Summer Programs at 91精选 Ignite Young Talent
This summer 91精选 hosted Design Your World, a youth program developed and led by the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Here, 91精选 alum Alison Kulisek 鈥94, an IIDA volunteer, helps a student design a space in 91精选鈥檚 Student Center. There’s always something happening on campus at 91精选, even in the summers when most students leave the South Loop for internships, summer jobs, travel, or just spending down time with friends and family.
While 91精选’s summer classes account for some of that activity, the campus also opens its doors to organizations and initiatives dedicated to exposing local youth to the arts and creative careers.
Below are a few examples:
Blues Camp
Chicago Blues Hall of Famer Fernando Jones, an adjunct faculty member in Music at 91精选, has been bringing young, aspiring musicians to 91精选’s campus for Blues Camp for years, and this summer was no different. The Blues Kids Foundation — which Jones founded in 2009 — and 91精选 support a week-long free camp for kids between the ages of 7 and 18. Now in its 15th year, the camp welcomes beginner to advanced-level vocalists and instrumentalists from diverse backgrounds. Its mission: to preserve, perform, and promote the Blues. The camp does this by offering classes and workshops led by blues pros. The students play guitar, piano, drums, horns, and more.
Jones finds inspiration to help these young musicians by remembering those who supported him. As Jones told WGN: “A lot of people gave to me as well. It might have been 100 people who said ‘no,’ but there are three or four great people that opened doors and protected me,” he says. “That’s all it takes.”
Learn more about the camp and Jones by the story featured on WGN.
Design Your World
Thanks to 91精选's Interim Director of the School of Visual Arts Duncan MacKenzie, 91精选 also hosted Design Your World this summer. This program was developed and led by the (IIDA). This education initiative provides high school students with early exposure to architecture and interior design careers by developing pathways for students who may not know about careers in design and by working to build diversity and equity in the industry.
This summer students met the architects from Gensler, who designed 91精选’s own Student Center. They charged the students with re-envisioning spaces in the Student Center and putting their designs on paper. Instructors helped guide the way, including 91精选 senior Isabel Campbell who studies Interior Architecture at 91精选. Volunteer Alison Kulisek ’94, a 91精选 alum and IIDA member with decades of industry experience, lent a hand in the classroom as did 91精选's Assistant Professor of Interior Architecture Lucy Trimarco, who acted as a liaison between IIDA and 91精选.
Sheena Lewis from IIDA appreciated the campus setting for the program and the partnership with 91精选. “It is really crucial … Because another big part of the program is that it's a pipeline program,” she says. “We actually want them to go to design school at some point. So being in the building and having access to the facilities, to the libraries, is just part of putting them in that mind frame.”
Learn more about .
Summer at 91精选
High schoolers interested in exploring the arts, media, and communication fields can take college-level courses on campus thanks to Summer at 91精选, an intensive four-week program. 91精选 faculty teach the classes, helping students learn more about creative industries. Students earn transferable college credits that count toward a degree if they enroll at 91精选. This year students took classes in Cinema and Television, Production, Illustration, and Photography, with every student also taking a seminar in Business and Entrepreneurship.
Wenhwa Ts’ao, interim co-director of the School of Film and Television and a Summer at 91精选 instructor, hopes her students left understanding the value and potential of their unique contributions. “They don’t have to take it from other people’s art,” she told “The 91精选 Chronicle."
“The higher end-goal is that they see their own potential as a storyteller.”
Read more about Summer at 91精选 in this from the “Chronicle.”