Chaminade University of Honolulu

Humanities, Arts & Design

Portfolio Exhibit Celebrated as a Milestone for Environmental + Interior Design Seniors

The Environmental + Interior Design (E+ID) program held its Fall 2016 E+ID Senior Portfolio Exhibit on December 9, at Aloha Tower Marketplace.  The exhibit was an opportunity for the E+ID seniors to shine, to show their appreciation to their spouses, families, and friends, and to connect with colleagues.  Attended by about 120 people of which nearly two-thirds were design professionals and allied industry professionals, the event showcased the quality of graduates produced by the E+ID program.

Graduating E+ID seniors, Rosalina Ashe, Kelsey Jones, Derek Tamashiro and Kelsey Williamson, had on display a variety of their physical artifacts, representing the accumulation of their work over the course of four years. The displays demonstrated their work in studio classes and with design projects and included presentation boards, material boards, models, sculptures, 3D renderings and construction documentation. Many of the projects were from service-learning projects dealing with actual clients and providing solutions to real design problems and challenges. In many cases, the work provided design concepts that clients could use to raise awareness and financing, as well as garner community recognition of the E+ID program.

In addition, each student prepared for viewing a senior portfolio book.  The student’s individual portfolio book represented the student’s design thinking and application, his or her best work and evidence of what the student could offer potential employers. The book would make an excellent tool in interviews for graduates seeking professional positions.

“The portfolio exhibit is a recognition and celebration of students achieving their BFA in Environmental + Interior Design. It is a milestone event in our curriculum, ” wrote Joan Riggs, E+ID program director. “It is a thank you to the design community for their support and collaboration, and it is a networking social event for the Chaminade ohana, friends, and family, the design community and the general public.”

Chaminade University’s senior portfolio exhibit has been a tradition with the E+ID program for more than 15 years and is held in the semesters when there are students graduating from the program with their Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees.

Chaminade University offers the only accredited, degree-granting Environmental + Interior Design program in Hawaii. Since its accreditation in 2013, the employment rate for graduates seeking a full-time, entry-level position in an interior design or architectural firm is more than 80 percent and has been increasing every year. Students in the program can be assured that they are getting a high-quality education that prepares them for a successful professional career. Chaminade’s  E+ID program is unique from other academic programs, in that it extends beyond the traditional scope of interior design to encompass the broader aspects of the environment into the design process. This broader environmental perspective helps us to understand our connection not just to the building itself, but also to the land, to the community, and to the planet.

Chaminade’s Caring Crocheters Serve Military Families with Hanks, Skeins and Balls of Yarn

Associate professor of Religious Studies, Regina Pfeiffer, DMin, looked over her supply of yarns and crochet needles.  Students participating in the Caring Crocheters service-learning project sorted through the material provided. Many had already wound unending threads into balls from skeins and hanks of yarn.

Students crocheting

Throughout the semester, Pfeiffer taught her students the basics of crocheting and offered continued guidance as they advanced through their projects. It usually took only three to four sessions to master the skill. Once mastered, students were welcome to work independently.

By the end of the fall semester, participants had each completed a baby blanket.  Some students also crocheted booties, scarves and hats. The finished crocheted pieces went to the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii New Parent Support Program, which assists military families who are expecting a child or have at least one child age zero to three.

Feedback from the agency and the military families that it serves have been quite positive. “Often, enlisted troops are separated from their families. Spouses with new babies may be living alone in a new area, without family or friends for support. We crochet baby blankets, washcloths, hats, scarves, and other items. These become personal, hand-made gifts for new families of enlisted troops,” Pfeiffer explained. “The military families also benefit because they realize that someone they don’t even know cares about the sacrifices they give to our nation.”

Student crocheting

Pfeiffer started the Caring Crocheters service-learning project in fall 2014 and has just finished her fifth semester with the project. She is pleased with how popular it continues to be. Students have reflected on how much they have enjoyed the project and how it has helped them relieve stress. Crocheting provided students with the means to cope with hectic lives, be creative and take risks by trying something that they may never have considered. When students create fabric by interlocking loops of yarn using a simple hook needle, they invest themselves into the pieces that they are creating.

“Our society sustains itself on bought items rather than on creative activities from which they give a part of themselves in terms of time and talent,” Pfeifer commented.

Pfeiffer shared another big takeaway from this service-learning experience. The students are asked to give away their piece anonymously. That piece represents a piece of themselves, and so they experience doing something good and giving themselves without any expectation in return.

Service Project with Kaimuki High School Culminates in a Night of Words

Kaimuki student performing his poetryWhen Chaminade held a Poetry Festival this fall, the words of Kaimuki High School students captured the attention of their audience with words arranged like music, punctuating the air with meaning and feelings and insight.  The audience grew to standing-room-only on the lawn of Sullivan Family Library that November evening. All listened intently, fearful of missing one word or one inflection which might change the whole message.

Chaminade students from professor Brooke Carlson’s 102 English class listened more closely than others to the 10th, 11th and 12th graders.  After all, the Chaminade students had worked with these high schoolers for seven shifts of one and a half hours per shift in small groups throughout the semester. The service-learning project had included activities such as vocabulary lessons and practice, teaching the SEE (sentence, example, explanation) paragraph, using a favorite song or a short story, and editing and revising written work.  The Chaminade students had engaged themselves and were vested.

Carlson and Candice Sakuda, the director of Chaminade’s Service-Learning program, have been working together on a service-learning project with Kaimuki High School since 2013. “We’ve linked our English courses’ curricula to service within Kaimuki’s classes, helping high school kids who need help with English and self-expression,” said Sakuda.  “At the start of each term, Carlson’s EN102 students learn about their service-learning project, through which they serve as role models, motivators, and mentors for Mrs. Mary Ann Akamine’s English classes at Kaimuki High School.”

Kaimuki student performing her poetryCarlson explained, “One of the things that drew me to Chaminade was the Service-Learning program. I want my students to take what they learn through my courses out into the real world for life. The more we can build, craft and cultivate with those around us, the better.” He added, “I am blessed in that literature is an expression of being human.  Service-learning provides more space for practicing our humanity.”

This year, twelve Kaimuki High School students read their poems at the festival.  “The performances were fantastic,” said Sakuda. “Through original poetry, the students shared their feelings about friends’ betrayals, about disrespect for the Hawaiian culture, and about family struggles, inner conflict and loss. Tears and long embraces followed so many performances.”

After the performances,  Carlson’s students were filled with “faculty pride” knowing that they had something to do with their students’ success.