Program News
In the ninth year of annual surveys of hundreds of professional firms and organizations that hire architecture and interior design graduates, FSU ’s Interior Design undergraduate program ranked No. 2 in the Sun Belt (Texas to Virginia!) for 2007. The poll conducted by the Design Futures Council and the journal, DesignIntelligence, gauges the schools that best prepare students for professional practice. DesignIntelligence's annual survey provides students, parents, counselors and corporations with the necessary tools to evaluate the nation's best design schools. The FSU Interior Design Graduate Program was ranked No. 5 in the Sunbelt for 2008!
The William Johnston Building (home to the FSU ID program) will be undergoing a $49.2 million renovation project. The design firm of Gould/Evans, Tampa, FL was chosen as the project architects. Upon completion in Summer 2011, the renovated building and new addition (over 130,000 sf!) will be the largest the university has undertaken. The building will house several administrative units and will provide the Interior Design Program state of the arts facilities, including: cold desks for all Junior and Senior studio classes, a 1000 sf gallery, public critique space and a wood-working shop. William Johnston (constructed between 1908 and 1939) was originally the food service building for the Florida College for Women.
Great news: Dr. Jill Pable was notified that has received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor from the university. Dean Sally McRorie commented in a letter to Dr. Pable: “Your contributions to the department, college, and university have been very important, and we are all grateful for the fine work you do. Promotion and tenure are recognition from your peers of the strength and importance of your accomplishments, and are most well deserved. Congratulations!”
Jill Pable (along with grad student Rachelle McClure and Sean Coyne) received a CRC Small Grant Proposal Award. The award is to create a prototype of a proposed cradle design for use in homeless shelters.
The FSU Interior Design Program has been in the news lately over the subject of "sustainable" or "green" design. Triggered by the win (Best of Competition) of senior Bridget Dunn in the national 2006 IIDA Student Sustainable Design Competition, radio, web and newspaper articles have been appearing referencing Bridget and the inclusion of sustainability in our design curriculum. Everything FSU ran an article ""Green" Interior Design by FSU Undergrad Wins International Honor" in May 2006 with a teaser pic of Bridget and the article running periodically on the main FSU Website banner. FSU Headline Radio had a feature in July 2006 "The "Green" Design Wave of Interior Design" that included interviews with department Chair Eric Wiedegreen and adjunct faculty member Jillian Tribble. The Tallahassee Democrat ran an article "College Campuses Go Green" (August 16, 2006) that also quotes Wiedegreen. The department looks to become involved with the funded LEED Platnium house being undertaken by the College of Engineering and will again run an intensive Sustainable Design elective course in Spring 2007.
The Department of Interior Design along with the FSU Department of Art Education were co-sponsors of the ART&DESIGN for Social Justice Symposium. The first symposium was held September 17 and 18, 2006, and had over 80 participants from Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. The focus of the first symposium was "the homeless", with the intent of seeing how scholarship in art and design can help solution-seek some of the world's social problems. Last year's symposium was held September 16 and 17, 2007 with the focus of "Issues of Aging". Check out the website at www.fsu.edu/symposium.
DEPARTMENT HONORS
Eric Wiedegreen was given Fellow status in the Interior Design Educators Council at their 2008 Annual Conference, held in March in Montreal, Canada. Fellow status is designed to honor an IDEC member who has demonstrated sustained and significant participation in IDEC and ongoing and valuable contribution to interior design education. Mr. Wiedegreen is the immediate Past-President of the organization.
Presenting at the 2007 ART&DESIGN for Social Justice Symposium (after selection through a blind review) were Lisa Waxman, and Jill Pable.
David Butler was the recipient of the 2007 University Academic Advising Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising. David serves as our Career Counselor and schedules all classes and students. Congratulations!
Faculty came away with a number of top honors at the 2007 IDEC National Conference held in March 2007 in Austin, Texas. Lisa Waxman received the "Best Paper Presentation" (with co-author Stephanie Clemmons of Colorado State University), a Service Merit Award for her completed term as IDEC Secretary/Treasurer, and most significant, was awarded Fellow status, the highest honor IDEC can bestow for her service to IDEC and her body of work (see picture below... Lisa is second from right!), Jill Pable received an Award of Distinction for her Creative Endeavor submission on homeless shelter design and a Service Award for her leadership of the IDEC Academy, and Marlo Ransdell received the Best Poster Award and the Carol Price Shannis Scholarship ($3000).
Two department faculty have received some very prestigious university awards: Lisa Waxman received the 2006 Graduate Faculty Mentor Award and Rick Navarro received the 2005-2006 University Teaching Award. Both awards carried honorariums. The Graduate Faculty Mentor Award recognizes faculty who have made a difference in all aspects of our graduate students' experience and the University Teaching Award recognizes teaching excellence as multi-faceted, involving areas such as providing a positive role model to students, imparting a respect for truth and a love of learning and innovative teaching techniques. Congratulations to both faculty members on this recognition of excellence!
2007 Research Fellow from Korea
Dr. Sung-Hye Kim conducted a one-year sabbattical from Hyupsung University in Korea with the department. She has been an associate professor of interior design there since 1997 and worked in private design practice for five years. She has numerous published journal articles and contract design projects. Coming here with her husband (Chang-Ho Chung, an architect with Eco Architecture-Seoul) and two children, she hoped to learn more about American design education.
NATIONAL LEADERS
FSU faculty Eric Wiedegreen and Lisa Waxman recently completed service as national officers in the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC). Mr. Wiedegreen was President 2006-2007 (and will serve another year term as Past-President). Dr. Waxman served a two-year term as Secretary/Treasurer and was recently appointed to the Board of the IDEC Foundation.. Both faculty have been long-term members of this organization and have served as Regional Chairs, regional conference coordinators and national Board members. Faculty member Jill Pable having previously served as the chair for the IDEC Academy and national IDEC Secretary/Treasurer, was recently elected as national President-Elect (President 2010-2011.)
PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS
The faculty has had several accepted paper presentation for the 2008 Interior Design Educators Council Annual Conference in Montreal, Canada in March. These include: Lisa Waxman: “Spatial Journeys: Introducing Environment and Behavior Theories to Beginning Design Students”; Turkiyah Alenazy & Lisa Waxman: “Privacy Needs and the Muslim Woman: An Examination of Contemporary Kuwaiti Housing Types”; and Rachelle McClure & Eric Wiedegreen: “Changing the way we think about buildings: A life-cycle costing approach to sustainable design decisions”. A panel presentation (“Graduate Education: Taking Interior Design Education to the Next Level”) will be facilitated by Lynn Chalmers, Jill Pable, Lisa Waxman & John Weigand. Also presenting a poster are graduate students Veronica Fannin & Lindsay Clark (“Design Pedagogy and the Tangible Blog: Bringing Cyberspace Down to Earth”).
At the 2007 IDEC South Regional Conference held at Virginia Tech, Eric Wiedegreen had design work "accepted for show" in the IDEC Regional Creative Endeavors competition. It was announced that his work was chosen best-in-show ("Alone in a Crowd", a series of sketches from travel abroad.) Lisa Waxman also presented a paper: "Designing to Build Community and Social Capital in College Students".
Big round of paper acceptances just came in! Jill Pable got a paper and creative work accepted, Lisa Waxman got a paper accepted, and Adjunct Professor Marlo Ransdall got a poster accepted to the 2007 IDEC International Conference in Austin, TX. As for EDRA, Dr. Pable had a poster accepted and Dr. Waxman had a paper accepted.
At the 2006 IDEC South Regional Conference held at UNC-Greensboro, Jill Pable and Tock Ohazama had design work "accepted for show" in the first IDEC Regional Creative Endeavors competition. While this is a staple at the international level, this was a first at the regional level. It was announced that Dr. Pable was chosen best-in-show for her conceptual design for a homeless shelter reception area. Dr. Pable was honored to be chosen for Best Presentation for her paper based on her summer research on practitioner perceptions of hand and computer graphics. (This is two years in a row for her for this honor at the regional level.)
Tock Ohazama gave an invited talk, "Licensing: Qualification and Education for the Interior Design Profession in the USA," at the 5th Annual International Conference on Interior Design Environmental Design and SPatial Culture Studies, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan, July, 2006.
Jill Pable's presentation, "Students as Visioneers: A Project for Community Social Issue and Awareness and Change" won BEST PRESENTATION at the 2005 IDEC South Regional Conference. Also presenting was Rick Navarro ("The Mapping of Design Theory".. with Tom Szumlic), and Karen Myers and Eric Wiedegreen ("Using Collaboration to Create a Student Experience in the Historic Restoration of the Decorative Arts"... with Lynn Berkowitz of the Ringling Museum of Art.) Adjunct faculty member Laurel Harbin also presented ("Creating a Sense of Community in an Urban Pedestrian and Transit-Oriented Development".)
Eric Wiedegreen gave a lecture, “Furnishing the Mid-Century Modern Home” at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee. The lecture was part of the on-going activities associated with the museum’s exhibition “The Florida Home: Modern Living 1945-1965” that features a full-scale, furnished mock-up of a late 1940s South Florida house. The exhibition ran through January 2, 2006.
Rick Navarro’s entry to the 2005 IDEC Design Competition was “accepted for show” at its International Conference in Savannah, GA in March, 2005. Lisa Waxman presented a paper at the conference, "Mixed Messages: The impact of design related television shows on student perceptions of the interior design profession" (with Colorado State faculty member Stephanie Clemons) and received the Members' Choice Award as Best Presentation.
Tock Ohazama presented a paper at the 2004 IDEC South Regional Conference, held in High Point, NC. His paper on Japanese Architecture was voted Best Paper for the conference. Rick Navarro also presented a paper on material advancements and graduate student Anubhuti Bhatia presented a paper, “Form Follows Function: Pragmatic Functionalism in Interior Design.
FSU HOSTED 2005 IDEC CONFERENCE
The FSU Interior Design Department hosted the 2005 IDEC South Regional Conference on October 13-15, 2005. The conference theme highlighted graduate education across the region. Hosting the conference allowed educators and graduate students in design from across the South to visit the campus, view student work and program facilities, while engaging in paper presentations, poster sessions, and panel discussions. Peter Munton was our Conference Coordinator. FSU last hosted this conference in 1993.
NEW BOOK
Author Peter Koenig has had the revised second edition of his book, Design Graphics, published by Prentice-Hall. This text has been adopted by many design programs across the nation.
David M. Butler has co-authored with Larry L. Peterson (Florida A & M University), Design Professionals Guidebook to Managing Your Career Path, for Architecture, Interior Design and Landscape Architecture Students, 2005 Edition. Check out the book website at www.designprofs.biz .