Headline, July02, 2013

'''THE BELOVED & BLESSED PROFESSOR :

  SAMUEL MOCKBEE'''

Make no mistake. Professor Samuel Mockbee is a hard task master. He's big and bearded, he's funny and generous, and he appears to be comfortable with just about anyone. But poor people love him because he is changing their community. Despite his playful manner, Mockbee has a serious mission : He and his students use art to improve lives:

''Architecture has to be greater than just architecture.'' Mockbee asserts. ''It has to address social values, as well as technical and aesthetic values.''

Mockbee's vehicle for addressing social values is the Rural Studio, a program with big goals. The studio, which is run through Auburn university, addresses problems of racial inequality and of substandard housing in and around Greensboro  -and takes a radical approach to undergraduate education at Auburn. Its boldness has attracted some well-known supporters  -the MacArthur Foundation, which awarded Mockbee one of its ''genius'' fellowships. Mockbee received invitations to teach at Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Yale, among other schools.

Some years ago, Hale county was one of the poorest areas in the country. Of its 16,870 residents, about 30% lived in poverty  -1,400 of them in houses that were substandard. To some people, such circumstances might represent tragedy. To Mockbee, they represented opportunity  -to help needy families while giving students practical, hands-on practical experience, and, perhaps even more importantly, to bring together people from drastically different backgrounds.

Auburn students are primarily young, white, and affluent; Rural Studio clients are primarily black and poor. But ''it's economic poverty, not moral poverty,'' Mockbee used to stress.

''i realized that if I could get students to come and meet those families and help build houses, the students attitudes towards poverty would change. This is a community that is black and white, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. But when students have an educational experience that exposes them to the realities, rather than the abstractness, of social political and environmental injustices, they can form their own opinion about it. They can see conditions for themselves  -and can try to address them in a positive way.''

Each year, second-year architecture students, who spend a semester at the studio, interview several families and then choose one for whom thet will build a house. Meanwhile, fifth-year students, who stay at the studio for an entire year while working on their theses, pursue such community-based projects as building a chapel or constructing a playground. And then Rural Studio created an Outreach Studio Program for non-architecture, non-Auburn students.

That entire houses are given away with no strings attached is noteworthy. But those houses, as well as other community facilities, are noteworthy themselves. ''They are dazzling feats of design. They are made primarily with natural materials, such as hay or rammed earth, or with found materials, such as telephone poles, tires, or windshields. Using such materials keeps the cost of houses low  -and gives them a look that is strange, beautiful, and distinctly Mockbee-esque.

''My bottom line is, Would I want to live in these houses?  And my wife and I live happily ever after in any of the houses that the students have designed and built,'' says The Professor!

To give you all the end-post flavor:

Carlissia Bryant was in fourth grade, when the students built a house for her Grandparents. At the time, the Bryants,  -including Carlissia and two of her siblings   -were living in a shack with a leaky roof, no indoor plumbing, and no insulation.

Alberta, whose legs had been amputated due to poor circulation, had difficulty getting around the dwelling in her wheelchair. Later the Bryants got to live in 850 sq-foot house with yellow columns, a long front porch, and easy wheelchair accessibility for Alberta.

When it was time for the students who had built the house to leave, Carlissia remembers:

''We stood in the middle of the road to keep them from going. My Grandmother cried and cried. They told us they were going to come back and visit, and we said,

Come back all the time!''

With most respectful dedication to Professor Samuel Mockbee and his students. !WOW! : The World Students Society-Computers-Internet-Wireless will honor the great Professor by naming the ''poverty''  module after him .

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless