Summer Programs at Columbia Ignite Young Talent

Campus Communications Staff / Aug 23, 2024

PhotoThis summer Columbia College Chicago hosted Design Your World, a youth program developed and led by the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). Here, Columbia alum Alison Kulisek ’94, an IIDA volunteer, helps a student design a space in Columbia’s Student Center.
Columbia College Chicago keeps its campus vibrant during summer with initiatives like Blues Camp, Design Your World, and Summer at Columbia, offering local youth immersive experiences in music, design, and media while fostering their creative futures.

There’s always something happening on campus at Columbia College Chicago, even in the summers when most students leave the South Loop for internships, summer jobs, travel, or just spending down time with friends and family.  

While Columbia’s summer classes account for some of that activity, the campus also opens its doors to organizations and initiatives dedicated to exposing local youth to the arts and creative careers.  

Below are a few examples: 

Blues Camp 

Chicago Blues Hall of Famer Fernando Jones, an adjunct faculty member in Music at Columbia, has been bringing young, aspiring musicians to Columbia’s campus for Blues Camp for years, and this summer was no different. The Blues Kids Foundation — which Jones founded in 2009 — and Columbia support a week-long free camp for kids between the ages of 7 and 18. Now in its 15th year, the camp welcomes beginner to advanced-level vocalists and instrumentalists from diverse backgrounds. Its mission: to preserve, perform, and promote the Blues. The camp does this by offering classes and workshops led by blues pros. The students play guitar, piano, drums, horns, and more.   

Jones finds inspiration to help these young musicians by remembering those who supported him. As Jones told WGN: “A lot of people gave to me as well. It might have been 100 people who said ‘no,’ but there are three or four great people that opened doors and protected me,” he says. “That’s all it takes.” 

Learn more about the camp and Jones by watching a story the story featured on WGN. 

Design Your World 

Thanks to Columbia's Interim Director of the School of Visual Arts Duncan MacKenzie, Columbia also hosted Design Your World this summer. This program was developed and led by the International Interior Design Association (IIDA). This education initiative provides high school students with early exposure to architecture and interior design careers by developing pathways for students who may not know about careers in design and by working to build diversity and equity in the industry.  

This summer students met the architects from Gensler, who designed Columbia’s own Student Center. They charged the students with re-envisioning spaces in the Student Center and putting their designs on paper. Instructors helped guide the way, including Columbia senior Isabel Campbell who studies Interior Architecture at Columbia. Volunteer Alison Kulisek ’94, a Columbia alum and IIDA member with decades of industry experience, lent a hand in the classroom as did Columbia's Assistant Professor of Interior Architecture Lucy Trimarco, who acted as a liaison between IIDA and Columbia. 

Sheena Lewis from IIDA appreciated the campus setting for the program and the partnership with Columbia. “It is really crucial … Because another big part of the program is that it's a pipeline program,” she says. “We actually want them to go to design school at some point. So being in the building and having access to the facilities, to the libraries, is just part of putting them in that mind frame.”  

Learn more about Design Your World.  

Summer at Columbia 

High schoolers interested in exploring the arts, media, and communication fields can take college-level courses on campus thanks to Summer at Columbia, an intensive four-week program. Columbia faculty teach the classes, helping students learn more about creative industries. Students earn transferable college credits that count toward a degree if they enroll at Columbia. This year students took classes in Cinema and Television, Production, Illustration, and Photography, with every student also taking a seminar in Business and Entrepreneurship.   

Wenhwa Ts’ao, interim co-director of the School of Film and Television and a Summer at Columbia instructor, hopes her students left understanding the value and potential of their unique contributions. “They don’t have to take it from other people’s art,” she told “The Columbia Chronicle."

“The higher end-goal is that they see their own potential as a storyteller.” 

Read more about Summer at Columbia in this article from the “Chronicle.”   

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