MIAD Bridge Magazine

[4]today the classroom [8]miad mentors

BRIDGETABLE OF CONTENTS

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FEATURES DEPARTMENTS[4]TODAY THE CLASSROOM, TOMORROW THE WORLD

[8]MIAD MENTORS

[2]LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

[3]REACHING OUT

[12]STUDENT VOLUNTEER PROFILE

HAPPY JANUARY!we’re very excited to finally be releasing this magazine, MIAD BRIDGE. For those of you awaiting your chance to enter the walls of miad, this magazine has been createdespecially for you.

miad takes pride in the fact that it is so well connected with milwaukeeand all the communities within the city. whether it’s opening a gallery in a new neighborhood, opening our doors for big events or even going out and making a difference by being a volunteer, everyone at miad makes a difference, and so will you.this magazine was created to give examples of the type of relationship between miad and the community. the articles are here to inspire you to keep the tradition going. i hope you enjoy, and we hope to see you soon.

DESIREE MAYEDITOR IN CHIEF

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This month we are featuring the top three community partners that miad students chose to volunteer at for

their service learning courses.

service learning is a junior-level course in which each student is required to complete at least 40

hours of community service. Students are allowed to choose the location of their placement. The top choices from the 2008 spring semester were the ur-ban ecology center, schlitz audobon

nature center and la causa.

in these locations, students dealt with multiple taks such as working

in day cares, teaching, planting and keeping their respective facilities

clean, friendly and up-to-date.

each year miad students serve over 3,000 hours total and save community partners over $70,000 thanks to the

hours they each put in volunteering.

dedicated to students who serve the milwaukee

community

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article by desiree may

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

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by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

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by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

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by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

by Adam Widener

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FEATURE

it’s almost inconceivable to think that graphic design can operate within a viable career form. in the most stripped down sense of the word, it’s primarily seen as a position for unorthodox thinking in-dividuals and cutting edge proponents of creation. in other words, the last great enterprise for creative’s looking to generate a fi-nancially stable life through art. but in all honesty, design and the people who create it, are essential to this modern culture in which we live. l ook around, design is everywhere. every-thing built, manipulated, and conceived has come from the mind and hands of an artist or designer. yes, it’s true. people actually sit in offices and come up with the inventive ad-vertising and branding models that we are exposed to every-day. schools and institutions are dedicated to the highest caliber in training these people to go out into the world and use these skills to benefit not only the individuals in building a substantial career but the benefit on the community, the world, and the mass consciousness at large. the milwaukee institute of art and design is one of these schools and deep within the recesses of its halls lies a program called visual resources. the course was founded in 1988 and it’s main

focus lies in providing students with real

world type projects through the discipline of tight deadlines, client meetings, and

regimented quick thinking and execution. Since it’s conception, it has taken on well over 270 different

clients and much of the work that many of the students take on is extremely varied and diverse. To name a few,

the group has completed work for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Wisconsin Blood Center, American Diabetes As-

sociation, The Haggarty Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, The Association for Blind and Visually Impaired Children and

many more. Currently, the class is in the process of work-ing with the Florintine Opera and Presentmusic.

Francis Balistreri,

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the leading professor for the course has been manning the reigns since 1995. “When MIAD started the program, it and Virginia Commonwealth university were the only two school in the nation that had a program like this. virginia’s program was only for graduate students. now there are quite a few schools and a couple here in the milwaukee area who have or are trying to copy the concept.” said francis balistreri. it’s about as real to an actual job as it gets in the classroom. students earning a higher grade-point average are eligible to partici-pate in it. after submitting a portfolio for review, the student then has to be voted in by the faculty members involved with the program. if the chosen student is selected then he or she will spend the fol-lowing semester knee deep in supplying the local market with their know-how in the design medium. the major benefit to this program works in two ways. it provides local businesses and organiza-tions with design solutions at a rate much lower than what most firms would quote and the student is given the experience of a realistic work setting and pace. “i would like it to continue to exist and function as a resource for students to get this professional experience in an academic environment. i would like to see more qualified students take on the challenge and participate in the program.” said francis balistreri on the current state in which the program lies. right now with this tough economy, students are finding it harder and harder to find internships and jobs. and even on the other side of the coin, local enterprises are finding it harder to get quality design work at a reasonable price. but because of the visual resources group, experience is no fur-ther than a few doors down from your studio. in addition to building an impressive portfolio, the community at large is taking this gold mine and using

it to a great advantage. i know the group will broaden its client base because the qual-ity of work that is produced in the class cannot go unnoticed and with that type of product, the visual resources design group will sell itself. my time with visual re-sources was a very invaluable learn-ing experience. it taught me to not only listen to the clientele and take in consideration the demographic in question, but it also taught me to be quick on my toes. when a project’s dead-line is in two days, you have very little time to muck around. because of the high turn-around rate, it has forced me to fine tune my system for concepting, building, and executing. even when i started venturing out into my various internships, this skill proved to be extremely crucial. perhaps one of my more memorable projects that i had the pleasure of building was for the abea. abea stands for ‘african-american artists beginning to educate americans. local artist della wells founded the organization in 2001 and its main focus is to create a local artists community for not only african americans, but the general populace as well. the collective is responsible for hosting a wide variety of galleries and shows and has given a home to such artists as muneer bahauddeen, kevin boatright, jea-nette wright–claus, daryl harris, mutópe j. johnson and many, many more. della wells was looking to gain more expo-

sure to her cause and enlisted our visual resources

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group to come up with not only design solutions but advertising strategies as well. i remember the morning when her and mutópe johnson came in to give our class a presentation on what they were looking for. immediately, i felt a strong connection to their plight and set forth on crafting a series of ideas that might prove beneficial to their situation. the more exciting measure took place when i actu-ally had to shape it all from the ground up. this meant coming up with not only a designed medium to present, but also the overall campaign and thought process that went into it. i felt that the organization would do much better if instead of con-tinuing on with typical gallery shows, that they would cover more ground operating in a more general milwau-kee arena. i had come up with the idea of hosting a variety of meet-and-greets in various local bars and clubs. by treating the matter as a can’t-miss event or a hot nightlife destination, they would ultimately have the opportunity to draw in a much wider audience. i had also suggested that they host a lunchtime event at the milwaukee public market. the campaign, “art for lunch”, would be held on the second floor dining area and portray a sort of makeshift gallery happening. here, they will have a favorable chance in garnering some interest from the community. the bottom line: infiltrate the common cultural medium and you’ve got a much better chance in succeeding in your mission. as i gave my presentation to della and mutópe a mere couple of weeks later, i gave them a plethora of tools to use in their planned execution. this mostly consisted of mock-up posters, postcards, and flyers as well as strategies in cleverly penetrating the web market revenue. i gave them insight on controlling social media and how to properly keep up to date on getting the word out about their organization. i felt that this project was a ground-breaking moment for me. i was now thinking in terms of the big picture and it’s impact on the society in which we live in. there were many projects and assignments within the program that helped form my view on the how the market works and what it takes to turn it into a viable career, but this particular endeavor had the most impact as far as thought process went. not only was i able to use my design and advertising ingenuity for the good of the people, but i also gained a world of exposure doing it. as of today, the abea is in the midst of organizing a way to cohesively put our ideas into action. and for me? well, let’s just say that my portfolio has grown significantly in a short time with work that has a lot of strong meaning.

right now with this tough economy, students are finding it harder andharder to find

internships and jobs

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not just because they know their way around school, have strong academic skills and are really good at problem solving

but because they are caring role models. they can listen to you; they are patient; compassionate; responsible and dedicated to help you grow and succeed at miad

It’s the first day of school. You are excited and nervous with an-ticipation of your first class, maybe more on the nervous side. There are too many thoughts in your head to even concentrate: what should I to bring to class; what classroom am I in; what will the teacher be like; are people going to like me; will the upper class students going to shove me in a locker? It’s a wonder you even survived the elevator. First days can be intimidating but maybe it would have been a little less scary going into it with know-ing a few things a head of time. How could we let incoming freshman and new students feel more welcomed and have a sense of belonging right when they come into school? The Associate Dean of Students, Jennifer Cran-dall, has had a great deal of experience working with young students and knows how scared they are in the first month of school. Jennifer has seen a lot of students within the first month of school come into her office feeling lost, not fitting in with other students, homesick and con-cerned with getting a job. There needed to be a group of students that would talk to these incoming freshmen, make them feel at home and get them excited for the new school year. To get things going, last year Jennifer did a little research to start a pilot program with agroup of students who work in the Learning Re-source Center (LRC). The LRC, located in the

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FEATURE

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library, is a place where students come to get tutoring services. They mostly help on papers, how to get ideas flowing, making better connections with their audi-ence, and how to have better time management. In this pilot mentor program, they were also there to help those who just needed someone to talk to and just have someone listen. Things seemed to be working out well with the tutors and the students coming in for extra help, but they wanted to make it better. To extend the progress made in the LRC, they thought of creating a mentor program for the new foundation students. Doing a little research on my own, I found out that mentoring is a mat-ter of trust. A trusting relationship can bring young people together with caring individuals who offer guidance, support and encourage-ment aimed at developing the competence and character of the mentee. Mentors are good listeners, people who care, people who want to help young people bring out strengths that are already there. Having a mentor has proven to be effective for stu-dents by improving their attitudes to-wards others, encouraging them to be mo-tivated for school, helping them face daily challenges and offering them the opportunity for new careers and eco-nomic skills (mentoring.org). The next step for MIAD was to find people that could qualify as mentors.

During the second semester of last year, a letter went out to any-one interested in becoming a MIAD mentor. Those interested were to write a letter stating why they should be considered as a men-tor. Jennifer and Ricky Heldt went through numerous letters and chose students based on their GPA, their personal-ity, how well they communi-cated in writing, how much they showed interest

working with students, and showed great leadership ability. Most of the mentors were also chosen based on personality and how well Jenni-fer and Ricky knew each of the ap-plicants. After going through so many letters and interviews, the MIAD men-

tors were finally chosen. This was a new program for MIAD, so they conducted more research across other campuses developing a process for the mentor training and how they could work this into the MIAD community. A MIAD mentor is a knowledgeable and experienced guide, a student advocate, and a caring role model. Many of their responsibilities include ways to help new students make the transition from high school to college life while giving them a sense of belonging to the MIAD community. They are also well informed in

the college and community resources to refer any student looking for fur-ther information. Mentors need to be on top of all events going on in the River Rat Review, such as the Activity Fair or new galleries that are installed. They also show them that there are many students at school that get involved in the art community outside of MIAD. The goal is to expose

them to it.Another aspect of being a mentor this year was help-ing out with the freshman orientation. It first kicked off on Move In day, which can be overwhelming for anyone. The mentors were there in their bright red shirts willing to give a hand to the new students moving into the dorms. They also were a big part of Par-ent Orientation Day, setting up the mural painting and serving on a panel in front of the new students’ fami-lies. They lead discussions and met with their mentees to establish that mentor relationship while giving them a first-hand experience of student life at MIAD. There were many other events that week including a trip to Discovery World, movie night, Logistics Day, the Sand Sculpture com-petition and bowling in Bayview, all being a great turnout.

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Another new addition to this year is the First Year Experience (FYE), which also happened during orienta-tion week. Throughout the years, freshman would attend majors seminar once a week for about an hour during lunch to learn about all of the different majors of-fered here at MIAD. Although it was informative for the students, it was not working out as well as it did in the past. It took some time to think of some-thing new but FYE became another new program for this year. FYE main goal for the first five weeks of school is to give the freshman an understandingof the foundation academics for what to expect and where they will be going throughout the school year. These five sessions act as a way for them to engage themselves into conversation about art and design as well as finding connections with one another. It can lessen the gap between fine art and design and realize that we all are in-terconnected and compliment each other. ith the initiation of new programs for the foundation students, MIAD hopes that it changes the way students look at school. Hop-ing that they will have a better understand-ing of art and how to engage themselves into the art community around MIAD. Jenni-fer Crandall has expressed that she has al-ready seen drastic differences in the new students. “I have seen less students come into my office feeling upset or worried about the change from high school to col-lege, or having an urge to go back home. This mentorship program has proven to be successful and it’s only been the first few weeks of school. I’m excited to see what else the mentors can do this semester.”

with the initiation of new programs for the foundation students, miad hopes that it

changes the way students look at school

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FEATURE

THIS MONTH WE ARE FEATURING DESIREE MAY, A SENIORCOMMUNICATION DESIGN MAJOR, AS OUR STUDENT VOLUNTEER.

in the spring semester of 2008, desiree took the manda-tory service learning course offered at miad, instructed by leslie fedorchuk. in this class, students must find a location to do volunteer work and then meet a minimum amount of hours in order to pass the class. desiree got in contact with the milwaukee lgbt (les-bian gay bisexual transgender) community center and decided to take her design skills to her placement in order to do much needed ad work for them. she worked for patrick price, the center’s director of philanthropy. much of the work she did during the course

of the semester involved ads for many of the center’s groups including environmental awareness, spiritual well-ness and financial literacy. the projects ranged from ads in local publications to web mailers and banners.but desiree didn’t stop working once the semester end-ed and her minimum amount of hours were up. she, instead, took it upon herself to take this volunteer opportunity and turn it into something more. after taking the appropriate steps, she was able to in-tern at the center for school credit this past summer.

ABOUT THE MILWAUKEE LGBT COMMUNITY CENTERthe milwaukee lgbt community center is a community-based organization represented by more than 150 vol-unteers and over 300 members. it’s mission is to improve the quality of life for lgbt people in the met-ro milwaukee area.

this is done by focusing on five core objectives:

1. provide a home for the birth, nurture and celebration of our organizations, culture and diver-sity

2. initiate, implement and advocate for programs and services that meet the needs of our communities

3. educate the public and our com-munities to encourage positive changes in the systems affecting our lives

4. empower our individuals and groups to achieve their fullest potential

5. cultivate a culture of diversity and inclusion in all phases of the project.

FOR A LINK TO THE MILWAUKEE LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER, AS WELL AS OTHER LOCATL ORGANIZATIONS, PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.MIADBRIDGE.COM

the information above is from the milwaukee lgbt website. www.mkelgbt.org

DESIREE MAY, A MIAD SENIOR, HAS EARNED THE SPOT OF STUDENT VOLUNTEER THIS ISSUE FOR HER DEDICATION IN VOLUNTEERING AT THE MILWAKEE LGBT AND TURNING THAT OPPERTUNITY INTO AN INTERNSHIP.12