UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Folayemi Wilson, associate dean for access and equity and professor of art in the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture, has received a grant from the Sara Little Turnbull Foundation to support the first phase of development of a Summer Residential Interdisciplinary Design Institute (SRIDI) geared towards introducing underrepresented high school students to various art and design professional disciplines.
The $26,000 grant will fund a curriculum think tank to take place in spring 2025.
The mission of the Sara Little Turnbull Foundation is to further the advancement of underrepresented youth in design education and women in professional communities of design practice and leadership.
Dorothy Dunn, special trustee to the foundation, said the organization recognizes the potential in Wilson’s initiative.
“Young people define themselves during their middle and high school years. The Summer Residential Interdisciplinary Design Institute will put design on their radar for personal growth and exciting educational and career opportunities,” Dunn said. “Folayemi Wilson is a visionary, creative leader and we are thrilled to support Penn State's exciting initiative to engage notable thinkers and creative practitioners as a first step toward engaging Pennsylvania youth in design.”
Support for the development of the institute will be a College of Arts and Architecture priority in the University’s new fundraising campaign, currently in its quiet phase. The vision for the institute experience includes a summer residential program at Penn State University Park taught by Penn State and guest instructors, followed by visits at the students’ high schools during the next academic year to offer career coaching, portfolio development and application assistance. Ultimately, the college aims to secure support for scholarships directed to students who complete the SRIDI program and enroll in the college.
According to Wilson, the design industry has not always been a welcoming place to people of color and “…has work to do to recognize our contributions.” She noted that, according to 2017 U.S. Census data, the demographics for the design industry-at-large break down to 80.8% white.
“Young people often grow up choosing what they want to be from among the options put in front of them or that their peers, communities, and parents glorify as offering opportunity and prestige,” Wilson wrote in her grant proposal. “An art school is where design exposure may happen, and even as increasingly more students of color participate, our community’s contributions and participation in the design fields is often not reinforced within the design canon, its history or with examples that mirror our experiences, cultural reference points or celebrate practitioners that look like us.”
Wilson’s work in the College of Arts and Architecture supports its strategic plan goal to “[e]stablish a culture of anti-racism and anti-oppression that embraces individual identities, fosters a culture of inclusion, and promotes equity through our curricula, values, standards, ideals, policies, and practices.” Among other initiatives, she has worked to redevelop hiring processes and protocols to ensure greater diversity and inclusion among faculty and developed plans to address inequities in the college’s undergraduate direct-admit programs, making them more welcoming to students of color not always exposed to careers in art and design.
With the SRIDI, she would turn her attention to high school students who are just starting to consider education and career options.
“Folayemi Wilson has developed a visionary and much-needed program for high school students to spark and encourage their interest in interdisciplinary design,” said B. Stephen Carpenter II, Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Dean in the College of Arts and Architecture. “We envision this initiative will be mutually beneficial for traditionally underrepresented and minoritized students as well as the College of Arts and Architecture, while supporting the college’s strategic plan. I am eager to work with her to get this program off the ground and create this essential opportunity for students.”
Grants and gifts to the SRIDI will advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.