CoA+A Announces 2016 Distinguished Alumni Awards

The College of Arts + Architecture (CoA+A) will honor five Distinguished Alumni on Friday, March 18, in the second annual celebration of alumni achievement. Representing each of the five departments of the College, the 2016 CoA+A Distinguished Alumni are

Architecture: Terry Shook (1976)
Art & Art History: Todd Aldridge (1992)
Dance: Mojdeh Henderson (2000)
Music: Amy Windham El-Khouri (1999)
Theatre: Caridad Svich (1985)

The Distinguished Alumni Awards were created by the College of Arts + Architecture in 2015 to recognize the accomplishments of alumni who demonstrate in their work the core themes of the College’s vision: professionalism, global perspective, environmental engagement, connectivity with community, collaboration, and the emergence of new ideas, skills, and practices. Each department designates one Distinguished Alum annually, chosen by departmental faculty and administration.

BIOS

Terry Shook, FAIA, is a founding partner and principal of Shook Kelley. He serves as principal-in-charge of the New Urban planning and design group, with an emphasis on urban retail design and main street development. As one of the nation’s top experts in PlaceMaking, he has been recognized as a vanguard in the movement to return meaning to the urban environment by the Clinton Library & School of Public Service. Terry is an annual lecturer in the Professional Development Program at Harvard University and has shared his views with audiences connected to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), the International Downtown Association, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the American Planning Association, and the Urban Land Institute. In 2009, the AIA Jury of Fellows elevated Terry to its prestigious College of Fellows, an honor awarded to members who have made significant contributions to the profession.

In 2008 Shook Kelley was awarded the AIA NC Firm Of The Year by AIA North Carolina. This award is presented annually to one North Carolina firm that has an established presence in the state, and has consistently produced quality architecture with a verifiable level of client satisfaction for a period of at least 10 years. This is the highest honor that the Chapter can bestow on a firm. In 2014, the firm received a Charlotte Center City Partners Vision Award for its work in Historic South End. The firm sponsors the Shook Kelley Design Scholarship in the School of Architecture each year.

Todd Aldridge is Senior Vice-President at Luquire George Andrews (LGA), where he has worked since 1994, developing many award-winning campaigns for clients such as BB&T, the Carolina Panthers, Methodist Sports Medicine/The Orthopedic Specialists, Novant Health, and Rodgers Builders. Representing LGA, Todd served as art director forthe University’s Violins of Hope Charlotte in 2012, donating his time and expertise to this internationally recognized project, which brought violins with Holocaust histories to North America for the first time. He has also co-organized non-profit projects with graphic design faculty and students and was a featured alumnus in the UNC Charlotte magazine.

Prior to joining LGA, Todd worked for the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce as a graphic designer. He remains active in AIGA Charlotte, the professional association for design communication.

Mojdeh Narula Henderson is currently the principal at Berewick Elementary School, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. After graduation from UNC Charlotte with a degree in dance education in 2000, she began her career as the first dance teacher at Crestdale Middle School in Charlotte, a post she held for six years. At that time she created exemplary lessons, partnering with the Capturing Creativity lesson modules created for teachers by the North Carolina Dance Theatre Education Department. She served as a cooperating teacher for UNC Charlotte student teachers on several occasions and in particular, pioneered interdisciplinary lessons, which better prepared students for integrating dance with the core curriculum. She also received the Dance Educator of the Year award from North Carolina Dance Theater (now Charlotte Ballet).

Desiring to grow and stretch her “wings,” Mojdeh went on to graduate school, receiving a Masters in School Administration from Gardner-Webb University. She became an assistant principal at Jay M. Robinson and in 2012 a successful principal at Berewick. During her time at Berewick she has worked to create a neighborhood school environment focused on student achievement. Mojdeh has presented at the national School Administration Management (SAM) conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She models a professional pathway for arts educators from the classroom to administration. She continues to support all arts education for children under her leadership.

Amy Windham El-Khouri graduated magna cum laude with University Honors in 1999 and the following fall became vocal music/chorus teacher at Pocahontas Middle School in Henrico County (a suburb of Richmond). She has served as choral director at Deep Run High School since the school opened in 2002. The Deep Run music department has been recognized as a Blue Ribbon School of Music by the Virginia Music Educators Association each school year since 2006. Amy teaches students at all levels, including two audition women’s choirs, an audition mixed chamber choir, a concert choir, and a show choir and was recognized as a “Top Teacher” by the Henrico Citizen. She and her husband Maron, also an alumnus of the UNC Charlotte Department of Music have two daughters, Emma and Madelyn.

Playwright Caridad Svich received a 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theatre, a 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and NNPN rolling world premiere for Guapa, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on the Isabel Allende novel. She has won the National Latino Playwriting Award (sponsored by Arizona Theatre Company) twice and has been short-listed for the PEN Award in Drama four times. Her works in English and Spanish have been seen at venues across the US and abroad.

Seven of her plays are published in Instructions for Breathing and Other Plays (Seagull Books and University of Chicago Press, 2014). Five of her plays radically re-imagining ancient Greek tragedies are published in Blasted Heavens (Eyecorner Press, University of Denmark, 2012). Her works are also published by TCG, Broadway Play Publishing, Manchester University Press, Playscripts, Arte Publico Press, Smith & Kraus, Alexander Street Press, StageReads and more. She has edited several book on theatre including Innovation in Five Acts (TCG, 2015), Out of Silence: Censorship in Theatre & Performance (Eyecorner Press, 2014) and Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press, 2004). Caridad sustains a parallel career as a theatrical translator, chiefly of the dramatic work of Federico Garcia Lorca as well as works by Calderon de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Julio Cortazar, Victor Rascon Banda, Antonio Buero Vallejo and contemporary works from Mexico, Cuba, and Spain.