Fostering Diversity in Design Begins with NYSID Pre-College Scholarships
Pre-College students from the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club
NYSID believes that increasing diversity in interior design starts with giving underserved highschoolers formative exposures to the profession. Its “Open Doors to Design'' initiative is providing students with financial need with the chance to study in NYSID Pre-College. This year, major funding of Pre-College scholarships from Kravet, Inc, Angelo Donghia Foundation, Decorator’s Club Education Fund, and ASID South Florida is helping more high schoolers discover role models, skills, confidence, and a path to interior design. We met up with students at the culmination of Pre-College I to gauge the program’s immediate impact.
On the evening of Thursday, July 20th, the basement cafe of NYSID’s 70th Street building buzzed as students from NYSID’s summer Pre-College program transformed the space into a gallery in which to present their final projects. A student named Sarai Martinez, who came to the Pre-College program through NYSID’s partnership with Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club and the Kravet Pipeline to Interior Design Scholarship, wielded a glue gun as she affixed a final fabric sample to her presentation board. “This program has shown me I have more creativity than I realized,” Martinez said, “I learned to think about what people need in their homes to prosper and thrive. I have a lot more to learn about this process, but now I know how to think out of the box.”
Even before the official start time, the place was packed with students and their families who awaited their instructors, as well as Ellen Fisher, NYSID’s Dean & VP of Academic Affairs, Daniel Harper, NYSID’s Associate Dean, and Francisco de Leon, NYSID’s Director of Pre-College, who would walk through and give the students personalized feedback. The event was the culmination of Pre-College I, the first session of NYSID Pre-College, which focuses on the residential interior design of a one-bedroom apartment imagined for a specific client.
Over the course of the two-week immersion, the students had learned the basics of drafting (including how to measure, read scale, and create circulation patterns in a space); a framework to understand balance and proportion; the fundamentals of color theory and lighting design; and pattern making through mosaics. They worked on color wheels with acclaimed interior designer Jamie Drake, met luxury furniture designer Dakota Jackson, visited with principals of COOKFOX Architects; virtually visited luxury glass mosaic maker SICIS and furniture and lighting manufacturer Ralph Pucci. They also sourced samples of textiles and materials from showrooms throughout the city, such as the New York Design Center, as well as NYSID’s materials library. This evening would be a chance for students to show off some of what they’d learned through their presentations.
An Expanding and Inclusive Program
This year’s Pre-College class is the largest in the College’s history, with more than 65 on-site students and 15 students participating online, as well as a customized breakout session with 5 students from YWCA-NY at the non-profit’s NYC building. One reason for this expansion of NYSID Pre-College is the growing national reputation of the program. Another is the immense support NYSID has received from funders to grant Pre-College scholarships to students with demonstrated financial need through the “Open Doors to Design'' initiative. One of NYSID’s institutional priorities is to help make a career in interior design accessible to a broader and more diverse demographic, starting with high school students who might be unfamiliar with the field and lack role models who are designers. “The Supreme Court’s recent ruling that affirmative action should not be considered in college admissions has not changed NYSID’s commitment to expanding all forms of diversity in our student body and in the profession,” says NYSID President David Sprouls. “The College’s strategy begins with creating access to Pre-College in the stage when teens are forming their identities and considering what to do with their futures.” Encouraging students to think about a portfolio and apply to design programs is part of the culture of the program.
This year NYSID was able to award 31 scholarships to Pre-College. NYSID has forged partnerships with regional and community organizations such as the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club, YWCA-NY, Harlem Children’s Zone, and ASID SF to help identify students with the most need and interest. In addition, the Kaleidoscope Project, a non-profit that seeks to amplify the work and careers of BIPOC designers, provided a full scholarship this summer to student Kaylyn Contreras. Some of the scholarship students came to NYSID through relationships with community organizations and regional non-profits; others just applied for scholarships online. Kravet, Inc., an early and anchor funder of the program, provided a major grant to send 7 students from the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx to NYSID Pre-College every year for 5 years, and this is the 3rd summer of the collaboration.
Snapshots of Students & Their Projects
Indiana Espinosa
At the event, Indiana Espinosa, a junior and a recipient of the ASID South Florida Scholarship, stood confidently in front of her presentation board, explaining that she he had created a one-bedroom apartment for a professional party host, and she had sought to give the space a decadent feel with deep reds, beiges, and blacks. She had photoshopped a real fabric onto an image of a dining chair she loved. She had designed a custom bar for her client, specifying a speckled dark red material for the countertop that she had sourced from a showroom she visited with her class. She chose sinuous forms for both the bedside light and a sculpture that would sit on the coffee table. Espinosa has always wanted to be a designer, and so she researched Pre-College options at top interior design programs in cities. “To put the complete design together and see my vision come to life in the presentation was an incredible experience. I loved my group. Seeing everyone’s different styles motivated and inspired me,” Espinosa says. “I want to be an interior designer and I will definitely be applying to NYSID.”
Ruby McGrath
Ruby McGrath, a junior who hails from Brooklyn and is a recipient of the Decorators’ Club Scholarship, heard about NYSID Pre-College from a friend of her mom who is an alumna. Both of her parents are creatives, and she’s “always loved homes and designs,” but she “was really not sure about interior design as a career.” She adds, “What I really took away from this program is how complex the design process is. It’s about color, proportion, communication, light, measurement, even math! I love that the design process uses the whole brain.” Her one-bedroom apartment was designed specifically for Jaden Smith, whom she says most people know as an actor, but who is also a talented musician whose music and style she loves. Smith has evolved through the genres of rap, pop, and seventies’ soul. His taste in music is eclectic, so McGrath wanted to source quirky items from different periods, such as an iconic 70’s Coca-Cola table. Costuming and style are a large part of Smith’s public persona, so McGrath designed an enormous closet, which is her favorite detail of her presentation. Says McGrath, “I might go into design. This program made me more interested. . .It was very beautiful for me.”
Ana Clara Santos
Poised and focused, Ana Clara Santos is a highschool student who lives in Brazil and takes Civil Construction courses there. She knows it’s her dream to study architecture or design at a College in the United States, so she set out to win a scholarship to a prestigious Pre-College program in design to improve her knowledge. Her application was so strong that she was accepted, and awarded the Donghia Foundation Pre-College Scholarship. She says, “This scholarship made this program possible for me. It would not have been possible otherwise. I am so excited.” The residence she created is an apartment for a ballerina, and she took care with the floor plan to make the living room an open salon atmosphere free of screens, with a ballet barre and piano where her client and her friends could move freely and perform for guests. “I had been thinking of architecture for college, but through this program I have fallen in love with interior design,” she says. “I always liked the field but now I understand it. I am thinking about majoring in interior design.”
Isabella Carmona
Isabella Carmona, a recipient of the Kravet Pipeline to Design Scholarship, was inspired to create her design by a picture she cut out from a magazine for her initial ideation board. The image was of a young breast cancer survivor wearing black boxing gloves. A member of her family is a breast cancer survivor, and Carmona says, “I wanted to create a space for a client who was a fighter and a survivor.” She didn’t want the space to evoke a struggle inside or outside the boxing ring; instead she sought to create a place of relaxation, a retreat for her imagined client “to beat cancer so she could pursue boxing.” She chose soothing pinks and blues, luxurious, tactile fabrics, and a light wood look for the floor. She says one of the most useful exercises was learning to choose a color palate through the creation of a mosaic. She reports her biggest takeaway was, “If you really want to create a decorative space for a client, you have to think about how human beings will live in the space.”
Josephine Soyigbe
Josephine Soyigbe, another recipient of the Kravet Pipeline to Design Scholarship, was inspired by her need to see Black beauty made more visible in the media. The client she imagined for the one bedroom residence is Adonis Bosso, perhaps the most famous Black male model in the world. She chose a palate of ebony, green, brown and blue hues to celebrate the colors in the gorgeous photos of Bosso she researched. “When I see Black people getting seen, I want to celebrate it,” she says. She also sought to flood the apartment with sunlight by opening the kitchen to large windows. Soyigbe thought she might want to model or work in the fashion industry, but she loved learning that, “No matter how small the space, you can do something great with it.”
Sammy Robles
One poster board did not have enough surface area to encompass the creativity and enthusiasm of a highschooler named Sammy Robles, from Orange County, New York, and formerly of the Bronx. The presentation for his project took up a whole wall! He thought not only about his client, a bubbly art and theater student, but also about who would visit her in the apartment, including her best friend and beloved elderly grandmother. He created social nooks and selected art. He made choices with a mind to the Americans with Disabilities Act, so that he could create a space that was also welcoming for the visiting grandmother. Robles did not start the summer as a scholarship student; his family paid for Pre-College I out of pocket. He loved the program and also wanted to complete Pre-College II, which focuses on the commercial design of a hotel with a signature restaurant. Without a scholarship, this extended learning would not have been possible for him, so he was awarded the Donghia Foundation Pre-College Scholarship. “I have had an amazing experience at this college program, and it feels as though I have discovered a whole new world of art,” says Robles. “I loved working on my project, and all the fascinating people I met along the way.”
Thank You Supporters
“The program’s growth and potentially life-changing student learning was made possible by the generosity of our funders. We can’t thank them enough,” says Francisco de Leon, NYSID’s Director of Pre-College. He is working with community non-profits in underserved neighborhoods in California and Florida and elsewhere to create on-site sessions in those states for future summers .
Most of the students who received Pre-College scholarships will be returning for the next two weeks of Pre-College II. Says NYSID’s Admissions Director Emmanuel Cruz, who was an instrumental member of the team selecting students for Pre-College scholarships, “This program opens up opportunities for students who might have never experienced the world of design.” NYSID is beginning to track the students in Pre-College to assess which students apply to NYSID, one way to gauge long term impact.
Major support for NYSID’s Pre-College fund has been provided by the ASID South Florida Chapter, Brian McCarthy, Bunny Williams, Charlotte Moss, Cullman & Kravis, Decorator’s Club Education Fund, Angelo Donghia Foundation, Jamie Drake, James Druckman/New York Design Center, John Roselli & Associates, Kaleidoscope Project, Kravet Inc., and Studio Designer.