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Alumni Awards List

Addie (Johnson) Abushousheh grew up in central rural Kansas. Having been immersed in construction and building projects from an early age, it was no surprise to her family when she decided to become an architect in the 5th grade. Upon entering Bennington High School, Roger Dual and Bruce Graham broadened her horizons to include a keen interest in people's social, physical, and cognitive ability and context.

That interest was nurtured by K-State faculty, both in APDesign and Leadership Studies. In college, Addie began to realize the reinforcing and synergistic potential of organizational and environmental design. She participated in several extracurricular activities and received many awards, including the Alpha Rho Chi Medal for Outstanding Leadership, Service and Merit in Architecture; the U.S. Achievement Academies' All-American Scholar Award.

After graduating from Kansas State University with her degree in Architecture and minor in Leadership Studies, Addie worked as an activity coordinator in the Minneapolis, Kansas, Transitional Crossroads Head Trauma Unit where she gained practical design knowledge through observation and interaction with clients, staff, and families. This would later provide the foundation for more meaningful dialogue with her architectural clients while employed at Peacock Architects, a small healthcare design firm in Atlanta, Georgia, where she advanced quickly and soon assumed responsibility for a variety of projects including a 42-bed Alzheimer's unit.

Addie is now a Fellow and Ph.D. Candidate in the Institute on Aging & Environment in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee where she co-instructed building construction systems courses, finalized a Web-based design for dementia database "Dementia Design Info," and completed three UWM graduate certificates: Applied Gerontology, Mediation & Negotiation, and Non-Profit Management. During this tenure, she also co-hosted the Center on Age & Community 2010 Next Steps Think Tank as well as a national Long-Term Care Delphi survey, "Culture Change Consensus and the Household Model." Because of her continued affiliation with the College of Architecture, Planning & Design, Addie was asked to fulfill the alumni role in the development of APDesign's Ph.D. in Environmental Design and Planning.

She applies her knowledge and gains further insights by working at both a local and national level, serving as: Culture Change Agent for the Jewish Home & Care Center in Milwaukee; President of CARE WI, a long-term care Culture Change Coalition; and Secretary/Treasurer for SAGE Federation. She is currently co-developing a pre-architectural programming process - SAGE PLACE as well as serving on the Center for Health Design's EDAC Advisory Board. She is certified as a Mather Lifeway's LEAP Program Trainer and a SE Wisconsin Alzheimer's Association Dementia Specialist and has since acted as a consultant for both organizations. To further enable her ability to gain practical knowledge in a front-line, long-term care staff role, she was licensed as a Skilled Nursing Assistant and it is her intent to complete the Nursing Home Administrator exam as well.

Addie was recruited in 2010 to be the executive director for the Association of Households International. As an environmental and organizational gerontologist, facilitating culture change practices and design in long-term care, she presents and publishes regularly environmental and organizational development topics.