In 1985, Edward J. Romieniec, who was then an architecture professor at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture, received the Texas Society of Architects’ Award for Excellence in Architectural Education. It was the first such award to be presented. One might say Romieniec was the reason the award was created.

The TSA award recognized Romieniec — who had served as dean of the college from it’s inception in 1969, until returning to a faculty post in 1973 — for inspiring others to excellence in architecture and for his “exceptional ability to maintain relevance by directing students toward the future while drawing on the past.”

Romieniec earned bachelor and master of science degrees from the University of Illinois and a master of architecture from Harvard University. A registered architect in several states, he gained extensive experience practicing with numerous firms including Phil Wilbur Architect and Coston-Frankfuirt-Short in Stillwater, Okla. and Caudill, Rowlett & Scott, Architects, in Houston. He established is own firm, J. Romieniec & Associates, in New York City.

Prior to teaching at Texas A&M, Romieniec taught at Oklahoma State University 1948-52. He began his long and distinguished career at Texas A&M in 1956, teaching architecture for four years before leaving for three years to teach at Columbia University. He returned in 1963 as chairman of the Division of Architecture in the College of Engineering. When the College of Architecture was established in 1969, he was named dean.

As dean, Romieniec expanded and reorganized the architectural program and initiated new undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture, urban and regional planning, and landscape architecture.

In 1967, Romieniec was commissioned by the governor’s office to study the needs and patterns of architectural education within the state until the year 1990. The results and recommendations were published in “Architectural Education: 1990,” the basis for the first significant change in Texas architectural education since it began at Texas A&M in 1905.

In 1972, Romieniec was elected to the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows. In addition to receiving the A&M Association of Former Students’ Award for Distinguished Achievement in Teaching, he was the first educator member of the Texas Architecture Foundation. The Award for Excellence in Architectural Education he received from the Texas Society of Architects in 1985, is now named for him.

He was a lifelong advocate of educational travel and study abroad programs, which he strongly believed enriched a student’s educational experience. He established the Edward J. Romieniec Graduate Traveling Fellowship in the College of Architecture, which funds the travel of first-year architecture graduate students to faraway destinations, specifically Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Russia or other Pacific Rim areas. Since established, numerous student have made the journey and returned to share their adventures with fellow students. In Romieniec’s honor, one of his former students, Ronald L Skaggs, Class of 1965, established the Edward J. Romieniec, FAIA Endowed Scholarship for outstanding architecture students.

Though Romieniec died at age 75, on June 25, 1996 at the Crestview Methodist Retirement Center in Bryan, his legacy remains very much alive at the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University — in the lives and careers of the students he mentored and in the classrooms where his old colleagues are still passing on his wisdom to a new generation.