0 Friday, February 05, 2010

Interior design up for accreditation

The Oklahoma Christian University interior design department is up for re-evaluation this year with the Council of Interior Design Accreditation.  CIDA will send three site visitors to campus the last weekend in March to assess the progress of the department and determine whether they meet all of the 12 standards required to become accredited.

In 2007, the interior design department was evaluated by CIDA meeting 11 of the 12 required standards leaving them unaccredited until now.

Prior to the CIDA visit, the interior design department must put together a 60-page document that covers all 12 standards and explains in detail how the students’ projects done with the department meet all aspects of the standards.

“Putting the document together is such a rigorous project,” Amy Beauchamp, instructor for Art and Design said. “This document has to prove every single thing in the department without a shadow of a doubt.”

Interior design students have also been working diligently to help complete the document.

“I’ve been encouraging students to bring their previous projects to Amy,” Kirsten Jones, chapter president for the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) said. “The standards have to be represented by different students, classes and ages, so we need projects from the whole department.”

Senior Noelle Patterson and junior Jill Lintner have worked along with Beauchamp to label each of the projects in accordance with the standards.

“We’ve done lots and lots of filing,” Patterson said. “There are so many projects and we have to meticulously go through each one to find all of the standards that are represented.”

The students will also host a gallery at the end of March for the CIDA site visitors to view each of their projects.

“We set up the gallery based on the 60-page document so the site visitors can see where the standards are represented in a particular project,” Beauchamp said. “We have it organized by year, so all of the projects completed in freshman level classes will be first, sophomore level classes next, and so on.”

The department has added a few assignments to the curriculum to make sure that the standards are fully met.

“Some things are as simple as adding little assignments,” Beauchamp said. “We just need to prove that the students have received a lecture, read in their book, or done research on a particular topic. It’s about making a big package with a pretty red bow that says ‘I understand every single part of this project.’”

The site visitors will know whether the students understand their projects after a thorough interview process taking place the Monday of their visit.

To prep the students for their interviews, the interior design department along with United Dining have planned a set of practice luncheons, called Toastmasters, where the students will be asked questions similar to those a CIDA member will ask.

“Toastmasters will help to refresh their memory because the students have so many projects over their four years here, and it’s easy to forget the little components,” Beauchamp said. “It will also help the students to relax and get used to the types of questions the site visitors will ask.”

The process is difficult, but accreditation is very important after a student graduates.

“Many employers will not hire students from an unaccredited school,” Patterson said.

Designers must also pass a test, the National Council of Interior Design Accreditation or NCIDA, to carry the title “interior designer” rather than “interior decorator.”

Students that graduate from an accredited program can take the test after working in their field for two years, while students who come from an unaccredited program must work for three.

“If we do pass, this accreditation will count for graduates from 2008 until now,” Jones said. “If they’ve been working in the field since they graduated, some of them will be qualified to take their tests almost immediately.”
After the visit in March, the department should get an idea of whether they will pass or fail the accreditation. The final word will come in the fall.

Photo by: Jeremy Gan