As part of his ongoing initiative to elevate faculty, Texas A&M President Robert Gates announced plans in September 2003 for the university to hire over an eight-year period 447 new tenured or tenure-track faculty.

The faculty reinvestment plan, he said, is aimed at improving the university’s student-faculty ratio, enhancing the faculty and improving the educational experience for Texas A&M students. Furthermore, the effort, he said, will allow the university to enhance concentration on specific areas of research and scholarship that promise to significantly advance the university’s contributions and reputation.

Under the plan, the Texas A&M College of Architecture will gain 16 new faculty members. To fill these positions, J. Thomas Regan, dean of the college, established a “Signature Search” process aimed at identifying and selecting promising scholars who can significantly contributed to one or more of the college’s three signature areas of emphasis — sustainability, visualization and health facility design.

To date, the college has hired four new signature faculty: Charles H. Culp, associate professor of architecture and associate director of the Energy Systems Laboratory at The Texas A&M University System’s Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES); Kirk Hamilton, FAIA, associate professor of architecture and faculty fellow in the college’s Center for Health Systems and Design; Chanam Lee, assistant professor in landscape architecture and urban planning; and Vinod Srinivasan, an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture’s Master of Science in the Visualization Sciences program.