MIAD Family Forum

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my new Assistant Director of Financial Aid.  Her name is Kristina Alvarez.  Kristina brings to MIAD 5 years of financial aid experience, excellent customer service and a true willingness to assist students and their families. Please feel free to contact Kristina or me if you have any financial aid questions.

Last week I sent an e-mail to all current students reminding them that it is once again time to file their FAFSA for the 2012-13 academic year. The Department of Education has made some significant changes to the 2012-13 FAFSA. I would like to share these with you to make the application process as smooth as possible. Continue reading New Expertise and Changes to FAFSA!

MIAD’s most experimental exhibition, “New Exchanges: Evolving Visual Ideas and Forms,” is offering students across the college’s disciplines the opportunity to forge a public dialogue on art and design and the critical thinking it promotes. Do you see your student? Continue reading Exhibition Offers Students, Public New Experiences

During their well-earned winter break, many of your students will excitedly discuss their choice of major with you. Others may discuss several majors and be as yet undecided about which one to select. Still others may decide to major in two areas, or are considering a major and one of MIAD’s many minors.

All of these discussions are part of the transitions that occur during your student’s first year. MIAD’s First-Year Experience encourages students to explore their many options, interests and potential, which often expand and develop in different directions from their original plans. Continue reading Discussing Your Student’s Major: Exploration is Normal!

First-year student Margaret Sharapan used to think of fine art and design as “two branches on a tree,” but Foundations course Understanding the Visual 1 has shown her they are “co-dependents that give and take from one another.”

On December 8, the entire Foundations class gathered as eleven of the first-year students, one from each of the eleven UV-1 class sections, reflected on the course and the value they received from it. Founded in Japan, Pecha Kucha presentations are fast-paced talks, in which a speaker discusses a subject while 20 related slides are shown for 20 seconds each. Continue reading Foundations Students’ Pecha Kucha a Contemporary Tradition

Students dine with artist Evan Baden following his Gallery Talk as part of the artist discussion series for ‘Generation Next‘ – a juried exhibition at MIAD of artists who will make the next significant cultural contribution to our region.

Students are chosen to dine with the artists based on a rationale statement they craft and submit. The Artist Series, held in the Frederick Layton Gallery on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 p.m., began on October 25 and continues through November 22. It is free and open to the public, as is the exhibition, which runs through December 10. The image at right shows the artist, right, with four of the six selected students and Gallery Director Mark Lawson.

As students meet with advisors and register for spring classes this month, one of their key topics for discussion – now and throughout the year – should be their post-graduation planning.

At this point in the academic year: Continue reading Advising Alert! Key Questions for Your Student

With spring registration fast on November 18 for freshmen, students are in the midst of meeting with their advisors to plan course selection.

One of the topics your students should also be discussing during advising, now, and at every contact point with an advisor, is their career.

Planning is an integral part of MIAD’s Career Program of Study. Advisors work closely with the faculty and the Office of Career Services to help students progress through a targeted plan of specific career objectives during each year of study. Continue reading Freshmen! It’s Never Too Early for Career Planning

Kris and Bob O’Connell had a “phenomenal” time at MIAD’s Parent/Partner Day on Saturday October 22, and gained a much greater understanding of the education and daily life at an art and design college.

“We loved the event,” Kris said. “It was a lot of fun.”

Continue reading Students, Parents and Alumni Celebrate MIAD Community

During the week of October 24-28, your student will be asked by his or her professor to take a Student Satisfaction Inventory – an electronic survey that asks questions about everything from their course of study to their quality of life at MIAD.

The survey is a follow-up to the last Student Satisfaction Inventory, which many students filled out two years ago.  Those students, the survey results, and the focus groups that followed, were pivotal. Continue reading Encourage Your Student to Complete the Student Satisfaction Inventory

At one time or another, almost all college students experience some form of stress.

But there are two kinds of stress:  The kind that fuels inspiration, drives work and motivates students to succeed; and the kind that becomes overwhelming and impedes students’ progress in college.

When or why do students become stressed to the point that it is unhealthy? It’s likely that there is more than one answer, but several commonalities exist. Continue reading Helping Your Son or Daughter with Stress

As part of their exposure to all of MIAD’s majors, freshmen participated in a Majors Dialogue October 6 – an evening in which they experienced the intense creativity and energy taking place in each of the academic areas.

Activities in the majors and minors included a brand identification game in the Communications Design area, a sketching demonstration on a Wacom tablet in Industrial Design, a group self-portrait in Painting and an “Erasure” workshop in the Writing minor where students took a page from a book and created a new narrative.

With their faculty, students are currently taking a more sustained look at, and discussion of, what is happening in the majors by looking at facilities, student work and actual classes in progress.

McKenna Klein ’14 (Interior Architecture + Design) joined around 40 other MIAD sophomores who slept overnight in cardboard shelters in 50-degree weather in Catalano Square Friday, September 16.  Her only regret is that it didn’t rain hard enough.

MIAD’s 2011 “Shelter Project” marked the beginning of a new tradition. It was the first time that the entire sophomore class was invited to participate in the project. The event has evolved from a yearly Interior Architecture + Design sophomore assignment that has now taken place 11 years.

Industrial Design and IA+D students had to create shelters out of only cardboard and corrugated plastic. Sophomores studying other disciplines participated through course-related projects or individual ideas based around the concept of “shelter.” Continue reading MIAD Sophomores Flex Design Muscle for Shelter Project

As sophomores gathered for their Orientation September 9 at Discovery World, they were greeted to a new year of focus in their majors by faculty and three alumni who advised:

• Do what you enjoy as you learn more and more about yourself!
• Relish the year as an opportunity to make friends for life!
• Embrace subjects you think may not interest you – you’ll be surprised!
• Don’t give up – it’s okay to change your major and to follow your heart!
• You may not know what you want to do – but you and everyone else will figure it out!

Continue reading Sophomores Look Ahead at Orientation

The first-year students in Professor Lynn Tomaszewski’s Visual & Color Dynamics course provide just one “snapshot” of the college-wide digital learning under way at MIAD. Visual Color & Dynamics is a new course that increases students’ digital experience and exploration of the digital process in creating an image while integrating the concepts of color, light and time.

Just as these first-year students are learning Photoshop, students across all majors and years at MIAD are using their laptops to deepen and integrate their learning experiences while ensuring that they are prepared for the demands of today’s professional world. Continue reading Digital Learning at a Laptop College

“Been there, done that” is pretty lame. But when it comes to cooking in college, “been there, done that” is the best recipe for success.

Lovingly collected by MIAD faculty and staff – including many alumni – as a gift to students living at The Park at 1824 residence hall, RIVERRAT RECIPES offers a contemporary twist on time-tested favorites that served the contributors well during their college years and beyond. Continue reading RIVERRAT RECIPES: By faculty & staff for students

Parent/Partner Day on Saturday, October 22, is designed specifically for parents and those who fulfill this role. It’s an opportunity for you to better understand your student’s educational experience and to strengthen your role as your student’s coaches and mentors, whether your son or daughter is a freshman or a senior. We hope you’ll join those Parents who have made Parent/Partner Day an annual event, especially because we’ve expanded opportunities to see the totality of the MIAD experience that weekend! Continue reading Parent/Partner Day Oct. 22

FERPA (Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act) is a federal law that governs the privacy of student education records, access to those records and disclosure of information from them. Continue reading Student Privacy and FERPA

MIAD is pleased to announce a new food service vendor this fall – D&S Davians, a Wisconsin-based, family-owned company founded in 1958 that specializes both in small, retail food service operations (like MIAD’s) and high-end catering for special events.

Café hours are: Monday – Thursday, 8 a.m. – 3 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. Check out the daily specials menu, the main feature in addition to all the grab & go items and regular offerings in the Café.

Continue reading MIAD Announces New Food Services; Café Hours

At MIAD, silence is definitely not golden. Although we’ve had an exciting summer filled with Pre-College Programs, the Creative Educators’ Institute for teachers from across the nation and summer undergraduate courses, something special happens here the moment all of your students’ voices fill the studios, classrooms and hallways. Continue reading Welcome & Welcome Back!