June 2025 | Brittney J. Miller
From the outside, the University of South Florida’s Judy Genshaft Honors College is an asymmetrical chameleon.
The five-story building on the school’s Tampa campus sometimes glows a deep plum. Eye it from another angle, though, and it takes on a lively USF-green hue. Squint, and you may catch a rainbow spraying from the exterior’s 127 aluminum panels, all coated with a shimmering metallic finish.
It’s the colorful legacy of former USF President Judy Genshaft, who formally established the school’s honors college in 2002 during her 19-year tenure. The program previously lived in the John and Grace Allen Building, the oldest building on campus. Its 2,600-some honors students quickly outgrew the space.
Big news rolled out in 2019: The honors program would receive a new $56-million home, one dedicated to Genshaft and her husband, who together donated $20 million to the project. State funding contributed $8.1 million to the building, and the rest came from more than 50 private donors. USF hired California-based design company Morphosis, whose founder Thom Mayne won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2005, and Tampa firm FleischmanGarciaMaslowski Architecture for the job.
One of the project’s guiding principles was making the 85,000-sq.-ft. building both reflect and enhance the community of young scholars. To do so, the design team turned to the honors students themselves.
“One of the most important things we wanted to do was to involve students from the very beginning and not just design it out of our own heads,” says Charles Adams, endowed dean of the Judy Genshaft Honors College since 2014.
The college created four consecutive courses around the project, inviting feedback on designs and walking students through the planning and construction processes. “That class, and other focus groups with staff and faculty and students, produced a lot of information that the architects then used to begin designing the building.”
The building started taking shape in 2020. Its transparent ground floor gives onlookers a peek at a central atrium extending five stories high. Thirty-nine learning lofts encircle the atrium, all sporting different designs featuring white oak beams, to create a beehive of busy leaners on every floor. Open-design classrooms are filled with furniture that can be easily rearranged for instructors’ purposes, facilitating group discussions for small classes. Some rooms can hold two classes at once, or events like talent shows or visiting lectures.
The building beefs up the program’s interdisciplinary learning with several creative spaces born from student ideas. A video production room sits alongside a soundproof podcast studio, where students have produced around 50 podcasts. A music room is home to an honors orchestra, choir and contemporary music ensemble. A food and culture studio — dedicated to Genshaft’s mother — sports a fully equipped kitchen with cameras to broadcast cooking demonstrations.
The honors college moved into its new home in 2023 and has been thriving ever since, Adams says.
“The number of students who are taking our classes has expanded by about a third over the past two years, and that’s a reflection of the building. The building has given them a home. It’s given them, I think, a lot of pride,” he says. “Finally, we have a place where that community of honors students can be realized. They can really flourish as a community in their own space.
Judy Genshaft Honors College, USF
AWARDS:
- 2023: Outstanding Design, American School & University Architectural Portfolio
- 2024: AIA Florida, Honor Award of Excellence for New Work; First Place from the Florida Educational Facilities Planners’ Association (FEFPA) in the College/University Category