Source: Wendy Ornelas, 785-532-5950, wornelas@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Diane Potts, 785-532-1090, potts@k-state.edu

Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010

RECENT LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT GRADUATE RECEIVES K-STATE'S KING AWARD

MANHATTAN -- Christie Murman Schneider, Glenvil, Neb., has earned Kansas State University's 2010 King Medal from the Architectural Research Centers Consortium.

Schneider, a May 2010 master of landscape architecture graduate, is being recognized for her master's project and report, "River North Greenway: Strategizing a Generation 4 Greenway as a Dynamic Mosaic." It is a research framework and design response for propelling the evolution of greenway design to the next generation. Her work proposed a new framework for the planning and design of greenways, and demonstrates its application to the River North Greenway in Denver, Colo.

The five-credit-hour master's project and report in K-State's landscape architecture program is a yearlong, independent, in-depth study to show the student's cumulative learning experience and application of scholarly methods. Schneider's supervisory committee included K-State landscape architecture faculty members Melanie Klein, Blake Belanger and Stephanie Rolley.

Each member school of the Architectural Research Centers Consortium awards one King Medal annually. Faculty in the four disciplines offered by K-State's College of Architecture, Planning and Design nominated one student from each discipline based on criteria that acknowledged the innovation, integrity and scholarship in architectural and/or environmental design research.

A faculty jury of James Guikema, associate vice president for research; Jeffrey Katz, associate dean of the College of Business Administration; and Denis Medieros, associate dean of the College of Human Ecology, selected Schneider to receive the K-State award. The jury cited her project for its meticulous scholarship, complex literature map, exhaustive design, detailed organization and overall wow factor.

Schneider's report is available in the K-State Research Exchange at http://hdl.handle.net/2097/4101.

Other student nominees, all May 2010 master's graduates, were Amy Dvorak, regional and community planning, Baileyville, for "Health with Planning: A Manual for Promoting Active, Healthy Living Through Community Planning"; Joshua Winter, architecture, Westbrook, Minn., for "Effects of the Built Environment on Mobility for Dual-Sensory Impaired Persons"; and Samantha Lang, interior architecture and product design, Manchester, Mo., for "emPowering The Future: Energy Education and Reform."

The Architectural Research Centers Consortium Inc. is a nonprofit, international association of architectural research centers committed to the expansion of the research culture and a supporting infrastructure in architecture and related design disciplines. The medal is named in honor of Jonathan King, co-founder and first president of the consortium.