Matt Farris Awarded Scholarship

Matt Farris, a resident of Goddard, KS, and a fifth-year student in architecture at Kansas State University, has been awarded the $1,000 John E. Holstrum Alpha Tau Omega Architectural Scholarship.

Farris has taken on a variety of leadership roles during his architectural education. He has been a member and officer of the American Institute of Architecture Students at K-State, has served as Co-Chair and Chair of the Dean’s Student Advisory Board, has served on the Seaton Building Committee, and has coordinated the College’s Student Mentor Program.

During the spring 2001 semester, Farris took part in the Italian studies program at Castiglion Fiorentino. A course on Italian city planning stimulated his interest in the relationships between buildings and plazas. He also traveled extensively throughout Italy and Europe, documented the public spaces of Europe in numerous sketches, photographs and journal entries. Farris excels scholastically, maintaining above a 3.5 grade point average during his academic career.

The Holstrom Scholarship, established in 1990, is named for John E. Holstrom. Holstrom was a 1968 initiate of the K-State chapter of Alpha Tau Omega and a 1972 graduate in architecture who died in 1989 at the age of 40. The scholarship memorializes Holstrom and provides educational opportunities and assistance for fifth-year architecture students with exemplary attributes in scholarship, fellowship and character.

The K-State Alpha Tau Omega Student Aid Endowment and the College of Architecture, Planning and Design established the Holstrom Scholarship with gifts from family, friends, fraternity brothers and an endowed bequest of $20,000 from Holstrom’s firm, WKA Architecture Inc., of Dallas, TX.