When Bryn Wears ’06 thinks of her favorite things about Monmouth College, several experiences come to mind.
To her, Monmouth College means hearing bagpipes across campus in the evenings, singing in the choir in Dahl Chapel, sipping a nice hot chai and reading for hours in Hewes library—and participating in the Honors Program.
Bryn credits the Honors Program and the tutelage of dedicated and talented professors for making her undergraduate education both challenging and fulfilling.
Her Honors project, “The Ideal City,” synthesized her various interests through the lens of urban studies.
“I was particularly interested in the concept as it has evolved over time and the influence it has on our conception of the 'urban' today. I was studying architecture, philosophy, history, religion and art and had a great desire to investigate a topic that bridged between all of these subjects,” she said.
As an undergraduate, Wears spent a semester at the ACM Chicago Arts Program and also studied in Finland and Spain. After graduating magna cum laude from MC, she earned a master’s degree in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis. She now lives in Chicago and is a member of the American Institute of Architects, the U.S. Green Building Council, the Young Architects Forum, and the Chicago chapter of Architecture for Humanity.
She maintains an online laboratory for her ideas in architecture, urbanism, art and design at www.locus-studio.com and has blended her background in design with an entrepreneurial spirit as the founder, owner, and head designer for a jewelry company—a creative and intellectual niche she traces back to her academic experiences at MC.
“The Honors Program allowed me to get the most possible out of my education at Monmouth,” she said.