The College of Arts + Architecture (CoA+A) will honor five Distinguished Alumni on Friday, April 12, in the tenth annual celebration of alumni achievement. The award ceremony will take place at 1:00 pm in Rowe Recital Hall and will be open to the public.
The Distinguished Alumni Awards were created by the College of Arts + Architecture in 2015 to recognize the accomplishments of alumni who demonstrate in their work the core themes of the College's vision: professionalism, global perspective, environmental engagement, connectivity with community, collaboration, and the emergence of new ideas, skills, and practices. Each department designates one Distinguished Alum annually, chosen by departmental faculty and administration. See past honored alumni here.
The 2024 CoA+A Distinguished Alumni are:
Architecture Bryan Cantley
Art & Art History Jan Millsapps
Dance Madeline Jazz Harvey
Music Reese Manceaux
Theatre Katie Campbell
Bryan Cantley (B.A. in Architecture, 1987) is a Professor of Design at California State University Fullerton and the founder/owner of Form:uLA, an experimental design practice that attempts to blur the indeterminate zone between architecture and its representation. He has lectured at a number of architecture schools internationally, including The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and has served as visiting faculty at SCI-ARC and Woodbury University. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) purchased 11 of his models and drawings as a part of their permanent collection, and he was the recipient of a Graham Foundation Grant in 2002. Cantley has had solo exhibitions at UCLA (1994), The Bartlett School of Architecture (2008), UNC Charlotte (2016), and Woodbury University (2017), and has shown work in a number of other institutions, including SFMOMA. His work is in the private collection of Thom Mayne. His solo exhibition, Dirty Geometries + Mechanical Imperfections, premiered at SCIARC in 2014. His work has been featured in numerous books, magazines and journals, including AD Drawing Strength From Machinery in 2008, AD Drawing Architecture in 2013, and AD Radical Architectural Drawing in 2022. Cantley has authored two books, Mechudzu (2011) and Speculative Coolness (2023), and is working on his third, Pixelsmear. He holds a Master of Architecture from UCLA.
Jan Millsapps (B.A. in Art, 1972), Professor Emeritus of Cinema at San Francisco State University, is a veteran filmmaker, an early web innovator and a versatile and accomplished writer whose creative work and professional activities demonstrate an ongoing commitment to finding and telling women’s stories, especially those related to science and technology, and in improving the status of women individually and globally. Her documentary, Madame Mars: Women and the Quest for Worlds Beyond, premiered at the United Nations in 2018, won first prize at the Raw Science Film Festival, and toured internationally as part of the U.S. State Department’s American Film Showcase. She has spoken widely about the need for more diversity in space arenas worldwide and is a founding member of the global Space4Women group. In 2020, she was named a “Space4Women” mentor by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs. A native of Concord, North Carolina, she lives in San Rafael, California. Millsapps received her M.A. from Winthrop University in 1979 and a PhD. From the University of South Carolina in 1991, where she also taught filmmaking and was an integral part of southern independent film community, a programmer for the Southern Circuit of Independent Filmmakers, and an artist fellowship recipient from the SC Arts Commission.
Madeline Jazz Harvey (B.A. in Dance, 2010) is a dance educator, choreographer, and performer specializing in classical and contemporary ballet. She began her performance career at age 14 as an apprentice with Charlotte Ballet under the direction of Patricia McBride and Jean Pierre Bonnefoux. In 2010, Madeline joined Carolina Ballet Theatre in Greenville, South Carolina, where she served as a principal dancer, resident choreographer, and outreach coordinator for five full-time seasons. She also performed as a guest artist with companies including Repertory Dance Theatre, American Repertory Ballet, Olney Ballet Theatre, and Colton Ballet Company of Augusta. Harvey became a full member of Judy Bejarano’s IMPACT Dance Company in 2020. In 2007, she was the youngest recipient of the New York Choreographic Institute Fellowship Award. Her creative research investigates play as a paradigm for choreographic process, and her choreographic résumé includes over 50 original works. Harvey holds an MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University. She was appointed as an Instructor of Ballet at the University of South Carolina in 2015 and joined the dance department at Colorado State University in 2017, where she is now Associate Professor of Dance. She is credited with the development of ShapeX, a wellness program for children with Type II Diabetes that promotes health and nutrition through movement-centered activities. She is also the Principal Investigator for an ongoing research study, Movement Through Parenthood, examining the efficacy of an original EA based dance intervention for improving emotional availability and wellbeing from pregnancy through postpartum.
Reese Manceaux (B.M. in Music, 1999) is a freelance woodwind musician based in the Carolinas. He has been playing for more 20 years with musical theatre pit orchestras in Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, and Greenville, South Carolina. Manceaux also works as an extra musician with Charlotte Symphony, Charleston Symphony, and Greenville Symphony orchestras on clarinet and saxophone. Manceaux’s passion for music began during his time at Louisiana State University, where he played in the wind ensemble and marching band on a music scholarship from 1985-1990 while earning a Bachelor of Computer Science. After moving to Charlotte, Manceaux worked at Microsoft Corporation before starting his job at UNC Charlotte as a computer consultant for the Atkins Library in 1994. While working in the library, he studied saxophone, clarinet, and flute in the UNC Charlotte music department, earning a Bachelor of Music, then proceeded to earn a Master of Music at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He has taught chamber music and private lessons at UNC Charlotte, Music & Arts stores, and at local high schools in Cabarrus County. Manceaux has been the Research Data Librarian in Atkins Library for 29 years and holds a master’s degree in library information science from UNC Greensboro.
Katie Campbell (B.A. in Theatre, 2006) is a multi-hyphenate theater artist and a seasoned arts administrator, currently serving on the Theater for Young Audiences (TYA) team at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Before her tenure at the Kennedy Center, Campbell made significant contributions as the Director of Children's Theatre and Performing Arts at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Notably, over three years, she led a dedicated team to produce and present captivating works for audiences for all ages, including the Emmy Award winning “Blueberry's Clubhouse” in partnership with Arkansas PBS. Beyond her leadership role at the Arkansas Museum, she was also an active company member for years, showcasing her artistry in over thirty productions as director, performer, playwright, or puppet designer, and co-founded and coached the youth improv company, Armadillo Rodeo. Her innovative approach to puppetry has earned her a 2015 Jim Henson Foundation Family Grant the 2017 Puppeteers of America Jim Henson Award for Innovation. Campbell has directed productions at institutions nationally and internationally, including the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Wayne State University, PRF Productions in Pennsylvania, Shake on the Lake in upstate New York, and Beijing Zhengdian Tengfei in Beijing, China. She holds an MFA in directing Theatre for Young People from UNC Greensboro.