The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private, nonprofit art institution located in Savannah, and its mission is to prepare students for professional careers in the arts.
In addition to its Savannah campus, SCAD maintains campuses in Atlanta; Lacoste, France; and Hong Kong. Approximately 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled at its four campus and online programs. Students come from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries, and SCAD employs around 1,900 full-time and part-time employees.
SCAD offers a wide variety of degree programs and specializations, including animation, architectural history, art history, arts administration, broadcast design and motion graphics, cinema studies, fashion, fibers, film and television, furniture design, graphic design, historic preservation, illustration, industrial design, interactive design and game development, interior design, performing arts, metals and jewelry, painting, photography, sequential art, sound design, urban design, and visual effects. SCAD’s innovative programs have received national and international recognition, and it is consistently ranked as one of the top art schools in the United States.
History
SCAD was founded in 1978 by Paula S. Wallace, Richard G. Rowan, May L. Poetter, and Paul E. Poetter. The school began its first academic year in the fall of 1979 with seventy-one students, eight faculty, four staff, five trustees, and eight majors. Two of the cofounders, Rowan and Wallace, served as the first president and the first provost, respectively. In May 1981 the first commencement ceremony was held in Savannah’s Madison Square for one graduate. The founders have continued to be the driving force behind the school; in 2000 Rowan resigned as president and was replaced by Wallace.
As the institution expanded, it encountered its share of growing pains and controversies. In 1992 the administration fought efforts to establish a student government and a faculty senate. That same year, the school also canceled commencement exercises following several pipe-bomb explosions on campus. The following year, in 1993, SCAD filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the New York City–based School of Visual Arts, which was expanding into Savannah with a satellite campus. SCAD accused the School of Visual Arts of trying to destroy the college’s reputation and of forming a conspiracy to oust SCAD’s leadership. After years of legal battles and an out-of-court settlement, the School of Visual Arts closed its Savannah branch.
Today, SCAD is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The college confers Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Architecture, Master of Arts, Master of Arts in Teaching, Master of Fine Arts, and Master of Urban Design degrees, as well as undergraduate and graduate certificates.
SCAD was the first art school in the country to have an athletics program and is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The SCAD Bees compete in men’s and women’s basketball, cross country, equestrian, golf, soccer, swimming, and tennis; women’s softball and volleyball; and men’s baseball and lacrosse. Fencing and cheerleading are offered as club sports.
In 2002 the SCAD Museum of Art opened in an antebellum Greek revival structure that formerly served as the headquarters of the Central of Georgia Railway in Savannah. One of the museum’s highlights is the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American art, which includes work by Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, and Jacob Lawrence.
Locations
SCAD’s flagship campus in Savannah offers a full university experience in the creative environment of the coastal South. The campus includes more than sixty facilities in one of the largest and most renowned National Historic Landmark districts. During the summer of 1981, SCAD launched its first off-campus study program in New York City. Subsequent sessions were held in Australia, China, Cuba, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and Thailand.
In 2002 SCAD acquired the Lacoste School of Arts in Provence, France, where it operates a year-round study-abroad facility. SCAD-Atlanta opened for classes in 2005 with seventy-seven students. The campus expanded in 2006 when SCAD acquired the Atlanta College of Art. SCAD facilities are located in the city’s Midtown arts district. In 2009 SCAD opened a campus in the Sham Shui Po district of Hong Kong, with eight programs of study. SCAD launched online classes in 2003, and SCADnow offers certificate and degree programs to a global community.
Community Partner
SCAD is an important part of the Savannah, Atlanta, and Lacoste communities, providing educational and cultural events for the public. Annual events in Savannah sponsored by the college include the Savannah Film Festival; SCAD Style; SCAD Fashion Show; Game Developers eXchange; Sidewalk Arts Festival, a chalk-drawing competition; and International Festival, an exhibition of ethnic food, dress, and music. Since 2010 deFINE Art, a popular public event, has brought noted contemporary artists to Atlanta and Savannah for lectures, exhibitions, and discussion programs.
Students and faculty have performed many community-service projects, including assessing historic-structure damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in coastal Mississippi; building houses with Habitat for Humanity; participating in Hands On Atlanta projects; developing plans for a LEED-certified building for Park Place Outreach Inc. in Savannah; helping restore the Wren’s Nest in Atlanta; participating in a citywide public mural project benefiting the Second Harvest Food Bank of Coastal Georgia and Hospice Savannah; creating Holocaust memorial sculptures in Savannah for the Jewish Educational Alliance; and helping restore the First African Baptist Church of Raccoon Bluff, on Sapelo Island.
Historic Preservation Leader
SCAD-Savannah is set apart from other colleges and universities because its urban campus is spread throughout Savannah’s National Historic Landmark district. In 1979 the school purchased the 1893 Savannah Volunteer Guards Armory for $250,000 and renovated it as the first classroom and administration building, named Poetter Hall. Expanding into the Victorian district and south of the downtown area, SCAD has become a guardian for previously abandoned historic buildings and now inhabits more than 2 million square feet in more than sixty facilities in Savannah. SCAD has rehabilitated an additional ten buildings in Atlanta and Lacoste.
While preserving the character and integrity of its historic buildings, SCAD offers state-of-the-art, industry-standard technology and tools in all its programs. Its facilities include studios, galleries, computer labs, film-editing suites, darkrooms, theaters, museums, classrooms, residence halls, libraries, fitness centers, and event spaces.
In 1980 the college received the first of many preservation awards from the Historic Savannah Foundation for its adaptive reuse of the college’s flagship building. Since then, SCAD has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, the Art Deco Societies of America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Victorian Society in America, and the International Downtown Association. In 2003 SCAD was honored with the first-ever Renaissance Award from the Georgia Cities Foundation and a National Trust Main Street Leadership Award for Civic Leadership.
