Ingram’s February 2023

The first day Kent Spreckel- meyer stepped onto the campus of the University of Kansas in Law rence, he became part of a commu nity more than 20 times the pop ulation of his hometown near the northwestern tip of the Show-Me State: Oregon, Mo., in Holt Coun ty. The KU campus would provide a lifetime of engagement in archi tecture, both as an instructor and administrator, and Spreckelmeyer immersed himself in it immediate ly. “As soon as I entered architec ture school, I began apprenticing in the St. Joseph firm of Brunner

independent School of Architecture and Urban Design. “Coming from an agricultural background, I was attracted to a profession that was fo cused on creating structures that fit a specific natural environment and landscape,” Spreckelmeyer says. “Most of the buildings I experienced as a young person were built of local materials by the people who would use and occupy those structures. I have retained an interest in the ways environments arise from natural social and environmental processes and serve the specific needs of the human condition.” He left Lawrence long enough to secure a doctorate from the University of Michigan but came back intent on combining a full-time academic career with a con nection to practice and has operated his own small firm on the side ever since. “I was fortunate to have done a significant amount of research in Ann Arbor in health-care design and even more fortunate to be given the opportunity to consult with a fellow Michigan alum, Frank Zilm, in his health-care planning firm in Kansas City,” Spreckelmeyer says. “Over the years, I have worked with many of Frank’s health-care clients and collaborated with him on student design and research projects.” Across those decades, he says he has observed students becoming more interested in design as a way to improve and affect specific aspects of the ways people use built environments. “Kansas City, for example, has become the most well-known locus for the design of sports and enter tainment facilities,” he notes. “In my own area of health-care design, a group of KU faculty has formed the Institute of Health & Wellness Design to focus architectural careers in health-related building types. The architecture program is also recognized as a leader in design-build education. This is a natural result of the increasing complexity of phys ical environments, and it has been accelerated by the introduction of digital design and fabrication techniques.” nity,” he says. “Five years ago, when I was recruited to K-State, it was again the opportunity to serve that was particularly exciting. K-State has a special connection to our land-grant history, and that commit ment to students and communities across the state, region, and world was very attractive to me.” Taber’s journey began as a student at East Tennessee State University, where he earned his degree in political sci ence in 1984. He secured his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois after choosing a path that, while academia’s gain, was rock music’s loss. “The folk rock band I played in at the time was recording a first album, but we broke up shortly after, and my decision was made easier” Taber says. In Manhattan, he has a full administrative agenda as the dean of nine academic colleges, the university’s library system, its graduate school, its global campus, and the Staley School of Leadership. In addition, the CEOs and deans of both K-State Salina and K-State Olathe report to Taber, as does the leadership of offices overseeing enrollment man agement, research, international programs, and student success. The breadth of responsibility was a powerful draw on its own, but Taber found an additional incentive. “It was really the land grant mission that attracted me,” he says. “I love the way K-State transforms individu al lives through educational opportunity, solves problems for commu nity partners through research and extension, and supports economic development for our state and region.” In an era of declining collegiate enrollment, his job is not without challenges. “We are a people organi zation,” Taber says. “Our most fundamental challenges across all col leges are to grow student enrollments, attract and retain high-quality faculty and staff, and empower our community and industry partners.”

KENT SPRECKELMEYER UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

and Brunner, which was the successor firm of Eckel and Aldrich,” he re calls. “Those firms were responsible for the design of most of the signif icant late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings in northwest Missouri. I spent hours going through the original ink-on-vellum drawings in the plan vaults. Being in touch with that rich design history was a highlight of my early architectural education.” There was never any hesitation or second-guessing of majors. “I entered KU specifically to pursue archi tecture as a recipient of the Kansas-Missouri tuition waiver program,” he says. “I never thought of an alternative career path, primarily be cause of the quality of the faculty in the school at the time.” KU’s archi tecture program had a long tradition of design education in the School of Engineering, and administrators were just starting to formulate an

Raise your hand if you know the name of a provost-level univer sity administrator who was born in Africa, raised by missionary parents, has recorded a rock band album, and is regarded as an ex pert on cognitive processes drive political opinions and behavior. If you said Charles Taber, you’re to day’s winner. The provost at Kan sas State University since 2018, he brings a true worldview to his work in higher-ed administration. “I was born in Central Africa and grew up in West Africa,” he says, which gave him a background that

CHARLES TABER KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY

“fundamentally shaped how I viewed the importance of service and set me up for the career path I followed.” The bulk of that unfolded in the research lab at Stony Brook University, a state university near Long Island’s north shore. “My research career was really energized by two fascinations: how people think and what drives political be havior,” Taber says. “So I combined psychology and political science.” His lab work led to a bevy of research articles and spawned reporting by academic journals, eventually leading him to author The Rational izing Voter in 2013. Taber moved into academic administration after a nudge from a good friend at Stony Brook. “The pitch that resonated was the opportunity to serve young people and the broader commu

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I ngr am ’ s

February 2023

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