph Rapson Traveling Fellowship
The Minnesota Architectural Foundation is pleased to announce Stephen James, Assoc. AIA, as the winner of the 2008 Ralph Rapson Traveling Fellowship. The purpose of the competition is to provide young architects the opportunity to advance their education in architecture by pursuing foreign or domestic travel-study. To assist in their education, $10,000 is awarded to the winner. This year’s program, held March 11-April 18, 2008, was to design a mountain sports/activity center in the Afton State Park And Afton Alps Ski area on the St. Croix River. The first jury chose four finalists from among the 53 entrants including: Kendra Wilson Beaubien, Associate AIA, HGA Minneapolis, MN, Mark Stankey, Associate AIA, James Dayton Design Minneapolis, MN, Adam Mead, Associate AIA, Polshek Partnership New York City, NY, and Stephen James, Associate AIA, Kennecott Land, Salt Lake City, UT. The jury members were Joan Soranno, AIA, Martha Yunker, AIA, Will Jensen, AIA, and Nicholas Potts, Assoc. AIA. Each of the five finalists presented their design schemes to the jury.

2008 Rapson Fellowship Press Release (PDF)

The Rapson Competition is sponsored by the Minnesota Architectural Foundation and the College of Design, University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus. For more information on this program, contact Stephanie Pelzer at pelzer@aia-mn.org. The 2009 applications will be due in February 2009.


Minnesota Architectural Foundation Announces 2007 Ellerbe Winners
The Thomas F. Ellerbe Scholarship is given annually to two or more worthy College of Design (formally known as CALA) students in the final semester of their Master’s program. 2007 winners include Jonathan Mason, Matthew Gamache, and Russell Wilson. Each winner will receive $2,000 along with our best wishes for success in their careers. Our three finalists include Meredith Hayes Gordon, Nat Mason, and Ryan O’Malley. There was no award given in engineering this year. Judges’ comments suggested that all participants had portfolios of high quality, transcripts indicating outstanding academic achievement, and supportive letters of recommendation. Congratulations to our 2007 winners and finalists!
 

Leadership Fund

The Beverly Hauschild-Baron Leadership Fund of the Minnesota Architectural Foundation announces Judy Grundstrom, AIA, co-founder of IOTA (Inland Office for Tomorrow’s Architecture) as its first award recipient. Judy will receive $1,500 to be used for tuition at the 2006-2007 Leadership Twin Cities training event, a nine-month program designed to help individuals expand their leadership abilities and use those skills to benefit local communities.
 
If you know someone who is interested in this scholarship program, please encourage him/her to apply. This fund was established to provide support for the development of present and future leaders for our profession, and the community-at-large. We will provide financial support for Minnesota members of the architectural profession, to expand their leadership capabilities, intensify their ethics understanding, and hone their civic involvement skills. For more information, please contact Su Blumentals at sblumentals@comcast.net.

2005 marked a very special event in the history of the MAF and the Wigington Minority Architectural Scholarship: we celebrated the graduation of our first Wigington Scholars. Keon Blasingame and Pauv Thouk received their Masters of Architecture degrees from the University of Minnesota’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) in 2005. We are excited that the faculty chose Pauv as one of only five winners of the Leon Arnal Memorial Thesis Awards.

The Thomas F. Ellerbe Scholarship is given annually to worthy CALA students in their final semester. This year's winners, Jennifer Graham and En-Min (Jimmy) Chang each received $2,000 along with our best wishes for their success in their careers. We are excited that the CALA faculty also chose Jimmy as a winner of a Leon Arnal Memorial Thesis Award.

The MAF is proud to be providing financial assistance through its General Fund to catalogue the vast number of drawings from the career of Ralph Rapson which will be archived at the Northwest Architectural Archives and at Cranbrook Academy.

Ralph Rapson Traveling Fellowship Winners Archive

2007 Nicholas Potts, Assoc. AIA, was the winner of the 2007 Ralph Rapson Traveling Study Fellowship. The program, held March 1-6, 2007, was to design a Center for Global Climate Change where the Will Steger Foundation would house its staff and various educational and outreach activities. The jury selected five finalists from the 39 participants including: Tyson McElvain, AIA; Tim Bicknell, AIA; Nicholas Potts, Assoc. AIA; Benjamin Lindau, Assoc. AIA; and Carly Coulson, AIA.

This year’s jury members were Ralph Nelson, Architect; Herb Baldwin, Landscape Architect; David Eijadi, FAIA, Architect; and David Diamond, AIA, Architect. Nicole Rom, Executive Director of the Will Steger Foundation also participated in the initial jury. On Friday, April 20, 2007, each of the five finalists presented their design schemes to the jury and Nicholas Potts was named the 2007 Ralph Rapson Traveling Study Fellowship winner.

A designer at Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Nick graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2005 with a Master of Architecture degree. While at the University, he co-founded the student journal t/here and studied abroad in Lisbon, Portugal and Venice, Italy. Nick is interested in emerging representation/material technologies and plans for his fellowship to spend time in Europe documenting the work of the early modernists and contemporary practitioners. See the 2007 Rapson Traveling Fellowship Press Release (PDF).

2006 Creed Kampa, Assoc. AIA, was chosen as the winner of the 2006 Ralph Rapson Traveling Fellowship. The program, held March 9-14, 2006, was to design an inner city Waldorf School on a site in Northeast Minneapolis. Kampa graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Masters in Architecture in 1998 and worked for HGA in Minneapolis before moving to California where he is currently working in HGA’s Sacramento office. With his fellowship, he plans to travel to Japan to study both modern and ancient works of architecture and that culture’s building craft. See the 2006 Rapson Traveling Fellowship Press Release (PDF).

2005 Eric Amel was chosen as the winner of the 2005 Fellowship. Eric is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and is a designer at HGA in Minneapolis, and recieved $10,000 in support of his study-travels. Learn more about Eric and his design for a Mexican Consulate in St. Paul at 2005 Rapson.

2008 Board of Directors

John Hamilton, AIA, President

Alicia Belton, AIA, President-Elect
Jim Lammers, FAIA, Past President
Ellen Luken, AIA
Jay Isenberg, AIA, Secretary
Barbara Senness, Treasurer
Sue Danielson Bretheim
Vicki Hooper, AIA
Ralph Rapson, FAIA, Founding Member
Toby Rapson, AIA
Milo Thompson, FAIA
Doug Westby, AIA
Beverly Hauschild-Baron, Hon. AIA, Executive Director