AIA Pennsylvania Honors School of Architecture with 2025 Social Impact Award

Marywood University is proud to announce that its School of Architecture (MUSOA) has been selected for the 2025 Social Impact Award from the American Institute of Architects Pennsylvania (AIA Pennsylvania).

This honor is part of the AIA Pennsylvania Architectural Excellence Special Awards program, which recognizes outstanding contributions by individuals, organizations, and institutions that advance the built environment and the architectural profession across the Commonwealth. The Social Impact Award celebrates design work that advances positive social, environmental, and economic change. The recognition highlights efforts that are innovative, scalable, and measurable – underscoring the belief that design is a powerful tool for improving lives, strengthening communities, and shaping a better world.

“The School of Architecture at Marywood University has a deeply rooted commitment to teaching the value of impacting community through design,” said Catherine Broh, AIA, Secretary, Executive Committee, AIA Pennsylvania Board of Directors, who presented the award. “For years, their faculty, staff, and students have actively partnered with local and regional communities to provide meaningful design assistance that addresses real world challenges in the northeast region of the state.”

Broh cited projects that encompass designing and constructing a range of community-focused solutions, including much needed bus stops for a nearby town, community gardens that demonstrate how design can be both pragmatic and beautiful, and teaching local elementary students how design impacts their lives.

Recent MUSOA initiatives include:

• Observe Scranton festivals in partnership with the Center for the Living City (2021, 2023, 2025)
• Garden Structures for Camp Create (2025)
• Virtual Reconstruction of a Railcar at Steamtown National Historic Site (2025)
• LightUP Everhart for the Everhart Museum (2024)
• Architecture in Schools K–12 Education Initiative (2021–2024)
• Hosting the International & Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Bridge Building Competitions (2022, 2025)
• Glacier Jane: zero-energy renovation of the Mariner’s Unit at Girl Scouts’ Camp Archbald (2022–2024), awarded Second Prize in the Retrofit Housing Division of the 2023 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge
• Adaptive Reuse of the Gravity Slope Colliery for the Borough of Archbald (2021–2024)
• Barn Renovation for Arthur’s Acres Animal Sanctuary (2023)
• Public Space Design for the Garden of Cedar (2021–2025)
• Recreational Infrastructure for the Lackawanna River Conservation Association (2022)
• Adaptive Reuse of the Former PNC Bank for the Black Scranton Project Center for Arts & Culture (2021)
• Bus Shelters for Valley in Motion (2021)
• Electric Jane: net-zero townhouses for Endless Mountains Habitat for Humanity (2020–2021), awarded First Prize in the Attached Housing Division of the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Design Challenge

Through hands-on partnerships and community-driven design, MUSOA empowers students to engage with people of all social and economic backgrounds and encourages the next generation of designers to positively impact their communities as they develop into architects.