Welcome from the Dean
I’m thrilled to share Vision 2022–23, our school’s seventh and most recent annual report. As you leaf through these pages, you’ll experience the excellence and vibrancy of the last year. In 2022–23, the Eskenazi School bloomed with the return to the full intensity and breadth of in-person teaching, learning, and research/creative activities, along with exhibitions, lectures, and gatherings.
Our graduating class of 2023 was special in many ways including the fact that they were our “pandemic class.” This is the cohort that were first-year students in the fall of 2019, and who had to vacate campus in such short order in March of 2020. As incoming freshmen, they never could have anticipated the different shape their college experience would take. But they adapted and innovated in the classroom, studio, and gallery, discovering new ways to learn, create, network, and advance. The resourcefulness and resilience they developed during this time will gird them against future challenges and position them for success.
As you peruse this report, you’ll find abundant evidence of the ways our school is making a difference in the world and in individual lives. Whether proposing interior designs to improve the patient experience at a health clinic or developing placemaking strategies that improve daily life and long-term outcomes in small town Indiana, our faculty and students demonstrate daily the contemporary relevance of art, architecture, design, and merchandising.
On top of service-learning projects, Eskenazi students engaged in global conversations on subjects such as artificial intelligence and creativity. In our school, we embrace the possibilities of innovation instead of avoiding them, assured in the knowledge that the human spirit is the spark, the driver, and the abiding essence of any meaningful enterprise. Perhaps even more than others, we creatives know in our bones that our humanity is not a vestigial trait.
You’ll read how our students complement the knowledge they acquire in our classrooms and studios with experiential learning in destinations local and global. You’ll discover how our school’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Office works to promote social justice in our teaching, research, and creative activities. And you’ll learn about the exceptional people who study and teach here, and the ways that Eskenazi alumni are shaping the world.
Thank you for being a part of our experience and for supporting the creativity, innovation, and resilience that define the Eskenazi School. I invite you to read on to learn more about the ways our faculty, staff, students, and alumni have flourished this past year. We hope that these pages will inspire and uplift!
Health and peace to you and yours,
Peg Faimon
Founding Dean and Professor
Download the 2022-23 Vision Magazine Here