TMD News
Fall 2011
- We are glad to welcome Assistant Professor Sheng Lu to the faculty. Dr. Lu graduated with a PhD from the University of Missouri, Columbia and is teaching Textile Marketing courses. You can learn more about him on his faculty page
- Susan Hannel has been named the 2011 "Apparel All-star"
by the International Textiles and Apparel Association (ITAA) The award recognizes outstanding contributions in teaching/curricular development, research, and service activities in the textile and apparel field. It will be presented at ITAA's Annual Conference in Philadelphia in October.
- Linda Welters is returned from her year-long sabbatical leave. She worked in China and in Greece during the year.
- The 2011 Spring Splash was the best yet. We distributed more than $10,000 in scholarships and design awards. Planning for the 2012 event is already under way. The event allows us to award several
scholarships, welcome alumnae to our wall of fame, and recognize new
industry partners.
- In the continued development of our dual degree (TMD and Italian) program,
URI has a new affiliation with a fashion-art-design school in Florence, Accademia Italiana (they also have a campus in Rome). Claire Kapstein and Blaire Gagnon visited the institution in April, talked with our students who were studying there, and saw their fashion show.
- As usual, many of our students are studying aborad this semester, with Florence being the most popular destination.
- Graduate students: Annie-Beth Ellington and Kira (Munroe) Moynihan defended their theses this past summer.
- New graduate students arriving this fall are Hilary Baker (degree in fashion merchandising from Texas State University), Sarah Yang (graduated from URI with a major in Art), Sarah Templeton (degree in Communications from Castleton College, Vermont), Sarah Lockrem (degree in fashion merchandising from Cal State Long Beach), Holly Paquette (Arts Administration major from Simmons College, Boston), and Catherine Murphy (fashion degree from Framingham State College).
- The seminar class (TMD 402) is the "capstone class" for the
department's majors. It runs with a different theme each spring semester, and features
a series of guest speakers from industry. Last Spring Karl Aspelund is led the series "Future Vision". Next spring the focus is on entrepreneurship. Speakers who have successfully started their own businesses in fashion, textiles and interior design will be on the docket.
- We bid a fond farewell to Gideon Lowenstein in May with a dinner. Gideon did a fine job teaching our interior design courses for many years, and we wish him well.
- The fall semester sees more changes in our part-time faculty. George DuBois moved to California to be with his new grandchildren and we will miss his textile science labs and color science offerings. We welcome back Richard Malachowski to teach a section of Textile Science. New to our classrooms are Deborah Baronas, a well known artist and designer in Rhode Island who will teach the CAD course, TMD 346. Kerry O'Hara brings her industry and consulting expertise to TMD 226, Interior Design. You can
see their faces and bios on our "Lecturers"
page.
- Margaret Ordonez is on sabbatical leave this fall. She is working on archaeological textiles in Honduras. Accompanying her in the field are Martha Grimm, a textile conservator from Phoenix, and her husband.
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The second edition of "The Fashion Reader" by Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun has now been published. It includes contributions from the department's Claire Kapstein and Martin Bide, Art Mead and Ric McIntyre (Economics) and a number of the Department's Alumnae. Like the first edition, it will include illustrations from Joy Emery and The Commercial Pattern Archive as well as URI Library's Special Collections, along with photos of items from the Department's Historic Collection.
- As usual, lots of students earned internship credits last summer. You can see a full list on the internship page!
