UT professor Brian Ambroziak’s passion and dedication allowed him to be chosen as the winner of the 2011 American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) Educator Honor Award. The AIAS jury was impressed with his role in students’ lives and felt that his mentorship will mirror who they become as professionals and leaders.
    
What kind of professor exceeds the expectations of a jury to deem him or her one of the best in the nation? When asked this, Ambroziak’s answer seemed to always go back to one thing: the students.
    
“The key to having success is to have great students, students who are inspired and passionate about what they are doing,” Ambroziak said. “Fortunately for us at UT we have the best students in the country. The quality of students makes it quite easy. I love the students here; it’s amazing how good our students are and it means a great deal to have students acknowledge the role that you played in their lives.”
    
Teaching had always been a goal of his. Even before he was sure of what exactly it was he wanted to do for the rest of his life, teaching was always there.
    
“My original dream was to be in any environment where there was meaningful discourse about architecture and hopefully to be able to advance that discourse,” Ambroziak said. “The academy is the perfect place to do that; it contains the kind of environment where architecture can talked about in an intelligent way, which is what I was always looking for.”
    
As any professor will tell you, each has their own style when it comes to teaching. Ambroziak’s key lies in something he likes to call the artistic conscience. Taught to him by his mentor Michael Grace, he really likes to focus on the idea of individuality.
    
“In high school it’s like a road to university — they give you the book and you all know about the same things. Here, you find yourself,” Ambroziak said. “If you can do that, you can be an individual and that’s what jobs and schools are looking for. We have students now that are in top graduate schools and top firms around the country. That’s my goal as a teacher, to see them be the best they can be.”
    
The root of this idea steams from the dialogue that exists between faculty and students.
    
The fact that he is able to present ideas that were given to him by his faculty, which can then turn into a conversation, ultimately those original ideas have the potential to become something new. He feels that conversation and the one-on-one time is what defines teachers.
    
“I am not an architecture student, but what I can tell you is that inspiration really does grow from knowing you go to a school where the teachers care so much about you and your future; teachers who want to see you succeed and are passionate about watching you grow,” Danna Li, a freshman in finance, said. “In today’s society where the best teachers are often over looked, I am glad to see one of ours get noticed and I hope it brings encouragement to other teachers as well as students.”