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Senior lecturer Erika Zekos was selected for a 2022 Distinguished Community Engagement Awards by the Provost’s Office. Zekos was chosen for a teaching award for her undergraduate design studios that focus on using community-engaged design to help break down socioeconomic barriers in the architectural profession and prepare students to become engaged citizens, practitioners and leaders. The review committee pointed to engagement projects she has led with the Amherst Survival Center.

This spring, Zekos and her students worked with youth scholars at Amherst A Better Chance (ABC) to design and build a play structure on the organization’s property. ABC is a national residential high school program that prepares for college and leadership roles talented and motivated African-American, Latino, Asian and Native American students from educationally underserved school districts.

Distinguished Community Engagement Awards have been made annually by the Provost’s Office for more than two decades. According to the call for nominations, “This award recognizes individuals within our campus community for their outstanding contributions to community-engaged scholarship and teaching, and campus/community partnerships, with impacts at the local, regional, national or international level.”