The School of Art + Design Comes of Age
Not unlike the debutante who is introduced to society at their coming of age, the School of Art + Design has emerged as the debutante of the season. This debut is not the first excursion into design society for the School of Art + Design.
Established in 2008, the School of Art Design has been a ground breaker in digital design and technologies, been well represented at SIGGRAPH for many years, and accredited by both CIDA in 2014 (Council for Interior Design Accreditation) and NASAD in 2015 (National Association of Schools of Art and Design) prior to the recent re-accreditation visit by NASAD. Credit is due to Glenn Goldman, Director Emeritus of the School of Art + Design who established the school, early collaborators in digital technologies including Steve Zdepski, and John Cays and team, who established Kepler4, the first ever fully digital platform for accreditation reviews.
Back then, there were several people working on this: John Cays, Mike Hoon, Mike Kehoe, Kim de Freitas, and Goldman. As per Goldman, “We were the first school/program to present evidence electronically for accreditation to NAAB, CIDA, and NASAD. In fact, CIDA paid to have David Brothers attend a workshop to demonstrate the way an electronic submission can be done.”
This 2021 visit was supported by the behind the scenes efforts of many faculty from Art + Design, as well as a team of staff members.
All programs in the School of Art + Design were well represented: Industrial Design, Interior Design, and Digital Design. If you had the chance to visit the gallery while the exhibit was up, the concept of a comprehensive school of design was apparent.
The requirements of accreditation as noted on the NASAD site include: functional competence with principles of visual organization, including the ability to work with visual elements in two and three dimensions; color theory and its applications; and drawing, the ability to present work that demonstrates perceptual acuity, conceptual understanding, and technical facility at a professional entry level in their chosen field(s), familiarity with the historical achievements, current major issues, processes, and directions of their field(s, and to be afforded opportunities to exhibit their work and to experience and participate in critiques and discussions of their work and the work of others.
The impressions shared by the visiting team were very positive. The next step in the process is to share their findings with the committee that decides if accreditation will be granted. This will be announced in the Spring, and Hillier College art and design students will be the first to hear the news.