Emerging Legacy Award
Recognizes FAA alumni early in their careers who have made outstanding professional contributions to their field since graduating.
Sarah M. Bassett
Sarah M. Bassett (MUP ’13 Urban Planning)
Sarah M. Bassett, recipient of the Emerging Legacy Award, is an urban planner working on alternative approaches to the multiscale planning challenges of community resilience, spatial (in)justice, climate change, and technological determinism. Her work is in partnership with communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit organizations, developers, and academic institutions advancing inclusive and future-looking sustainability efforts domestically and internationally.
Juri Seo
Juri Seo (DMA ’13 Music)
Juri Seo, recipient of the Emerging Legacy Award, is a Korean American composer and pianist based in Princeton, New Jersey. She seeks to write music that encompasses extreme contrast through compositions that are unified and fluid, yet complex. She merges many of the fascinating aspects of music from the past century—in particular, its expanded timbral palette and unorthodox approach to structure—with a deep love of functional tonality, counterpoint, and classical form.
Distinguished Legacy Award
Awarded to FAA alumni who have attained outstanding success and national or international distinction in their chosen profession or life’s work and whose accomplishments reflect admirably on, or bring honor to, the College of Fine and Applied Arts and the University of Illinois.
Catherine M. Bleck
Catherine M. Bleck (BFA ’78 Graphic Design)
Catherine M. Bleck, recipient of the Distinguished Legacy Award, migrated from her early career as a graphic designer at the Chicago Tribune to one as an internationally respected visual artist. Bleck’s illustration career spans over 40 years, and in 2006 on publishing her monograph Open Spaces she launched her studio artwork into the gallery and museum world.
Dina Griffin
Dina Griffin (BSAS ’86 Architecture)
Recipient of the Distinguished Legacy Award and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects since 2018, Dina Griffin, FAIA, NOMA, IIDA, has over 25 years of experience in the practice of architecture. She is currently the president of Interactive Design Architects (IDEA), a Chicago-based firm that has collaborated on prestigious projects such as the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Barack Obama Presidential Center.
Ralph Johnson
Ralph Johnson (BArch ’71 Architecture)
Ralph E. Johnson FAIA, LEED AP, and recipient of the Distinguished Legacy Award, received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Illinois and his Master of Architecture from Harvard University. He began his career at Stanley Tigerman’s office and in 1976 joined Perkins and Will, where he currently serves as its Global Design Director and is a member of its board of directors.
Illinois Arts Legacy Award
Recognizes volunteers, staff, loyal performers, affiliated artists, etc. who are not necessarily graduates of FAA but whose contributions have made a significant impact in the arts at Illinois.
Daniel J. Perrino
Daniel J. Perrino (BME ’48 Music Education, MS ’49 Music)
Recipient of the Illinois Arts Legacy Award, Daniel J. Perrino’s consummate artistic and administrative skill melded with his love for the arts, for the University of Illinois, and for humanity created a profound and lasting impact on this campus and on generations of students and alumni past, present, and future.
Shozo Sato
Shozo Sato
The impact of Shozo Sato’s great legacy has been felt for more than 50 years in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, on campus, across the greater Champaign-Urbana community, nationally, and internationally. Sato, recipient of the Illinois Arts Legacy Award, is a master of the highest order of Japanese tea ceremony, flower arranging, and black ink painting. Generations of students know Shozo Sato as Sensei, and to this day he teaches and inspires though classes at Japan House.
John Charles Wustman
John Charles Wustman
John Charles Wustman was born in Byron Center, Michigan, and studied music at the University of Michigan with John Kollen and in New York with Leonard Shure. He was a pianist for the rehearsals of the American Opera Society’s presentation of Vincenzo Bellini’s II Pirata that occurred in Carnegie Hall in 1959 and would later serve as a member of the jury at the Fourth International Tschaikovsky Competition in Moscow with Maria Callas.