College of Design News

A new achievement was earned by the Department of Art's MFA '26 student, Elri Friedman, when they were selected nationally for the 2026-27 Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship in Painting & Sculpture and for a Fulbright fellowship.

Meet 150+ unstoppable Ducks who have shaped the university and the world.

For over 150 years, University of Oregon people have challenged convention, expanded what’s possible, and made an impact far beyond our campuses. Every breakthrough, bold idea, and lasting tradition began with an extraordinary person who refused to accept the status quo.

On Thursday, September 10, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek announced the release of a new statewide strategy, the Plan for a Resilient Oregon (PRO). This strategy was rigorously designed and researched to center Oregon communities and their ability to prepare for disasters. The plan's development was supported in part by the University of Oregon's Institute for Policy Research and Engagement’s (IPRE) Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience (OPDR) in collaboration with Oregon State University's Oregon Climate Change Research Institute.

College of Design Dean Adrian Parr Zaretsky talks with "WHO IS SEEN" about the ECC art biennale, Liu Shiming and his legacy, and the ways design and policy enter everyday life.

SAE Students Colin Keiner and Destiny Martinez both won awards in this year's AIA National Photography Competition, with Keiner winning the Fuller Award for the most outstanding photograph for a subject in the United States. Michael Wilkes, BArch '71, earned 5 honorable mentions in the main competition. The full ceremony is online on YouTube.

Colton Rothwell, MFA student and Student Advisory Council Member, recipient of Aperture and Google Pixel’s Creator Lab’s Photo Fund, a Hopper Prize finalist, and a Michael Reimann grant awardee in Photolucida’s annual Critical Mass, has a new exhibition at Solas Gallery opening June 4, 2026. The exhibition will run until the end of the month.

Nancy Cheng, professor emerita in the School of Architecture and Environment, spent six weeks last winter sharing her expertise in timber building design and architectural education as a Fulbright Specialist at Universidad Cientifica del Sur in Lima, Peru.

This year's Lawrence Medalist is artist Brad Miller, BFA '74 and MFA '77. He returns to Eugene in June to deliver the College of Design commencement speech.

PPPM Faculty, Nicole Ngo, recently published research observing the negative outcomes related to aggressive policing and racial profiling. Aggressive policing tactics like stop-and-frisk are linked to worse newborn health outcomes in neighborhoods where such tactics are most pervasive. Babies of non-Hispanic Black mothers had lower birth weights in New York City neighborhoods where police made more on-the-street stops, even when controlling for variables like income and education, according to the research, which analyzed data from 2006 to 2013.

For more than 30 years, the University of Oregon professor and HAA emerita professor, Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, has studied prehistoric Mongolian rock art, illuminating the lives of people who lived 3,000 to 12,000 years ago through the imagery they left behind. She is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject.

Over the centuries, karuta game play and card designs evolved to reflect historical and cultural shifts. Like a detective, HAA PhD candidate, Mew Lingjun Jiang searches karuta art for clues to Japan’s past.

Last term, a partnership with Bora Architecture & Interiors put students at the center of one of civic architecture’s most complex design challenges. This special partnership between the Library Design Studio with Bora Architecture and Interiors, a prominent Portland-based firm working to reimagine community-centered civic design, challenged graduate and upper-level bachelor students to design community libraries from the inside out, working alongside industry professionals on questions that go far beyond aesthetics.

Today’s performance sports gear is made from spandex, polyester and even Kevlar. But UO students have been developing new ideas for an old-school staple: wool.