Announcements.
Help Us Collect Digital Cameras!
Got an old digital camera you don’t use? Donate it to the Digital Camera Drive, Cameras for Haiti. Your old camera can help bring new hope to Haiti’s youth in LaVallée, where they will be used for community workshops. The camera must be in good working condition with a battery and charger. Pixel number is not important. Cameras can be dropped off at Smithfield Cottage. For more information e-mail mhay@scad.edu.
Important Notice about Thesis
Beginning with the winter 2010 quarter graduate students must submit their thesis document to Smithfield Cottage and NOT the Jen Library. Requirements for paper—margins, signature page, electronic copy, binding fee, etc.—all remain the same. Guidelines for submission can be found in MySCAD under the resources tab in the department directory channel, at Graduate Studies.
The only change is that the office of graduate studies will accept the thesis during regular business hours—8:30-5:30 Monday through Friday. For questions, please call the office of graduate studies at 525-6315.
Join Graduate Studies on Facebook and Twitter
Join our facebook group, SCAD Office of Graduate Studies, and follow us on Twitter at SCAD_GradStudy for the most up to date information on events, advising and other grad specific information.
Congratulations
Thesis Document Award
Sara Seltzer’s Arts Administration thesis, “Putting Collections on the Block” was chosen as the best thesis accepted at SCAD during the 2009 Academic Year. Sincere congratulations are extended to Sara, and to her thesis committee.
Thesis Proposal Award
We would like to congratulate Margaret McRae of Graphic Design, and Katie Glusica of Fibers, winners of the Winter 2010 Thesis Proposal Award.
Encore Series Award
Congratulations are extended to Bai Yang Qui of Metals and Jewelry and Lucha Rodriguez of Printmaking. The studio component of their thesis was selected for exhibition in both the ACA Gallery of SCAD in Atlanta and in the Pai Ling Chan Gallery in Savannah.
Sidewalk Arts Festival
Cheng-Fang Lee, of Interactive Design and Game Development, won the Grad Student award for best Graduate Student Square at the Sidewalk arts festival.
Painting Student Selected
Tony Rich, MFA Painting, is featured in New American Painting, MFA Annual, a juried national publication. His work is on pp 112-114, and his profile is on page 115. The jurors considered more than a thousand entries for this year’s publication, and Tony was one of only 40 graduate students whose work was selected.
Upcoming Events
Grad Salon
Thursday, May 13, 5:30 pm, Smithfield Cottage (118 West Hall Street)
The grad salon is a bi-quarterly event to encourage cross-disciplinary exchange amongst graduate students and provide a venue for students to present their MFA thesis and MA final projects (in various stages of completion) to an audience outside their department. Each salon features four students from various departments present briefly (10 minutes) on their current works in progress which is followed by 10 minutes of Q&A.
The Interior Design Department has graciously volunteered to sponsor this Salon. And how could I forget to mention, we feed you too!
Graduate Reception
Friday, May 14, 4-6 pm, Smithfield Cottage (118 West Hall Street)
The Office of Graduate Studies invite the SCAD Graduate Students, Faculty and Staff to come enjoy refreshments and good company in honor of the 2009 Masters Graduates. Outstanding graduate thesis award winners and their committee members will be honored.
Fulbright Information Session
Tuesday, May 18, 2pm, Smithfield Cottage (118 West Hall Street)
Do you love to travel and have a passion for learning? Then you might be interested in applying for a Fulbright Scholarship. The Fulbright Program provides funds for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools abroad. R.S.V.P to mhay@scad.edu .
Advising Updates
We want to hear from you!
Graduate advising would like to hear from you in an effort to continue to improve our services. Please complete this short survey (http://websurvey.scad.edu/remark5/rws5.pl?FORM=graduateadvisingspotsurvey) so that we can gather feedback. Thank you!
Summer and Fall Registration
Registration for summer and fall quarters opens on April 20th for graduate students. Faculty advisement is April 5th through April 16th.
Graduate Advising would like to inform you of some recent changes with course registration. These changes will begin in April. Please contact your staff adviser if you have any questions or need assistance.
- We have placed advising holds on conditionally accepted graduate students to better monitor course registration. Conditionally admitted graduate students who have not yet completed their assigned classes with a ‘B’ or better might have already noticed this hold. This hold will remain until all conditional coursework is complete.
- Graduate students will need to contact their staff advisor to register for assigned undergraduate classes. It will be best to contact your adviser early (April 12th through 16th) with your course preferences. We will assist students as quickly as possible and on a first come first serve basis in coordination with your assigned registration time ticket.
- In limited cases, graduate students can request to take 300- or 400-level undergraduate courses for electives with permission of the chair only. Students will be required to do extra work to merit graduate credit for the course. If the course is approved as a substitution, then students can contact their staff adviser to register it.
Special Offering—
ANTH 701 Cultural Theory, tues/Thurs 11AM, FALL 2010Course Description: What is post-modernism anyway? What about semiotics? Structuralism? Critical theory? Phenomenology? Post-colonial work or third wave feminism? Contemporary artistic and scholarly forms build upon a trajectory of ideas, products and activities. Understanding basic theoretical foundations is essential to fine-tuning our abilities as artists, designers and scholars who can critique material and intangible culture. We will look at the work of Marx, Baudrillard, Sennett, Foucault, Spivak, Eco, Zizek, Said, and many others.
Graduation—
If you plan to participate in the spring 2010 graduation ceremony, you must submit your graduation application to your staff adviser before May 7th.
Collaboration Space
Wanted: Production Designer and Visual Effects Team
Seeking dedicated and ambitious Production Designer and Visual Effects team available to do Postproduction through Winter 2011. Major crew positions still available. A Great opportunity to add a unique piece to your visual portfolio. http:libbykigar.wordpress.com. If you are interested please contact: Lia Towers, lia.towers@gmail.com or Catalina Alcaraz Guzman, alcariziar@gmail.com. (Posted 4. 20.10)
Check out http://capture-release.org
This newly launched blog was started by Grad Student Jill Yoe Graves as a place to watch and showcase the contributions of those looking for ways to continue and push what design can be in
today’s society. It welcomes all Design related snapshots of work that is yours or work of
others (with permission, of course) that could benefit from the forum, and enhances the discussion. Also, feel free to link to other related projects you hear about.
Check out www.scadpaintingnow.wordpress.com
This newly launched blog was started by Sandra Reed, Professor of Painting this fall. It has a ton of great departmental info including events, scholarships, and other offerings.
Need to Connect With Students From other Departments?
If you would like to collaborate with other graduate students at SCAD and aren’t sure how to reach out, e-mail Mariah Hay, coordinator of graduate activities, at mhay@scad.edu to have your information posted in the next graduate mass e-mail. Include with your name, major, contact information, major/skills of the student(s) desired, how long you want the information to run and a brief description of the prospective collaboration
A Note from the Dean
I was listening to NPR’s “Speaking of Faith” on Sunday morning. It’s a weekly program hosted by Krista Tippett who interviews writers, psychologists, artists and healers about issues related to ethics, spirituality, and religion (in the broad sense). It is eclectic and syncretic in the best senses of those words.
The program this past weekend was titled “Alzheimer’s, Memory, and Being” and featured psychologist Alan Deinstag. I was fascinated by the program for two reasons: first, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2004 and she passed away in 2006; and second, the connection between memory, being, and narrative is one of my research areas.
If any of you have experienced the inexorable progression of Alzheimer’s in a family member, you know the pain, confusion, and mystery the disease presents. At first there is the awareness of slippage, which frustrates the sufferer and which can, at times, be humorous. Often, the core traits of the person (humor, sadness, anger) manifest themselves. But as time goes on, there is only the husk of being left, a sort of shell of a person, who can nevertheless hit on the mystery of the world. Deinstag recounts the story of one of his patients who loved the beach. He tells her was taking some time off and heading to the beach and she says: “There’s a beautiful music there, isn’t there?”
Deinstag recounts his work with novelist Don DeLillo, who suggests that writing, especially in the early stages of the disease, might provide an “external memory” for those suffering with Alzheimer’s. The connection between memory and writing (and by extension consciousness) is a fertile field, especially in the study of literary autobiography. During this part of the program I thought of two books written by the famous Russian neuropsychologist, A.R. Luria: The Man with the Shattered World and The Mind of a Mnemonist. I was introduced to these fascinating works by James Olney, whose Metaphors of Self (1975) launched the study of literary autobiography. The fist work tells the story of a man who suffered a brain injury in World War I. His cannot remember from day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour, yet he was asked by Luria to write the story of his life—ultimately an impossible task, finished only by the strong editing hand of Luria himself. In the other, Luria tells the story of a professional mnemonist, one who used to perform amazing feats of memory for audiences. It is telling that in both cases—in the former, no memory; in the latter, an over active memory—personhood is lost.
When we remember, we quite literally piece together (re-member; re-collect) the story of our past. And that past changes depending on the present. Artists know well the play of memory in their work. I would venture to say that designers, too, call on memory in their work. If you want to explore the topic further, I invite you to download the podcast last week’s “Speaking of Faith.” You will not be disappointed.
