The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture recently announced the recipients of its 2026 Architectural Education Awards, including two Black scholars who have been named Distinguished Professors in recognition of their positive, stimulating, and nurturing influence upon their students.
Carla Jackson Bell is a professor of architecture and design and executive associate dean of the Graduate School at Tuskegee University in Alabama. She is one of three Black women to ever receive the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award.
After 13 years on the Tuskegee faculty, Dr. Bell served in teaching and administrative roles in the College of Architecture, Design and Construction at Auburn University in Alabama for a decade. In 2016, Dr. Bell returned to Tuskegee to serve as dean of the Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science, making her the first Black woman to serve as dean of an architecture school in the United States. She served in that capacity until 2023 and had a stint as the HBCU’s interim provost in 2020. As a scholar, Dr. Bell critically examines the cultural dimensions of design education and practice, identifying strategies that promote equity, inclusion, and student success. She is the author of Space Unveiled: Invisible Cultures in the Design Studio (Routledge, 2014).
Dr. Bell is an alumna of Tuskegee University, where she majored in architectural science. She holds a master of fine arts degree in interior design from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and a Ph.D. in architecture education from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
David Hughes is a professor in the College of Architecture & Environmental Design at Kent State University in Ohio.
Professor Hughes joined the architecture faculty at Kent State in 1985 and earned the rank of full professor in 1999. Throughout his career, he has taught, lectured, and researched architecture on five continents and visited more than 100 countries. As a Fulbright Scholar in Africa in 1990, Professor Hughes taught students and studied Afrocentric architecture throughout the continent. He also taught at Makerere University in Uganda and served five terms as director of Kent State’s architecture foreign studies program in Florence, Italy. Outside of academia, Professor Hughes ran his own architecture firm, DHC Architects, which completed over 100 built projects during 45 continuous years.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Professor Hughes earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Columbia University and his master’s degree in urban planning from the City College of New York. He also served as a graduate fellow in architecture and urban planning at Princeton University.
