Kudos to these faculty, staff and programs.
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- Three student teams from the Department of Construction Management placed in the 2026 Associated Schools of Construction regional student competition on Feb. 4-7. Event participants from throughout the Rocky Mountain region compiled preconstruction packages and presented them to expert judges. NAU earned first place in the mixed-use construction category, second place in the heavy civil construction category and second place in the design-build construction category. Members of these construction teams are as follows:
- The mixed-use construction team comprises Zachary Henson, Bailey Bruner, Quintin O’Grady, Krystyna Pramowski, Joshua Walker and Will Natale.
- The heavy civil construction team comprises Graydon Bearinger, Dylan Gebhardt, Robert Leerkes, Ethan Sterne, Noah Parker and Wyatt Snitker.
- The design-build construction team comprises Jacob Casper, Jake Shearon, Kysen Rios, Olivia Bowie, Seth Poulin and Tess Baldwin.
- Additionally, two students, Owen Kunes and Tyler McCarthy, were on a mixed-university team that took first place.
- Abbey Sobelman, an undergraduate journalism and communication studies student, was one of two students honored with the American Copy Editors Society’s 2026 Bill Walsh Scholarship. The $3,500 award goes to university students displaying excellence in news editing.
- NAU placed No. 7 on the World Brand Design Society’s best design education list for 2025-26. The society determines its rankings based on the quality of student work entered into its annual Student Design Awards for consumer and corporate brand design, and NAU students earned six awards from this year’s competition.
- Department of English professor Laura Gray-Rosendale recently published her latest book, “Basic Writing in the 21st Century,” co-authored by City College of New York professor Barbara Gleason. The book incorporates 33 original essays discussing writing practices, issues and scholarship, while touching on topics rarely discussed in the field, like accessibility, multilingual teaching and queer perspectives.
- Beth Staub, a School of Communication assistant teaching professor, won first place in the photography section of the Arizona Treasures art show on Jan. 23. The art show features its winning entries in an exhibition highlighting the Indigenous cultures, histories, landscapes and wildlife that make Arizona unique. Staub’s winning photograph, titled “Ride Out on a Rail,” features a cowboy lying across defunct railroad tracks in an overcast desert.