Hal Box [B.Arch. ’50], former dean of the School of Architecture and professor emeritus, received dual honors from The University of Texas at Austin on April 8.

While attending a reception in the newly named “Eden & Hal Box Courtyard” at Goldsmith Hall, the influential scholar was informed he had been named dean emeritus, a title held by only a handful of individuals at the university.

Dean Fritz Steiner’s latest book, Design for a Vulnerable Planet, was released this month by University of Texas Press.

On April 1, 2011, Dr. Nancy Kwallek, director of the UTSOA Interior Design Program and the Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair for Interior Design, was honored by her alma mater, Kent State University, with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her career of interior design teaching, research, and service. The event took place at the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative during a Senior Interior Design Exhibition and Awards Ceremony under the auspices of Kent State University’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Assistant Professor in Architecture Michael Leighton Beaman and former materials lab curator Zaneta Hong’s non-profit design firm <http://gacollaborative.org/>General Architecture Collaborative (GAC) is sponsoring and curating Art = Relief, an exhibit and benefit for Japanese relief efforts. The exhibit is being held at Columbia University’s Studio X in New York. Over thirty acclaimed and emerging artists and designers have generously donated their work to contribute to the relief effort in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the country on March 11, 2011.

Wilfried Wang, O’Neil Ford Centennial Chair in Architecture, presented a lecture at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, on April 17, 2011, on the subject of “Judging Architecture.”

Larry Speck, W. L. Moody, Jr. Centennial Professor in Architecture, is featured on the university’s KNOW website as part of the series of features about the humanities written by professors from across campus. <http://www.utexas.edu/know/2011/04/11/humanities_speck/>Speck writes on “Confessions of a Biography Junkie.”