Universities love to use the end of the year faculty evaluation form as a measurement for success. Though it can be a guide to understanding how students are responding to a faculty member they can in large part be just a measurement of a faculty member’s personality or popularity. This can make the evaluation personal to both the student giving it and the faculty receiving it and, in the end, not at all helpful with measuring successful teaching. So how does academia solve this issue?
Well, there isn’t likely a one size fits all answer to this question, but in graphic design and related disciplines we can measure the success of faculty through student employment numbers, and outside reviews of the program and student work. Here at Southern Miss we have managed to create an extremely high employment rate among design graduates over the course of the 7.5 years I have been here and more importantly the quality of those jobs has also increased. In addition to this high employment rate our program has been named as a Top 50 Design School by GDUSA magazine for the last 2 years.
In addition to these programmatic accomplishments, our students have been winning more and more awards each year. Which brings me to the purpose of this post. For years the National Student Show and Conference (NSSC) hosted by the Dallas Society of Visual Communications (DSVC) has been a pinnacle of achievement for student work. The show has been juried by designers from across the nation many of whom have worked for some of the most prestigious firms and agencies such as Pentagram and The Richards Group.
Southern Miss has been participating in the NSSC since 2016 and has had work selected into the show nearly every year since then. Before my time at Southern Miss I also had students from both Coastal Carolina University and Northeastern State University in Oklahoma be selected for the show. I even personally submitted work to this show as a student and have participated by presenting breakout sessions and presentations during the educator’s forum. And while I was graciously awarded Educator of the Year in 2015, none of my students had ever won an award. Until now.
This past spring Southern Miss had two works by two fantastic students selected into the show. Each piece was some of the best work I’d seen completed in one of my courses in quite some time. The first piece a zine title “Think Less, Do More” created for a special problems course by Carlin Beal a senior (now recent graduate) which was used as the final for the course and required the student to showcase the work completed in the course but through their own expressive voice. Carlin, one of GDUSA’s Students to Watch for 2023, was an incredible student and person who put in a lot of passion and sacrifice during her time at Southern Miss and it can be seen in this zine.
The next piece that was accepted into the show was an invitation set by senior (now recent graduate) Deborah Elam This piece which serves to teach students and help them to exercise techniques in “exclusive branding” was for a secret society called “La Ligue du Chateau d’If.” The piece utilized hidden messages that could only be seen through colored lenses, foil stamping and chess piece that was also a puzzle. Deborah, who already had an English degree and was also selected as GDUSA Student to Watch in 2023, based her theme off of the timeless classic “The Count of Monte Christo.”
Though both pieces were worthy of an award in my eyes, only Deborah Elam’s invitation set was chosen as a winner. The piece won best of category: General Design (Special Events). Awards as mentioned in this post (click here) do a lot for both the student and the program and with this award Southern Miss was able to finally make it to the top. For myself, it was finally an opportunity to cross this off my career achievement list. I am looking forward to seeing what my students do in the spring of 2024.
