Kansas State University

April 15, 2013

Message from the Department Head

As our third year students make final preparations for Open House, I hope you will respond to their requests in an expeditious manner! See one such request to the right with the red text! We are eager to see their display this Saturday and urge you to invite potential K-Staters' as well as your family and friends to walk through Seaton Hall on Saturday. There is a strong tradition of excellent displays for IAPD during Open House and I have no doubt this 3rd year class will meet that tradition!

We have a great deal of news to share this week, and you will see an additional newsletter in a few days to avoid this one being too lengthy. 

News and Events

This past week, Professor Katrina Lewis attended The National Conference on the Beginning Design Student at Temple University, Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to present “Building Global Perception Among Beginning Design Students: A Dialogue of Peace, Conflict and Human-Centered Design.”

Professor Vibha Jani learned that her paper titled “Introducing Interactive Devices to change the Perception of What Viewers Consider as Art in the Museum” has been accepted to be presented at the Sixth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum. This conference is being held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Two students represented the collective IAPD student body who have been developing solutions in our sponsored collaborations with Herman Miller in a presentation last Friday to the Dean's Advisory Council. Aaron Bisch and Laura Kreikemeier each were eloquent, concise, yet comprehensive in their presentations representative of student work and Herman Miller participation this year. Thank you to both for such a spectacular job!

Students in the Exhibition Design course recently received $2,500.00 from the Friends of the Beach Museum to design and build interactive environment for the "Night of Wonder" gala being hosted at the Beach Museum to celebrate the 150 anniversary of the University. The “Night of Wonder” honors the “Museum of Wonder” exhibition that opened at the museum in February. The Beach Museum of art opened two related gallery installations in mid-February in celebration of K-State's 150th anniversary, titled The Museum of Wonder: A Great Land Grant University Collects and another “The Library of Wonder.” The Museum of Wonder installation at the Beach Museum is intended both to celebrate the rich and diverse work of the university and to prompt thinking about categories and they way they shape our understanding of the world. It is also intended to propose that boundary crossing is a catalyst for critical thinking and creative discovery. This exhibition displays objects related to science, history, art, agriculture, and other fields, borrowed from colleges and departments all over the university. The mingling of these diverse objects intentionally references the Cabinets of Curiosity that were displayed in Europe from the time of the Renaissance and which represent the origin of the modern museum. Those displays predated the modern tendency to separate knowledge into disciplines and fields of study. Therefore one might find an unusual fossil displayed with a fine sword or a beautifully drawn map, for example. By contrast, in the science-dominated culture of today, material culture is displayed in specialized museums of art, science, culture, or history.

Students in the Exhibition Design course have been collaborating with the Beach Museum's staff on a project "Interactive Devices" for the Museum of Wonder project. Impressed by the students' work, Beach Museum has provided $500.00 to develop some of the interactive devices designed by the students to be included in the "Library of Wonder" installation. The Library of Wonder, part of the Museum of Wonder project will run from February 12 – October 13, 2013 at the Beach. The students taking this exhibition design course represent different departments from APDesign, and are working together and are constructing the interactive device that will be displayed in the Library of Wonder installation. The interactive devices they designed and constructed will be displayed at the end of fall semester.

Involvement Opportunities

Faculty and Students,
The third year students are prepping for Open House this Saturday from 9-3, but we need your help! We would like to showcase everyone's inspiration on why they pursued a design education. Please answer the following questions and email them to Josef Lang (langj1@k-state.edu) with "Design Survey" as the subject matter asap. Thank you for your help. We look forward to reading your answers and seeing you at Open House!

* As a young lad/lass, What/who inspired you most to want to be a designer? (childhood toy, experience of architecture, an activity, a relative, a close friend, other?)

* How old were you when you knew for certain you wanted to pursue a design education?

Last Lunch and Learn of the Year

Thank you to all those who RSVPed, we will see you tomorrow at 11:30!


News from Weigel Library

Last fall K-State Libraries completed the creation of the Graduate Study Rooms in Hale Library.  This is a two-room space on third floor for use by graduate students only.

The link to the information regarding these rooms is -

http://www.lib.k-state.edu/graduate-study-rooms-policies-and-procedures

The space is being used by some graduate students.  But in K-State Libraries' efforts to provide even better services and improved facilities, they are requesting input from the graduate student population in the form of a short survey about this set-up, the students' current study environment as well as their study space preferences.

Would you please consider sending this survey link out to the graduate students in your disciplines so they can share their thoughts with K-State Libraries?   The survey will be available until the end of April.

Survey Link:  https://kstate.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8xnpK8jGYdefIeV

Did you know K-State Libraries’ has an extensive collection of aerial photographs of Kansas taken between 1937 and 1971?

In 2004, K-State Libraries undertook an ambitious project to conserve, catalog, and store nearly 65,000 black and white U.S. Department of Agriculture aerial photographs of Kansas along with their associated photo index sheets.  The original high-quality photographs, most of which date between 1952 and 1971, provide a pictorial record of the cultural and physical features of a large portion of the state.   The number of photos is now nearing 70,000! KAPI website