Shafer Court wins award

VCU began its fall 2005 semester on a high note as the Shafer Court Dining Center won a Gold Citation award from American School & University magazine. Sean Gay, dining center marketing program manager, said he is proud of this honor.

“We’ve been given the Gold Citation, the highest award that they give out,” Gay said. “It’s not every year that this honor is presented, so it’s really special.”

The award was presented to the project’s architectural firm, Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas & Company of Norfolk and to VCU, and is included in the magazine’s August 2005 issue.

“The designers submitted it [Shafer Court Dining Center] along with the director of business services for VCU,” Gay said. “Anyone that has a new building that is worthy of the award can submit it to the magazine.”

According to the American School & University magazine press release, school administrators and members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) evaluate submissions from architectural firms across the nation and only a few are chosen for publication in the magazine.

Gay said that receiving this citation makes selling the new dining center to students and visitors a lot easier.

“We can just tell students that we have a nice dining facility all day long,” said Gay. “But when a national magazine says so, it helps carry a lot of weight and gives students an opportunity to have more pride in our school.”

After 6 months of working at the dining center, Gay said that this is just the beginning for him.

“It’s great to work in a building that’s received a high honor,” he said. “In fact, anyone that comes here gets hit with a ‘wow’ factor.”