All of the Mississippi State University interior design faculty are members of the national Interior Design Educators Council Inc. (IDEC), and several hold leadership roles with the organization.
Assistant Professor William Riehm serves as regional chair for the Southern Region and was responsible for organizing the recent conference in conjunction with the host institution, Middle Tennessee State University.
In the role, Riehm coordinated sponsorships and logistics for the conference as well as logistics and communications with IDEC members. He also set the standards for acceptance to the conference and criteria for the awards.
Director and Professor Beth Miller sat on a panel on the conference – “A is for Advocacy; Educators Making the Grade.”
Associate Professor Amy Crumpton serves as the national abstract coordinator for the organization. In this role, she is responsible for the coordination and logistics of the national abstracts.
She also serves as the regional national student design competition coordinator and is responsible for collecting entries and organizing reviews in this role.
Crumpton is also on the National K-12 Interior Design taskforce, studying how interior design education is integrated into K-12 education across the nation.
Assistant Professor Lyndsey Miller is the regional creative scholarship coordinator. In this role, she recruits design professionals from the Southern Region to engage with IDEC in reviewing and encouraging creative scholarship.
IDEC’s mission is the advancement of interior design education, scholarship, and service.
During the convention, Beth Miller and William Riehm had the opportunity to tour ESa (Earl Swensson Associates Inc), which has been ranked the largest architecture firm in Nashville by The Nashville Business Journal.
The tour guide was an alumnus of the program, Isaac Holman. Holman interned with the firm while a student at MSU and has been working there for 14 years.
Numerous alumni also work at the firm, including Misty Seeley, who has been there for 16 years. Haley Haverstock and Kindyl Black also both interned with the firm and are now employed.
“It was really fun to have designers pop up to say ‘hey’ to us that were our students,” said Riehm. “We were the only ones on the tour that happened to,” he proudly stated.