JERRY STIVERS FACULTY

It’s the beginning of the summer and Jerry Stivers is traveling with 28 students and Professors Moh’d Bilbeisi and Nathan Richardson, studying architecture in Europe. They’ll be forming a new travel family as they learn, live, and experience “community” in Italy, France, and the Netherlands over the next month.

The concept of community is a feeling of fellowship with others as a result of common attitudes, interests, and goals. For Jerry, this search for and creation of community has fueled his purpose in architecture and been central to his life.

Music is another “present” community that is central to Jerry’s life. In some ways, it precedes his discovery of and passion for architecture... but he doesn’t see them as one or the other, or the least bit competitive. Rather they are creative companions, pairing well together, sharing the common threads of rhythm, texture, harmony, proportion, dynamics, and when experienced with others, a sense of community.

Jerry’s mandolin is an indispensable part of his travel toolkit, just as much as his Journal, sketchpad, and pens. In the last twelve years, he’s been learning to play the mandolin and exploring folk music. Folk music describes all sorts of musical, oral, and cultural traditions from specific regions and communities from around the world. In particular, the three genres he’s been exploring are: Celtic, old time, and bluegrass.

The beginnings of his explorations in the shared relationship between music and architecture may have started with the historical, cultural, and mathematical aspects mentioned prior, but quickly found meaning in the musicians and friends he was surrounded by while playing at home or traveling abroad. When in Europe, Jerry searches out local “sessions” where he can come alongside other folk musicians to play and experience community. Sessions are typically found in local pubs which spatially function as a community family room. Students enjoy attending these performances, and before their night is over, have made friends and broadened their own community.

Travel study always reminds Jerry of how important community is no matter how you find it. Shared places, spaces, and experiences need to be a part of our everyday no matter where one exists in this great big world.