Virtual Summer
Design Camp When the pandemic started in spring 2020, plans for that summer’s Fay Jones School Design Camp had to change because the typical in-person camps couldn’t happen. So Alison Turner, the school’s director of community education, secured a grant from the Alice L. Walton Foundation. The grant provided the means to create and produce 25 design education videos that virtually deliver the projects, discussions and tours that students would have experienced at an in-person camp. Additional support for the videos came from the U of A Student Success Center and the Dean’s Office of the Fay Jones School. The videos were released in summer 2020 on the school’s YouTube channel. In these FAY Design Virtual Education videos, design workshop segments are supplemented with informational content and virtual tours. Viewers can learn about the school, meet some of the design students and get their perspective on being a design student, and also tour the U of A campus from the perspective of a design student. They can also virtually visit design firms and design professionals in Arkansas, learn about the life and work of architects Fay Jones, Edward Durell Stone and Marlon Blackwell, and visit several Arkansas cities to learn about the architecture and design in those places. “We see that we now have the ability to bring design education to all students in Arkansas and beyond who may or may not have had the opportunity to attend one of our in-person Design Camps,” Turner said. “We also see this as a resource for K-12 teachers to bring design education into their classrooms.” For summer 2021, the school will offer several Design Camp options — from all-virtual formats to one in-person session. In collaboration with PBS Learn, the online educational platform for Arkansas PBS, the school has developed six days of design camp education courses that students can pursue at their own pace and on their own schedule. These courses are recommended for students going into seventh through 12th grades. Two weeklong, school-guided virtual camps will be held June 14-18 and June 21-25, also for students going into seventh through 12th grades. Students will use the PBS Learn courses and also meet daily
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Luke Braswell (at right) films Beau Burris, then a fifth year Honors landscape architecture student, as he sketches on campus during the production of the design education videos in summer 2020.
via Zoom sessions with school design faculty and students for discussions, feedback and guidance. A two-week advanced virtual design camp will be held June 14-25, for students going into 11th and 12th grades. These students will also use a mix of the PBS Learn courses and daily Zoom sessions with school design faculty and students. In addition, an in-person camp will be held June 14-18 at Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus, for students going into ninth through 12th grades. This camp will operate under COVID-19 directives of the Arkansas Department of Health, the state of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas. Masks will be required. The virtual Design Camp sessions are free and open to all students. The in-person Design Camp in Fayetteville costs $375, and need-based full and partial scholarships are available. Materials kits are available for virtual camps; materials kits will be provided to students in the in-person camp. Registration for the school-guided virtual and inperson camps has closed. The deadline to register for the self-guided virtual camp courses is Aug. 1. More information can be found on the school’s website at: https://fayjones.uark.edu/news-and-events/designcamp.php/.
ReView: Spring 2021
