Welcome from the Dean
In May, I was overjoyed to see the Musical Arts Center packed with the family and friends of our nearly 280 graduates. The Class of 2025 is our largest yet, and, as you’ll read in the pages that follow, their study of art, architecture, design, and merchandising is geared toward the challenges of our time. In these uncertain times for our state, nation, and world, our sense of meaning and direction is renewed when we reflect on their thought-provoking exhibitions and prosocial design innovations.
Their dynamic research and creative activity are sources of gratification for our world-renowned faculty, and a tribute to them. Founded in 2016 and dedicated as the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design in 2019, our school is built on a venerable foundation of art and design instruction at Indiana University going back to 1895. As you’ll also discover in this report, our faculty—and our alumni—exhibit their work around the world, implement design solutions with existential implications, and engage in critical cultural and scientific research and analysis.
This year, their legacy is especially clear, as we mourn the loss of three longtime members of our studio art faculty: Margaret Dolinsky from digital art, James Reidhaar from graphic design, and Bill Itter, the father of our fundamentals (now creative core) curriculum. Each of them gave decades to IU, shaping thousands of emerging artists. Their contributions to the culture and instruction that distinguish the Eskenazi School and that we celebrate in these pages are immeasurable. We invite you to read about and remember these precious individuals on pages 46–50.
During this year of significant change at the university and state level, a broad coalition of Eskenazi School faculty and staff collaboratively forged our school’s strategic plan for the next five years. Having established the building blocks for our new and developing school recommended in our original plan, we continue to position our school as a leader on the national and international stages, committed to transformative ideas built upon a liberal arts approach to art, architecture, design, and merchandising research, creative practice, and education.
In our new plan, the Eskenazi School seeks to continue its support of all students, faculty, and staff in creating unique paths to impact and inspire our school, campus, and world. In constructing this plan, we have worked within the context of the university and campus plans to establish the following goals: Cultivate a Welcoming Working and Learning Environment, Enrich Student Success and Learning, Foster Excellence in Research and Creative Practice, and Engage our Community, State, and Beyond.
As we take on a new academic year, we hold fast to the vision we have expressed in our new plan, to “empower tomorrow’s artists, architects, designers, and merchandisers to revolutionize, reshape, and renew our world.” As we do so, we invite you to join us to support and explore art, architecture, design, and merchandising at IU!
With wishes for health, peace, and inspiration,
Peg Faimon
Founding Dean and Professor