Two College of the Arts professors recognized as 'Eminent Faculty'

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Foundation presented five Eminent Faculty Awards during ceremonies on Thursday March 23rd. Professor of Visual Arts Brian Kelly received the Leadership and Service Award. Professor of Architecture Corey Saft received the Distinguished Professor Award.

Professor Brian Kelly Receives Eminent Faculty Award in Leadership and Service

The Eminent Faculty in Leadership and Service Award honoree was Brian Kelly, professor of visual arts. The award recognizes a faculty member who combines service learning with classroom instruction to forge skills and knowledge that students can apply to community leadership opportunities. The Foundation presented the inaugural Leadership in Service Award in 2016.

A committee composed of faculty members from each academic discipline, and led by the director of the Office of Academic Planning and Faculty Development, selects the finalists, and the Foundation presents the awards based on the panel’s recommendations.

Brian Kelly, a professor of visual arts and this year’s recipient of the Leadership in Service Award, combines traditional methods of printmaking with cutting-edge technological advances. His efforts have placed UL Lafayette’s printmaking program at the vanguard of the craft.

Kelly is coordinator of Marais Press, the only professional printmaking facility on a Louisiana university campus. It attracts local and national printmakers to UL Lafayette. It is also a laboratory where Kelly fuses his research into nontoxic, alternative and computerized printmaking techniques with more traditional methods. Last summer, he held a two-week camp in which his students mentored middle- and high schoolers in the latest printmaking techniques. The camp helped his students sharpen their teaching skills and nurtured a spirit of service.

Kelly’s prints have been featured in nearly 500 solo, international and national exhibitions since 1988 and has received numinous grants from the Louisiana Board of Regents, Louisiana Division of the Arts and from UL Lafayette. He joined the University’s Visual Arts faculty in 1999 and this is the second time the UL Lafayette Foundation has honored Kelly. He received the Distinguished Professor Award in 2010.

Professor Corey Saft Receives Distinguished Professor Award

The Distinguished Professor Award the honoree was Corey Saft, professor of architecture.  Established in 1965, the award honors educators for their research, teaching effectiveness, and contributions to their professions and to campus life. A committee composed of faculty members from each academic discipline, and led by the director of the Office of Academic Planning and Faculty Development, selects the finalists, and the Foundation presents the awards based on the panel’s recommendations.

Corey Saft is a practicing architect and has been a professor in the School of Architecture and Design since 2003. His peers on and off campus consider him an expert in the field of sustainable design, construction and performance.

One of his most significant designs, the LeBois House and Courtyard, was the first certified Passive House in the South. Passive House is a construction concept that focuses on energy efficiency, internal air quality and comfort, but it had been applied only in colder environments until Saft designed LeBois House.

He is also engaged in environmental initiatives to shore up Louisiana’s fading coastline, projects to design classrooms that are responsive to the needs of students and teachers, and to develop apps that teach green energy concepts to elementary-age children.

Saft envisions “buildings as living experiments,” New Orleans architect Z Smith wrote in a letter of support for the award. “By instrumenting his projects, observing their performance, and making modifications as data comes in, he exemplifies the best in the emerging field of evidence-based architecture.”

Saft also runs the Sustainable Development Lab at the School of Architecture and Design.