More than 50 years ago, Charles Sappenfield, the founding dean of the Estopinal College of Architecture and Planning (ECAP), established a longstanding tradition of inviting world-renowned architects, landscape architects, and urban planners to campus. Sappenfield brought such extraordinary figures as Louis Kahn, Daniel Urban Kiley, Buckminster Fuller, Richard Meier, and Cesar Pelli to our campus to lecture and work with students—giving students the unparalleled opportunity to learn from the greatest minds in each discipline.
Sappenfield built a school with rigorous design studio standards and access to notable scholars and prominent architects, planners, and designers. He laid the framework for exposing students to world travel through access to different cultures, communities, experiences, and perspectives, and conveyed the importance of making a difference in our community.
Our commitment to these principles continues today through the ECAP Guest Lecture Series and our ever-expanding digital lecture and critique participation by professionals in our fields. These opportunities continuously bring our students into contact with a rich and diverse array of speakers, firms, and organizations that broaden and deepen our understanding of the greater world around us. Our commitment to expanding our students’ horizons necessarily includes introducing them to speakers and visitors who represent different backgrounds and constituencies in society.