November 26, 2018 Five Architecture Students Chosen as Normandy Scholars for 2019
Five students have been chosen as Normandy Scholars Program participants for 2019.
Normandy Scholars are undergraduates from across the university. They will study World War II through the lens of memory studies, a field of study that examines how social, cultural, political and technological changes affect societies’ reactions and commemorations to past conflicts in their national histories.
In all, 16 UT students were chosen to participate, including five of our own students, all from the School of Architecture: Alexa Davidson and Logan Guidera, both in second year; Kari Essary, a fourth-year student; and Elizabeth Ott and Bryan Pickle, fifth-year students.
Ott has a special bond to the program. Her family has a long and honorable history of serving in the United States military, and she is excited to use this opportunity to connect with her family’s experiences abroad.
“I have been taught since a young age to respect and honor those who are protecting our country and granting me freedom,” said Ott. “The program provides a new opportunity for me to further understand how to honor and memorialize conflict sites and hopefully in turn, mold me into a better designer for these areas of representation,” she said.
Ott also plans to take elements of military history and apply it to her future career in architecture.
“I anticipate there will be a time when I will design for a memorial, and I would like to execute it in the correct manor and justify my actions so that the visitor gets the right experience through the design,” Ott said.
This highly competitive and selective program includes a three-hour spring 2019 class and a mini-session study abroad trip to London, Normandy, Paris and Amsterdam during summer 2019. Each student receives a $3,000 scholarship to help pay for the summer mini-term.
“I am hoping to expand my definition of architecture and design in relation to cultural contexts, social dynamics and geographic locations,” Guidera said. “In addition, I am hoping to redefine my own understanding of culture, knowledge of the world and humanity, rather than staying complacent with a mindset that only America can give me, and apply that to my designs in the future,” he said.
Normandy Scholars is interdisciplinary and open to UT undergraduate students from all majors.