April 29 – When collaboration amongst colleges across the Prairie View A&M University campus happens, it is certainly always a beautiful thing. For the recent American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Week hosted by the School of Architecture, two College of Agriculture and Human Sciences staff members made a huge contribution to the success of the week of events.
AIGA is the premier professional association for design. PVAMU’s student chapter of the organization hosted a week of events from April 8th to April 12th that acted in honor of AIGA’s annual conference. Crystal Talley-Thompson, who serves as Graphic Designer for the Information & Impact Center and Communications Officer for the Integrated Food Research Center, presented a Portfolio Boot Camp on one day to a large group of graduating seniors who would soon be applying to professional positions. During the workshop, Thompson showed students the proper way to present their digital projects and work in the form of a design portfolio and resume. She even took time to review and give hands-on feedback to each student on their resumes and how to properly format a design portfolio.
Also playing a major role in the week of events was IIC student worker, Ebony Ohen. Being a Digital Media Arts major, Ohen has worked as a CAHS Junior Graphic Designer for much of her college career and has produced outstanding work for the department. In addition to being on the planning team and attending each workshop, she presented her final class project at the Digital Media Arts Senior Exhibition during the week of events. Ohen shares that this week gave the university a chance to learn something new. “It was overall a beautiful experience to share that with people who don’t really come on that side of campus too often.” She was able to relate what she’s learned being a student worker in CAHS and how it has helped her in this event and overall. “Being able to work for the agriculture department in the position that I do have helped me prepare for those little things that graphic designers don’t normally think about when it comes to marketing their work and marketing an event. It was a challenge overall, but I feel like it was something that shaped me professionally.”
Having the CAHS play a part in an event held by another college shows the effort put toward making the university community much more inclusive of each other. With so many opportunities to collaborate and participate with other colleges, CAHS looks forward to doing its part in many other future endeavors.
Taelor Smith
Communications Specialist
tasmith@pvamu.edu
(936) 261-5155