Endowed Chair in Design and Planning

The School of Architecture is pleased to announce the establishment of the Dr. Nancy Panak Kwallek Endowed Chair in Design and Planning. Named in honor of Professor Kwallek, the longtime director of the school’s Interior Design Program and inaugural holder of the Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair for Interior Design, the endowed chair will support visiting instructors who are practitioners from design and planning fields. Guest professors will be recognized leaders in interior design, architecture, landscape architecture, and community and regional planning, and will serve terms from one semester to two years.

As one of the most distinguished faculty appointments at a leading school of architecture, the endowed chair will attract some of the best and brightest designers and planners in the world. Their participation in the School of Architecture’s programs will underscore the school’s high standards of design, further its reputation, and benefit future generations of creators of the built environment.

An endowment with an initial market value of $1 million, the Kwallek Chair was created with generous gifts from alumni and friends and matched by funds the University received from Longhorn Network revenue allocated by UT Austin President Greg Fenves and his predecessor, Bill Powers. It is an important initiative to recognize Dr. Kwallek’s decades of service to the university and leadership in the field of interior design. As the first faculty endowment named in honor of a woman faculty member at the School of Architecture, it will affirm the school’s commitment to gender equality, and celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of women in design.