During her days at Bryant High School, Amanda Sturgell was one of two girls in an introductory engineering class of 30 students.
Years later, she returned to her alma mater to speak to students in its expanded engineering program about architecture ... and was pleased to see that the percentage of female students had grown considerably.
"When I was there, the girls asked me the majority of the questions," Sturgell says. "There was definitely an energy there [and] I wanted to make sure they knew they could do this, too.
"There are more women in the construction fields every day. But it helps having one in front of you. ... and somebody that is from your school."
Sturgell not only enjoys a career as an architect; she also enjoys a side hustle as a volunteer, telling girls -- along with students of color and poor students -- that such a career isn't off-limits to them.
The Benton resident and associate of Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects in Little Rock donates her time to the Alex Foundation. The 9-year old organization is named for Alex Courtney, the late son of founder Angela Courtney and an architecture student at the time of his death. Sturgell helps the Alex Foundation to give young people a glimpse into the world of architecture and design -- especially those who might not get that glimpse otherwise.
The foundation is gearing up for its two annual Architecture and Design Summer Camps, with a goal to provide a design education to youth in southeast Arkansas, using historic buildings as a backdrop and learning experience.
The first camp, for girls only, takes place Monday-Friday in McGehee. The students will see how a building that started out as a Missouri Pacific Railroad train depot has become the Japanese American Internment Museum and Railroad Depot Museum.
Special guest instructor is architect and Drury University (Springfield, Mo.) professor Nancy Chikaraishi, whose Japanese-American father, Ben Chikaraishi, was interned as a prisoner of war during World War II after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Chikaraishi is producer of "Life Interrupted," an art exhibit and tribute to her parents; both were taken to the delta town of Rohwer, the location of one of two Japanese internment camps in Arkansas.
At the second camp, a July 22-26 coed event in Lake Village, students will explore the John Tushek Building, built in 1906 and repurposed into Lake Village City Hall; and nearby Belmont Plantation in Greenville, Miss., built in 1857 and repurposed into a bed and breakfast.
The Alex Foundation completed its yearly collaboration with the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, for summer design experiences held June 8-14 and again Monday-Friday. The foundation's activities aren't restricted to summer: Throughout the school year, it hosts a STE+AM in Architecture program (science, technology, engineering, art plus architecture and math) for eighth- and ninth-grade students.
EARLY EXPOSURE
Growing up in Benton, Sturgell first gained an appreciation of the built environment as a small child, spending time with her carpenter grandfather.
Sturgell's architectural leanings "started with getting in trouble in the fifth-grade for not paying attention" -- the one and only time-out with which she was ever punished in school.
"I was drawing on my notebook paper and I was distracting my colleagues," she says. "I was designing their houses. ... I designed the neighborhood with the streets and the street names and the lots, and my friends could pick a lot. ... They would pick their lot and I would design their house. And I wasn't paying attention enough that day. ... Past that, I really just kept drawing at home."
And she became hooked on a design career when taking that class in high school in 2003. She went on to graduate from the Fay Jones School in 2009 and has served as project architect for such buildings as Arkansas State Parks' Jacksonport Visitors Center and the Bank of Cave City headquarters. Even the 2-year-old fraternal twin boys that Sturgell and her husband, Chance, parent -- Mason and Sawyer -- have names that reflect Sturgell's love for the built environment and her nod to the craftsmen in her family, which in addition to carpenter have included a mechanic and welder.
Sturgell found out about the Alex Foundation when Courtney reached out to her, asking her to fill in for a presenter who couldn't make it to the 2017 McGehee summer camp. At this event, too, the girls showed a keen interest.
"The energy there was just amazing," she recalls. "They were so eager to learn; they wanted to ask me every question under the sun. I felt really kind of pressured to make sure the answers were great and that I was explaining everything well."
DESIGNING (YOUNG) WOMEN
Many of the girls asked how she got started in her career. "And then there's that 'Oh yeah, me too. I love to draw.' The more you hear that, the more you're like, 'Well you can do this too; that's how I started out.' ... And then they realize that ... 'She's not any different from me. I can do this.' There's that little confidence boost."
Sturgell will be on call to help with the forthcoming camps.
I've always been passionate about what I do and what brought me here, and empowering girls and young women to want to come into this industry," she says. "But one thing that we always say is that the Alex Foundation bridges the gap" -- the economic gap that separates children without means from exposure to a design career.
"You get to talking with these kids at a career fair that come up and want to know tons of information, and I'm giving them everything I've got my hands on and then I hand them the camp flier, they see the price tag, their face falls and they say 'Thank you for your time' and walk away."
The foundation camps are free. The foundation also pays young people's tuition to the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design camps, as well as provides transportation to them.
For Sturgell, it's all about being able to "help these kids access the stepping stone that I had." Sturgell also volunteers with the American Institute of Architects Emerging Professionals Committee. "We've done something in coordination with StudioMain [a nonprofit organization of designers] to reach out to some of the elementary schools in Little Rock," she says.
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
Alex Foundation is not putting forth the idea that everybody should be an architect, Sturgell says. "Design education is a gateway to a world of creative thinking."
One of her favorite activities with students is to have them look around the room, consider its features, and tell them that every decision made in the creation of that room was by someone who was most likely a designer or an architect. She asks them why they think those decisions were made. "I'm not kidding -- they devour the room in trying to figure out why they would have done something a certain way.
"The end goal is just to open these kids' minds up to what's possible with a creative design education."
To donate, volunteer or find out more about the Alex Foundation, go to alex-foundation.org.
High Profile on 07/14/2019