When Charles Sappenfield was hired as the founding dean of Ball State's College of Architecture and Planning, he knew it was going to be a challenge.
He commuted back and forth to Ball State on short visits for part of his first year as dean due to the fact that his wife was pregnant, and they wanted to wait until after the baby was born to move.
The faculty of only four members, himself included, worked out of Quonset huts, or military armories, that were used as classrooms, studios, faculty offices and workshops, until a new architecture building could be constructed.
Sappenfield made it through these trials, however, and looking back on his experience 40 years later, he said his fondest memory is of that first graduating class.
"They were the ones we'd spent the time with, and we were anxious to see how they'd do out in the profession," he said
Today CAP is celebrating its growth and achievements in the past 40 years, starting from the first graduating class to its current national recognition as one of the top architecture schools in the country, current Dean Joseph Bilello said.
"We're celebrating the achievements of 3,200 alumni," he said. "We're celebrating a 40-year legacy that has come a great distance very quickly."
MAKING OF CAP
In the 1960s, professionals in Indiana realized the need for an architecture program at one of the state's universities. They began pushing a bill through the state legislature for a program to be established, Sappenfield said.
Indiana and Purdue universities both offered to make the program a department in an already existing college, but Ball State offered to make the program its own college in the university, he said.
At that time, Ball State was changing from a teacher's college into a university because the administration felt the college had a broader mission, Bilello said.
The state legislature passed the bill, and Ball State's CAP was founded in 1965.
"It was clearly of greater value to Ball State," he said. "The first dean was charged with making a very exemplary program."
Bilello said Sappenfield was given a fair amount of license to be creative with the program.
"It took a lot of wonderful help from everybody at Ball State," Sappenfield said.
CAP accepted all 150 students who applied, and 95 were left by the end of the first year. After that, CAP limited its selection to 120 students a year.
The building in which CAP currently resides was established by funding from the original bill passed by the legislature, he said.
Bilello said the professors who worked in the Quonset huts refer to the new building as "the palace."
"Partially, what we hoped to do with our students is to have a building that teaches them," he said, and the building was originally designed with a solar space roof and to be naturally ventilating.
HANDS-ON PROGRAMS
Hands-on learning and experience in the work field are the foundation for CAP's programs, Bilello said.
"We prepare people to practice," he said. "We haven't deviated from it, and we're still committed to it."
The college's Community-Based Programs provide one way for students go out into local communities to get hands-on experience.
"We've been in just about every nook and cranny of Indiana, and we use the state as our classroom," Jon Coddington, chairperson of the department of architecture, said. "Our students have been to those places and made contributions to those places."
Zachary Hilleson, a fifth-year architecture student, said that CBP lets students step outside the studio to experience new situations within the community.
"It brings a lot of reality to what architects do and allows us to test the way we design and test the way we present information to the community members," he said.
Sappenfield said the first CBP was in Mitchell, Ind., where students thought of 95 solutions on how to build a memorial for Gus Grissom, a former NASA astronaut.
Sappenfield said the first CBP based in Muncie began in 1967, and the city has been a site for student work ever since.
"Being able to work a long time in a community ensures that we can actually make change happen," Bilello said.
CAP is involved in community outreach all over the state, but CAP's influence doesn't stop in Indiana or in the Midwest.
"We aspire to have every student have an international experience as part of their education," Bilello said. "There are not a lot of programs out there that make that effort."
He said in order to see great architecture, students need to go elsewhere, because other places in the world have resources beyond anything Ball State has.
"The students need to see how other people solve problems, both currently and historically," Sappenfield said.
Hilleson said that the ability to travel as part of his educational experience has been a wonderful opportunity. Since he's been at Ball State, Hilleson said he has traveled to different parts of the United States and Canada and went on a trip around the world.
MOVING FORWARD
Even though the college is successful already, Coddington said the administration is continuing to look for ways to improve CAP.
"We will be working hard to confront those issues that concern not only us, but society," he said. The programs at CAP challenge students on issues such as sustainability, urban sprawl and pollution.
Bilello said CAP has the opportunity to improve by hiring more distinguished professors, bringing state of the art technology into the building and implementing new programs.
One example is the masters of architecture degree program CAP is starting this year, he said. The new program switches the current five-year professional degree program to a four-year bachelor's degree program for which students must then go another two years to get a professional graduate degree.
Hilleson said the new program can be successful for the college, but he also stressed the importance of the programs already in place for CAP.
"They need to make sure they maintain a lot of the things that make them successful," Hilleson said such as the travel programs, internship programs and CBPs.
Sappenfield said the students keep getting better and better, and he hopes CAP is also getting better at satisfying their educational needs.
Hilleson said attending Ball State was one of the best decisions of his college career.
"Ball State provides a very well-rounded architecture education," he said.
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