Author: sara

James McCarthy Named Ninth President of Suffolk

 

After a year and a half of interim leadership, Suffolk University passed the presidential reins from Acting President and Provost Barry Brown to James McCarthy on February 1, 2012. McCarthy becomes Suffolk’s ninth President, following David J. Sargent, who retired in October of 2010.

Most recently provost and senior vice president at Baruch College of the City University of New York, McCarthy comes to Suffolk after stints at Princeton University, the International Statistical Institute in London and Trinity College, Dublin. He also served at Johns Hopkins, Columbia and the University of New Hampshire. While at Baruch, an urban institution with 18,000 students and 500 faculty members, McCarthy steered the college through reaccreditation and strategic planning processes, both of which Suffolk faces in the near future.

A sociologist and demographer, President McCarthy holds a Ph.D. from Princeton, an M.A. from Indiana University and an A.B. from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. Because of his time in Massachusetts and nearby New Hampshire, he feels a special affection for the city of Boston, one thing that led him to accept the presidency of Suffolk.

In his two weeks at the helm of Suffolk, President McCarthy has embarked on a listening tour, meeting with the faculties and staffs of the Law School, the Sawyer Business School and the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the Student Government. He has plans to visit every department in the University for a first-hand look at what he’s inheriting.

In a open forum held on February 7th, and another a week later with CAS faculty, McCarthy demonstrated an impressive grasp of the issues confronting Suffolk, given the fact that he’d been President for 4 days at the first and then 11. At the first meeting he was relaxed and genial, displaying flashes of humor, confidence without a trace of arrogance, making, overall, a very positive first impression. At the second he went straight to specifics, promising to continue Suffolk’s traditions of accessibility and excellence, addressing his preference for a decentralized and somewhat simplified system of governance, a commitment to crystal-clear two-way communication, and a desire to restore the family atmosphere some think has been lacking in recent years. Though he only indirectly addressed the issue of facilities for NESADSU, it is clearly on his agenda and we’re therefore hopeful for a quick resolution to this vexing issue. He did, however, urge anyone with a question or problem to email him directly, something that we have already found works perfectly.

NESADSU welcomes James McCarthy to Suffolk and hopes to work closely with him to find solutions to the issues confronting the art school and the rest of the University.

Master of Arts Graduates in Graphic Design Stage an Exhibition at Fort Point

With large-scale thesis projects and a lack of display space at 75 Arlington Street, the January 2012 MAGD graduates took over the Fort Point Arts Community gallery on Farnsworth Street in Boston for a public exhibition of their work (which remains up until February 11th). Called Beyond Graphic Design, the tagline reads “Grow, Stitch, Travel, Imagine, Explode, Experience” and all those verbs only begin to explain the brilliant work one see on the walls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The six program graduates, Emily Roose, April Kalix-Cattell, Shi-Min Chin, Kate Simonson, Jeanie Havens and Victor Cabrera, spent a minimum of three semesters working on the key project of their tenure at NESADSU. The amount of effort that went into each of the projects, the depth of commitment, the variety, and the stunning results were there for all to see.

One of the most challenging projects belongs to April Kalix-Cattell. Called “Fully Fed”, it “explores interactive, experiential design and its ability to bring awareness to the conflict between eating foods that fill us and truly being fed”. Against a backdrop of artfully arranged packaging containers, each bottle, box and jar painted a stark white, are several pedestals with immediately recognizable food products perched on top.

The familiar Cheez-It’s box, a bag of colorful candy, a jug of orange-flavored drink, a box of doughnuts, all “products we all know and love. Upon closer inspection, you will find the packages have been altered to highlight the non-nutritional value of these items. Inside are the ‘filler’ foods made from inedible materials such as cardboard, feathers, and sponges. The material choices communicate that these have as little nutritional value and provide as much satisfaction as the actual food products they represent.” April invites the viewer “to pick up, explore, and interact with my work. As you do, I hope to challenge your assumptions about something we all take for granted: our very definition of food.” And I guarantee you’ll never look at a package of prepared food in the same way again.

 

Shifting gears entirely, Emily Roose manages to make a biting statement about our obsession with breaking news stories that are “fast and ephemeral”, by slowly and painstakingly cross-stitching the images on canvas. In Slow-Breaking News, “I wanted to see how this transference of medium affects the message of these stories and highlights the absurdity of the way stories are reported in the media and the way we consume them.”

Using source imagery from television and news websites, she created six cross-stitch designs in about four months, then a seventh later on. Much of the stitching took place as she designed so there’s a wonderful spontaneity to all the pieces. The images ended as framed pieces and her documentation of the project made into three books: one on research on media theory, the second on the history of cross-stitch, and a third documenting the final work.

 

Victor Cabrera’s Branding Tourism for the Dominican Republic points out the obvious to anyone who has ever contemplated a Caribbean vacation: the simple fact that there are many wonderful places to vacation and a finite number of tourists to go there. With the crucial role that tourism plays in the economies of the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, even the U.S., the question becomes how best to entice those tourists to one place, in this case Victor’s Dominican Republic.

“My thesis goal was to develop a comprehensive strategic framework for branding tourism for the Dominican Republic. For several years, this industry has been the number one generator of income and jobs for the country. I have developed a set of associated communication campaign materials and a modular system in which tourism for the Dominican Republic can be promoted around the world by offering a live experience that encompasses all of the senses.” By highlighting the allure of the Dominican Republic in large-scale photographic panels, a book, and a multi-sensory, movable encapsulation of the country and its myriad offerings for tourists, Victor can entice potential travelers to sample all the Dominican Republic has to offer. Hopefully they’ll follow with a visit to the real thing.

 

Using her background in interior design to complement her new-found skills as a graphic/environmental designer, Kate Simonson sought to increase “the value of the mural in a digital age”. The goal of her thesis was to “enhance the value of the mural…..by turning the art form into an event…by exploding parts of a mural all over the city”. By increasing the visibility of the mural, she hoped to “more positively impact the environment, communicate messages, and create community”.

 

Shi-Min Chin’s thesis project, titled Ultimate Roots: A Case for Expanding Spirit in the Growth of Ultimate Frisbee, was aimed at creating and branding a “grassroots organization for the sport of Ultimate Frisbee”, which she named Ultimate Roots. The object was to involve Frisbee players in community service, by drawing on their “spirit of the game” and their sense of moral responsibility in order to benefit the general public.

 

Jeanie Havens drew her thesis project, called Morris and Gawwk: Go to the Planet of Mud, from a childhood’s worth of stories created by her father, Thomas, and told in on-going narratives to her and to her brothers. Though never written down at the time of the telling, Jeannie has recreated the stories and given them graphic form in accompanying drawings for the first time. As she says, “I believe that Morris and Gawwk helped open the doors of creativity in me as a child and I hope their stories do the same for children and parents who encounter them today.”

Graphic Design Graduate Program Director Rita Daly, always a champion of her students, said about the exhibition and the work shown:

“The student projects shown in the January 2012 Masters in Graphic Design Thesis Exhibition represent just what the show title states: ‘Beyond Graphic Design’. Students realize the value in the uniqueness of the topics and the form their final thesis projects take. The diversity of subject matter and the personal manifestation of thesis ideas communicate the MAGD program goal of producing thinking, creative, well-qualified graduates, capable of adapting to and addressing the issues that will confront them as graphic design professionals.”

As NESADSU Chairman Bill Davis said, after a tour of the exhibition: “Ultimately, the Master of Arts in Graphic Design program is concerned with communicating complex ideas visually. The goal of the work here is not to create “pretty pictures”, but to inform and persuade intellectually, emotionally and visually. The six projects included succeed in doing this most convincingly.”

The MAGD Thesis Exhibition is open through Saturday, February 11th. The gallery is at 12 Farnsworth Street in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood and is open Monday through Friday from 11 to 6 and on Saturday from 10 until 5.

 

Images Courtesy of Molly Akin

Design Intelligence Recognizes NESADSU

Design Intelligence magazine, in its fall 2010 issue on “America’s Best Architecture & Design Schools”, has ranked both The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University’s undergraduate and graduate interior design programs among the top 10 in the nation.

On hearing the news, Acting Suffolk President Barry Brown said, “Please let me add my congratulations to all those at NESAD who have contributed to this honor. We are so appreciative of the effort of faculty, administration and staff to achieve this ranking. The recognition by Design Intelligence is further confirmation of the growing national and international stature of NESAD and the great potential it holds for all of us at the University.” College of Arts and Sciences Dean Ken Greenberg, noting that NESADSU was “in very impressive company”, also acclaimed the “extraordinary achievement”.

The rankings, drawn from a survey of leading design firms, reflect “which college and university programs are best preparing students for professional practice”. NESADSU’s undergraduate program was ranked 5th overall, the graduate program tied for 6th, with the University of Oregon and Boston Architectural College (formerly the Boston Architectural Center). The results were further broken down by a skills assessment. NESADSU was ranked number one in Communication, number three in Design (in a tie with Parsons School of Design, RISD, University of Cincinnati and Syracuse), and number two in Sustainable Design Practices and Principles (with Florida State, Marymount University, Savannah College of Art and Design and the University of Florida).

Participants in the survey were design professionals “who have direct experience in hiring and in evaluating the performance of recent architecture and design graduates” (DI Survey Methodology). Research for the surveys was also provided by CIDA (Council for Interior Design Accreditation), among other accrediting and professional entities.

2011 is the first year that NESADSU has been mentioned in the survey. Enormous credit for the Interior Design programs’ successes should go to Program Co-Directors Karen Clarke and Nancy Hackett, as well as to all full-time and adjunct faculty members, to say nothing of our interior design students. Congratulations to everyone!

UPDATE

As we headed off to press, the 2012 Design Intelligence rankings were made public and NESADSU really shone this time. The undergraduate program in Interior Design moved from 5th place to 3rd (in a tie with Pratt Institute, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Florida and the BAC), while the graduate program moved up from 6th to 3rd in a tie with Pratt. In this year’s two skills assessment categories, NESADSU ranked 2nd in Communication and 3rd in Cross-Disciplinary Teamwork (with Auburn University). Once again, heartiest congratulations to Karen and Nancy, as well as to the faculty, students and staff of the program. This is quite an achievement!

S.C.

Featured Designers: Brittney Dion, Wawa Zhu, Courtney Conklin Kresel

NESADSU’s Karen Clarke One of the 25 Most Admired Educators in Design

To add to the acclaim heaped upon NESADSU’s Interior Design program by Design Intelligence magazine, in their annual rankings of Interior Design programs nationwide, we’re very happy to announce that Interior Design Program Co-Director, Karen Clarke, has been named to DI’s list of the 25 Most Admired Educators of 2012. In the elite group of 25, Karen joins such luminaries as Robert A.M. Stern, Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale University, as well as others from Cornell, Harvard, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Texas, Syracuse and other highly regarded institutions.

The recipients of this honor, both educators and administrators, were chosen from the disciplines of architecture, industrial design and landscape architecture, in addition to interior design, based on “extensive input from thousands of design professionals, academic department heads and students”.

Karen, who earned a BAA degree from Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto (Canada) and an MFA at Boston University, taught at Mount Ida College, Newbury College, Wentworth Institute of Technology and at Vancouver (B.C.) Community College before coming to Suffolk in 1996. She is also the sole proprietor of an interior design firm in Lincoln, MA that specializes in residential and commercial interior design.

Karen has been at the helm of NESADSU’s Interior Design program, which attracts undergraduate and graduate students from all over the United States, as well as from numerous other countries, for 15 years. She was joined in 2007 by Nancy Hackett, who is now Program Co-Director, and together they have brought accolades of all sorts to NESADSU and to the University.

Our very enthusiastic congratulations to Karen on this remarkable achievement.

S.C.