The Office of Architecture and Interior Design, located in Alumni Hall, is working to make changes to the program in the light of the separation with Western campus. (Michael Pickering)
In light of Miami University's announcement concerning the dissolution of the Western College Program's (WCP) divisional status, the interdisciplinary program is not the only one that will be seeing some changes in the coming academic year.
For the first time in 25 years, the architecture and interior design program, once partnered with the WCP, will be separate with regards to curriculum and housing arrangements next fall.
The architecture and interior design faculty voted to sever ties with the WCP in the fall of 2005. According to John Weigand, interim chair of the architecture and interior design program, this vote was cast independent of the decision to dissolve WCP.
"Western worked as its own entity, and that's a good thing." Weigand said. "But there were also some issues."
The architecture and interior design program, which resides within the School of Fine Arts, had for the last quarter of a century coordinated college courses and first-year living arrangements with the WCP in order for the students to be involved in the Living Learning Community that the WCP, now a part of the College of Arts and Science, offered.
Part of the union with WCP meant students were required to take at least three of their five semester courses through the WCP. The other hours of architecture students' schedules were usually filled with studio classes.
But with this schedule coordination came the requirement for architecture and interior design majors to live on Western campus, which some students were unhappy about.
However, junior interior design major Julia Richardson does not think the split from Western will be conducive to scheduling.
"It was really easy for us to schedule because they lined up certain course selections that got rid of our Miami Plan requirements," Richardson said. "We got all of that out of the way and got to focus on studio courses."
With the incoming first-year class in fall of 2007, the architecture and interior design program will implement an independent curriculum for its new students. This means instead of taking multiple classes through WCP, they will enroll in the core Miami Plan courses required for their major.
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"Our hope is to free up the curriculum," Weigand said. "Before, even if somebody loved history and wanted to take a class they couldn't. Architecture and interior design majors currently enrolled in Miami will not be affected by these changes and will continue taking classes through WCP."
In addition to curriculum changes, the architecture and interior design first-year students next year will no longer be required to live on the Western campus - in residence halls such as Peabody or McKee - for their first year.
The new class of students will live on main campus and will be assigned to residence halls the same way any other major would be.
Richardson said she thinks this is a mistake.
"I really loved being on Western," Richardson said. "I think it made things a lot easier on us."
While no concrete plans are in the works about a future union between the architecture and interior design program and the Western program, some discussion is taking place about possible ways for the architecture and interior design students to still get the unique Living Learning Community experience the WCP offered, without being tied into the curriculum.
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