Perkins Distinguished Teaching Award for Standing Faculty

Randy Mason

Randy Mason, associate professor of historic preservation and department chair, teaches courses on historic preservation planning, urban conservation, history and cultural landscape studies. Dr. Mason’s research interests include theory and methods of preservation planning, cultural policy, the economics of preservation, historic site management and the history of historic preservation. He leads the Center for Research on Preservation and Society, which undertakes applied research projects on site management and on social, economic and political aspects of historic preservation. Dr. Mason was awarded the 2012-2013 National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize and has served and the Executive Director of PennPraxis since 2014. He was recently named to the City of Philadelphia Historic Preservation Task Force. A student said, “I appreciate Professor Mason’s method of orchestrating the class to encourage students to develop their own viewpoints while engaging with the field’s literature and contemporary practice.” Another student said, “Dr. Mason is passionate and it shows. He encouraged us to think on our own and prompted us to explore.”

Perkins Distinguished Teaching Award for Non-Standing Faculty

Michael Luegering

Michael Luegering is a lecturer in landscape architecture and senior project manager with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA)where he is currently contributing to garden and campus work at Princeton University as well as territorial scale planning work in Houston, Texas. He earned a Master of Landscape Architecture with distinction from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where he was awarded the Thesis Prize in Landscape Architecture for his work: Vernacular Pasture Lands | The Rural Design Almanac. He teaches in the media sequence at PennDesign with Keith Van Der Sys, focusing on territorial scale workflows and the demystification of data sources and data synthesis.

A student said,  “Michael is a great teacher who clearly cares about us and has a love for the topic he’s teaching.” Another student said, “Michael was highly knowledgeable about the material we were working with, the larger implications of the processes we were utilizing, and sympathetic to our struggles with the difficulty of the material.

Perkins Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award

Sharka Hyland

This year’s recipient is Sharka Hyland, senior lecturer in fine arts. Ms. Hyland teaches courses on visual communication and visual studies. Her text-based drawings have been exhibited in solo and group shows in the US and abroad, including the Martin Kudlek Gallery in Cologne, Germany and at Galerie Bernard Jordan in Paris. Ms. Hyland consistently challenges her students in her teaching and provides expertise on the subjects of book design and typography. Her contributions support our undergraduate majors and create curricular linkages between our department, the School of Design and related programs of the University. A student said, “She challenged my way of thinking but made me eager to learn and improve. Her impressive experience, talent and comprehensive knowledge of the field makes her a force to be reckoned with. She is fair and generous, and pushes students to accomplish more than they thought they could.” Another said, “Sharka pushes you past the boundaries you set for yourself because she sees the potential in everyone and is always there to help you reach it.”

These awards were presented by Frederick Steiner, dean of the School of Design, at the School of Design Awards Ceremony on May 14 in Meyerson Hall.  The G. Holmes Perkins Teaching Awards recognize distinguished teaching and innovation in the classroom, seminar or studio.