July 23, 2002 -- Martha S. Bradley, associate professor of architecture in the University of Utah's Graduate School of Architecture, has been named director of the University's Honors Program. She succeeds Richard D. Rieke, who has served as the program's director since 1995. Bradley will assume the position on Aug. 1 and will continue to teach part-time.

"Martha is a woman of enormous energy and a person of great imagination," says John G. Francis, associate vice president for academic affairs and undergraduate studies. "We all look forward to the good things she will do in the Honors Program, particularly as we move forward in developing honors programs within the individual disciplines-as well as maintaining the coherence of the University Honors Program and developing activities and securing resources for the new Honors Center up in Fort Douglas, which will house classrooms, administration offices and computer labs for the Honors Program."

A Utah historian, Bradley joined the University in 1993 and has taught the honors course "The Image of the City: Architecture in the Urban Environment" for the last seven years. Bradley was a Bennion Center Borchard Fellow last year and was the Bennion Center Service Learning Professor in 1998. She has received a Best Book Award from the Utah State Historical Society and a Best Biography Award from the Mormon History Association for a book she co-authored: The Four Zinas: Mothers and Daughters on the Mormon Frontier. Bradley received the Students Choice for Excellence in Teaching and the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1999. She is a member of the Utah Heritage Foundation's Board of Trustees and a member of the Board of Directors of Signature Press.

In her new position, Bradley will focus on recruitment to increase diversity within the program and to find the very best students for the Honors Program. She also hopes to increase the number of service-learning honors courses offered and to create collaborations between the Honors Program and such entities as the Marriott Library, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and the downtown community. "I would like to see the program be expanded to include less traditional parts of campus that have not historically had honors tracks within the majors, such as in the arts and in architecture," she says.

The University of Utah Honors Program originated in 1960 as a master's program, supported by a Ford Foundation Grant. After five years, the program's funding became a line item on the University budget. Today, the Honors Program curriculum includes individual courses, sequence courses, seminars and workshops. Students who want an honors degree are required to take seven specific courses and create a thesis, which varies between disciplines. Currently, there are 2,000 students enrolled in the Honors Program at the University of Utah.