Dean William Chapman is named the 2022 recipient of the Florence R. Sabin Class of 1889 Distinguished Alumni Award at Vermont Academy in Saxton’s River, Vermont.
This award is the highest honor the Academy bestows on its alumni. Established in 1985, the Sabin Award recognizes alumni who, “through their diligence and efforts, have utilized the basic academic and life skills acquired at the Academy to achieve significant success in their professional careers or have made outstanding contributions in community involvement, thereby bringing honor to themselves and Vermont Academy.”
The Vermont Academy recognizes Dr. Chapman’s exemplary work in the field of Historic Preservation, Asian Pacific Architecture and Architectural History. He is currently the interim dean for the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Architecture, the former director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and former chair of the Department of American Studies. A four-time Fulbright awardee, he holds degrees from the University of Virginia, Columbia University and the University of Oxford. Widely published in scholarly journals, he has written on subjects ranging from the historic Volcano House Hotel in Hawaiʻi to the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. His most recent book is Ancient Sites of Southeast Asia: A Traveler’s Guide through History, Ruins, and Landscapes (Bangkok: River books, 2018). He previously received the Frank Haines Award for Lifetime Contributions to Historic Preservation from the Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation and the Preservation Alumni Leadership Award from the Columbia University Historic Preservation Program.