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A 22-foot-high tree house and an archery pavilion with shooting stations that crank up and down on car jacks to accomodate kids in wheelchairs are among the fully accessible projects that Associate Professor Laura Terry and her students have designed and built for Camp Aldersgate,  a Little Rock camp that serves children with disabilities. The Camp Aldersgate design/build program is one of two winners of the John A. White Award for Faculty-Student Collaboration. There were 17 nominations submitted by faculty members and students across the campus for the award, which celebrates research collaboration between professors and undergraduate students.  The other winning project is “Early Breast Cancer Detection” from the College of Engineering. Both projects were featured in short videos at the 2008 Academic Convocation.

This year's project, funded by the School of Architecture Dean's Circle, opens up a new area of the camp with two picnic sites designed and largely built in just six weeks. An unexpected expansion of the project is the two-hundred-foot-long wooden bridge that links the two sites, made necessary by a drainage ditch that renders the path inaccessible.

“We decided if we’re going to build a path we might as well take the whole thing off the ground,” said Terry. “That way we don’t have to worry about roots, rocks or the path washing out.” Practical, sure, but the bridge, which rises over six feet off the ground in places, adds an element of drama and adventure that is a hallmark of the School of Architecture’s projects at the camp.

Watch for the fall '08 issue of Arkansas magazine, which will discuss this year's Camp Aldersgate project. Terry also is writing a book on the program.