This story is featured in the Fall 2017 edition of the HPU Magazine. Discover below how HPU’s School of Art and Design molds students into innovative problem solvers.
Beyond Norton Hall’s third-floor atrium, inside studio walls painted canary yellow, HPU students create around the clock.
As hours feel like minutes, they work on projects. Their classmates become friends, their professors become mentors, and their dreams become real.
They’re the artists, the designers, the students of HPU’s School of Art and Design.
They embrace what their dean, Dr. John Turpin, believes: Creativity is the touchstone of the human experience, and a degree in art and design molds students into innovative problem solvers invaluable in today’s global economy.
So, they stay busy.
They study abroad in cities like Paris and Florence, Italy. They intern at the world’s biggest furniture market a five-minute drive from campus, and they connect with some of the world’s most well-known creators both in High Point and in New York City.
They take classes from Allan Beaver, HPU artist-in-residence, an award-winning designer who has worked on memorable campaigns for Subaru and Matchbox Toys. He teaches his students in an HPU studio ringed with quotes like, “Design is intelligence made visible.”
By graduation, they know what’s visible.
Their future. And an entrepreneurial spirit all their own.
HPU’s World-Class Reach
Eight floors above Manhattan and a 10-minute walk from the Empire State Building, Kim Greve works as an interior designer for Ageloff and Associates, a high-end interior design firm.
She worked there first as an intern. She’s now an employee. That wasn’t luck.
She spent five months at the Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute in Florence, Italy, during her junior year and studied art history, lighting design and Italian. She visited nine different countries and discovered culture, architecture and design that opened her eyes.
She worked the High Point Market six times and interned with Century Furniture and Corinthian Furniture, where she helped set up showrooms and work with interior designers.
Her experience caught the attention of Scott Ageloff, the firm’s founder. He has had three HPU interns work for his firm, and Greve was hired as a full-time employee.
It’s no coincidence.
He sees HPU students as disciplined critical thinkers who communicate well with clients, work well in teams and know about the world and the culture at large. That, he says, is crucial in his business — and business in general.
“Ever since we’ve had our first intern, I’ve felt that those are the kind of attributes students and graduates from High Point bring to the table,” Ageloff says. “It’s not an anomaly. It’s a pattern. I can count on that.”
Greve is now 23. She grew up in Wayne, New Jersey, the middle of three, the only girl. Her dad works in the financial industry; her mom, a pre-K teacher. She knows what her education at HPU did for her.
It gave her confidence.
“I gained more than just textbook knowledge,” she says. “I opened my eyes to the variations in culture, values and ideas during my travels, and I apply that understanding to my everyday work. That is what employers are looking for.”
The Roots of Inspiration, The Joy of Discovery
Students talk volumes about what they learn from their professors.
Like Catherine Hillenbrand-Nowicki, an assistant professor of interior design. She guides her students through a course they call “How To Get A Job 101.” They approach different firms about opportunities, overcoming fear, creating connections and ultimately getting jobs.
Or Benita VanWinkle, an assistant professor of art. Every spring, she takes students to Paris to shoot thousands of photos for a 20-picture portfolio. Her students end up seeing their world in a different, more meaningful way.
Students like Tay Thompson, a graphic design senior from Florence, South Carolina.
“I have found a new light in the vast city of Paris,” she wrote in her artist statement, “and I feel a little more whole than I once did.”
Brandon Hubschman knows that feeling.
Today, he works in his hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as a junior art director for the world’s biggest retail advertising agency, Zimmerman Advertising. His sister, Brittany, a graphic designer, works there, too.
But HPU is never far from their minds.
They both graduated in 2015 with degrees in graphic design, and Brandon remembers it like yesterday — the trip to New York City, the visit to creative companies like Google and the lessons learned from legendary graphic designer Paula Scher.
That trip, arranged by HPU’s Allan Beaver, still inspires Hubschman. He knows he’ll work in New York City some day. But he also knows where that idea first took root — his alma mater.
“At High Point, everyone is looking toward the future, planning for things so much bigger, and that rubs off on you,” he says today. “It’s hard to be complacent around so much promise.”
View this story and more in the Fall 2017 edition of the HPU Magazine: