Welcome from the Dean
Once again, we find ourselves describing our times as “unprecedented.”
One unprecedented experience we shared in Bloomington this spring was encountering the path of totality of the solar eclipse. As artists, scholars, and educators, the quality of our life’s work depends on our ability to pay attention. This celestial experience commanded a presence of body and mind we can remember and draw from as we proceed on our path. The event was deeply humanizing in prompting us to consider our place in the vast universe. And there was a sense of solidarity in our collective experience of awe. I would guess that most of us have been using the term “awesome” a little more advisedly since April 8.
Back on planet Earth, and very relevant to our day-to-day lives as creatives, “unprecedented” might also characterize the attacks on freedom of expression and academic freedom that have escalated in recent times. Such rights are basic to who we are as artists, designers, merchandisers, and architects.
Each academic year since the 2016 founding of our beloved school we have faced new and challenging situations as we consistently move forward with our teaching, creative research, and service. From international conflicts, climate change, and a global pandemic to social upheaval and economic decline, our times demand that higher education play a role in producing solutions. The work of advancing knowledge, understanding, and a sense of connection through research, creativity, and instruction has never been more relevant.
Artists, design thinkers, innovators, creatives of all sorts are the ones we as a culture rely on when times get tough. We are the explorers, the reporters, the empaths, the communicators, the brainstormers, and the problem solvers. We are society’s conscience, its town crier. We creatives are often the first ones to point out the problem … but also the first to raise our hand with the unexpected and innovative answer.
The gravity of current affairs compels us to go forward. Our students are extraordinary individuals. They came to the Eskenazi School with great talent and strong values, and that core has been reinforced here with the tools of their trade and the conceptual foundations of their fields. At the same time, they have strengthened their capacity for critical thinking, and expanded their world view. They are ready, and the world is ready for them. More than that, more than ever, the world needs them.
Our students and graduates are supported by similarly mission-driven, world-class faculty and staff who lovingly and tirelessly share the fruits of their own lifelong quests, and in the fall of 2024, we will add eleven more talented permanent faculty to our ranks. These ambitious, highly principled, internationally renowned artists, scholars, and educators I am so proud to call our Eskenazi School faculty welcome our students into their fields, share their expertise through their creative research, and devote their energies to community engagement providing life-enriching experiences.
To wit, the excellence of our architecture faculty—together with the unwavering support of the Columbus community—has earned our J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program initial accreditation from the National Architectural Accrediting Board following an intense five-year review process. This means all graduates from the first graduating class on will meet the education requirement for registration as an architect in all states. We couldn’t be prouder of our young architecture program, or more appreciative of its supporters.
We maintain a position of relevancy, growth, service, and leadership within the higher education space through our accreditations and associations. The interior design program hosted the Council for Interior Design Accreditation team for a successful campus review in February. A final letter of reaccreditation is expected in October. What’s more, the program’s director Bryan Orthel was named to the presidency of the Interior Design Educators Council. By serving on the Board of Directors of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans and as the Vice President for the National Association of Schools of Art and Design, I continue to do my part to keep the Eskenazi School in the national/international conversation and to share best practices to elevate the state of art and design education across the board.
As we prepare for our second strategic planning process, we renew our commitment to our students’ success, to transformational creative research and scholarship, to inclusion and belonging, and to enhancing and enriching our local, regional, and state communities while continuing to innovate and evolve for the future.
Observing the innovation of our students, faculty, and staff and their ability to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty brings a sense of hope and possibility. As you will find in the pages of our eighth annual report, they continue to move their research, creative activity, teaching, learning, and service forward in powerful ways.
I hope you and yours are well. Please stay in touch with us, attend an exhibition or lecture, and help us celebrate art, architecture, design, and merchandising at IU!
Health and peace,
Peg Faimon
Founding Dean and Professor