Margaret Fletcher Honored as Gresham Professor

Associate Professor and Associate Program Chair of Architecture, Margaret Fletcher has been named the Ann and Batey Gresham Professor of Architecture. Established in 1999 by Nashville architect Batey Gresham (BArch ’57) and his wife Ann, this endowed professorship was designed to provide financial support to outstanding faculty who exhibit a strong commitment to quality instruction, research and service, and who thus “strengthen and enhance the architecture program.” Selected by the Dean of the College of Architecture, Design and Construction (CADC) in consultation with senior architecture faculty, a recipient is named every three years.

Margaret Fletcher is an innovative educator who consistently brings emerging technologies and methods to her teaching. Her creative practice is focused on issues related to architectural and spatial representation. Fletcher, who is a practicing architect and artist in addition to her role as faculty at Auburn’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (APLA), is also the recipient the 2014 APLA Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2017 Auburn Author Award. She was a 2103 Fellow of the Hambridge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences, and her work has been recognized by the Forward Arts Foundation and the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center.

As an author Fletcher is recognized for her expertise and innovations in graphic communication and representation; she published Constructing the Persuasive Portfolio; The Only Primer You’ll Ever Need, in 2016.  Fletcher credits the Gresham Professorship for the support and development of her two most recent books, Visual Communication for Architects and Designers: Constructing the Persuasive Presentation scheduled for release this September, and Architectural Styles: a Visual Guide (with illustrations by Robbie Polley) scheduled for release in November.

The financial support of the professorship will ensure Fletcher’s ongoing research on the visual representation of architectural ideas and architecture pedagogy, and will reinforce her mission to help architecture students understand the importance of the visual structure of their own design ideas. Fletcher’s teaching methods are founded in providing graphic workshops, which she has offered as part of the Auburn architecture curriculum as well as in numerous national and international settings. She is currently focused on teaching Auburn architecture thesis students, sharing and exploring methods with students to help them effectively communicate their ideas both visually and verbally.

The establishment of permanently endowed professorships is critical to the support and development of outstanding, dedicated faculty. The CADC and APLA congratulate Associate Professor Fletcher on her well-deserved recognition.