When students start studyies at the University of Florida CityLab Sarasota Graduate School of Architecture, a major part of the vision for the Center for Architecture Sarasota will materialize. A special welcome event will be held Wednesday from 5:30-7:30pm at the Orange Avenue facility, where some $19,500 in scholarships will be awarded. SRQ Daily spoke with CFAS Chair Cynthia Peterson about the latest development.

How will these scholarships work?  The scholarships are awarded only to University of Florida CityLab graduate students who will study in our community and in our building. We have seven students coming in the fall, and each of the students will be getting cut a nice check. The minimum any of the students will be getting is $2,000.

Do you expect this amount of scholarship money to be awarded annually?  These will be standing scholarships every year. I don’t know if every student will get $2,000 every year, but we want to hand out $15,000 to $20,000 a year for the CityLab program, and we have been able to secure a commitment for every year.

Why is the education component so important for CFAS?  A big part of our mission is education, along with community awareness for our built environment. CityLab completes that mission with a studio-type program with graduate students coming to look at our community, with its issues and opportunities. We bring these issues into the lab and studio space and explore them. It’s an amazing opportunity for the community. This will fundamentally transform the way community issues are looked at and resolved.