Picture This
ADGA Professor Lays Groundwork for Collaboration with Beijing's IFT
Thanks to the efforts of Advertising Design & Graphic Arts (ADGA) Professor John McVicker, City Tech students exhibited for the first time ever in last spring's One Club International Student Show. Sponsored by The One Club for Art & Copy, one of two world-renowned advertising clubs and the world's foremost non-profit organization for the recognition and promotion of excellence in advertising, a record 32 colleges and universities from around the world participated in the event. The work exhibited by City Tech students created quite a “buzz,” according to McVicker, who was approached by a Beijing colleague about a possible future teacher and/or student exchange program.
In fall 2007, McVicker began a one-year sabbatical, which included a two-week teaching stint during November at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT), for which he was awarded the title “Visiting Professor” at the end of the assignment. Like City Tech, BIFT is home to a vibrant advertising design department. Located in the heart of Beijing just minutes away from the site of the forthcoming 2008 Summer Olympics, it is a modern university complex with an enrollment of more than 7,500 daytime students.
“My stay in China was one of the truly great experiences of my teaching career,” says McVicker. “I taught two classes, each consisting of more than 50 students, and began each class with an advanced PowerPoint presentation on modern conceptual advertising, a subject I'm currently researching. As China's rapid growth continues, so will its need for increasingly sophisticated approaches to marketing and communications.
“I assigned each class a project which consisted of designing in three day’s time an ad campaign complete with an outdoor billboard, a tough challenge even for the best of professionals,” adds McVicker. “But these students were highly driven, with most working around the clock to complete the work. My hat is off to every one of those young men and women, as the quality of the campaigns they produced was absolutely first-rate and on a professional level.”
Professor McVicker has been invited by BIFT to return at any time and hopes to do so. An equally important objective during his November visit was to begin to forge a possible relationship between BIFT and ADGA. “There was a mutual consensus between my BIFT colleagues and me,” he notes, “that by embracing each other, both institutions and their students can benefit in many ways. This is a unique opportunity for the College and I will do everything I can to encourage such an exchange.”
01/11/08
