UO professor and student win Civic Engagement awards

EUGENE, Ore. -- (April 8, 2009) -A University of Oregon professor from the School of Architecture and Allied Arts and a student have been selected as Civic Engagement Award-Engagement in Sustainability winners. Brook Muller and Brianna Orr will be recognized at the Oregon Civic Engagement Awards on Thursday, April 23, at The Cleaners at The Ace Hotel in Portland.

The awards are sponsored by the Oregon Campus Compact, a statewide organization promoting civic engagement and community partnerships with higher education.

Muller, an architecture professor, is a recipient of the 2009 Judith Ramaley Faculty Award. He is one of the U.S.'s leading faculty members in sustainable design education. He also is among UO faculty who are members of Oregon Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies Center (Oregon BEST). Muller is the first director of the new interdisciplinary graduate Ecological Design Certificate, which he helped to develop. For the past three years, he has worked with Portland Metro, a regional regulatory and planning authority. He uses architectural design studios at UO to test new incentive-based code for habitat-friendly development. After years working at one of the top international sustainability firms, Muller bridges traditional scholarship and leadership between the public arena and the design profession.

Orr, an environmental studies student, is a recipient of the 2009 Faith Gabelnick Student Leadership Award. She launched the UO Bike Loan program, which has increased access to affordable, reliable and sustainable transportation. She is also the secretary of Environmental Planners and Policy Makers, and a member of LiveMove, a student group focused on active, sustainable transportation.

Oregon Campus Compact is a state affiliate chapter of Campus Compact, a national coalition of over 1,100 college and university presidents dedicated to promoting service-learning, civic engagement, and community service in higher education. http://www.oregoncampuscompact.org/

About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 62 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.

Contact: Julie Brown, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu

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