KU Phi Kappa Phi announces 2019 fellowship recipient

LAWRENCE — A fourth-year architecture student at the University of Kansas was selected to receive a fellowship award from the KU Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

Ashley Farrow, was selected to receive the James Blackiston Memorial Graduate Fellowship. The award provides Farrow, from Cave Creek, Arizona, with $1,500 for graduate study for her final year toward a master's degree in architecture. Farrow also is the chapter’s nominee for a national Phi Kappa Phi fellowship.

The KU Phi Kappa Phi Blackiston Fellowship is the latest achievement for Farrow, who has been on the School of Architecture & Design's Dean’s List and was named a Cora Downs Residence Hall Undergraduate Staff Member of the Year. Farrow has received multiple scholarships from KU and external organizations.

Service, both on campus and off campus, is a defining characteristic of Farrow’s time at KU. She has been a resident assistant for KU Student Housing for three years. She also has served as an architecture studio peer mentor, a studio representative for Architecture Student Council and a Big Event volunteer group leader. She has been a Freedom By Design volunteer with the KU Chapter of the American Institute of Architecture Students. She also has volunteered at Habitat for Humanity projects. 

Faculty members in her program are impressed by the qualities Farrow exhibits in her classwork.

“Not only is she imaginative, she is hardworking, critically minded — especially in assessing her own work — and personable,” Associate Professor of Architecture Steve Padget said in a letter of support. “She naturally took challenges and obstacles — such as technical requirements and constraints — and turned them into opportunities.”

Farrow plans to spend the final year of her master’s program in France as one of 10 KU students selected to take part in the Department of Architecture’s Paris Academic Internship Program. The students spend the fall semester in classes at École Nationale Supérieure D’architecture Paris-Val de Seine and during the spring semester are placed in an internship position with a leading architectural practice in Paris. Farrow’s professional goal is to use architecture as a platform to have a positive, lasting influence that addresses environmental issues. She also plans to focus on using design-build practices that improve local communities.

About the Blackiston Fellowship

The Blackiston Fellowship was created to honor the memory of James Blackiston, a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics and an instructor in the Intensive English Center, now the Applied English Center, at KU. He graduated from Michigan State University, where he was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi. In 1975, Blackiston played a key role in the formation and activation of the KU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. The Blackiston Fellowship recipient becomes the KU chapter’s nominee for one of nearly 60 fellowships from Phi Kappa Phi with values from $5,000 to $15,000. These national fellowships provide assistance to students during their first year of post-graduate study.

The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest and most selective honor society for all academic disciplines. More than 100,000 members maintain their active status in Phi Kappa Phi, which offers them numerous benefits as dues-paying members including access to $1.4 million in awards and grants each biennium.