IFDA awards 2009 scholarships, grants
Education Foundation awards eight scholarships, four grants
-- Home Accents Today, 11/3/2009 7:18:00 AM
The Educational Foundation of the International Furnishings and Design Association has awarded eight student scholarship winners for 2009 and four grants that support design projects and professional development within the industry.
Student winners, announced by IFDA/EF grants chairman Earline Clark Feldman, represent design programs at colleges and universities across the country.
They include Leyna Chiang, a major in home products development at the Fashion Institute of Technology State University of New York, who has won the IFDA Student Scholarship. Lauren Looseveldt Hall, a candidate for a master’s degree in architecture at Arizona State University, received the VercilleVoss Graduate Scholarship.
Colleen DeCracker of Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, N.Y., won the IFDA Leaders Commemorative Scholarship. A senior at Meredith College, Raleigh, N.C., Regina Heubel, is the first winner of IFDA’s new Green/Sustainable Scholarship.
Divya Vijayanandakumar, once a computer science major, now studying interior design and architecture at West Valley College in Saratoga, Calif., took home the IFDA Scholarship for Part Time Students.
The competition for the IFDA/EF Marketing Intern Scholarship ended in a tie, so two awards were presented this year, to Sade Parson of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, and to Mary Jo Drum of High Point University. Sade interned with the marketing company Colleagues, Inc., headed by a member of the IFDA chapter in Richmond, and Mary Jo is a senior, majoring in home furnishing marketing.
Winner of the Ruth Clark Scholarship, named after the furniture industry icon, Nhat-Huy Ton also won the 2007-8 Academic Excellence Award at Cerritos College in Norwalk, Calif., where he is majoring in woodworking manufacturing technology.
The IFDA/EF grants are named and supported by different chapter in honor of distinguished past members. For 2009, awards have gone to a variety of design-related projects. Historic restoration contractor Terry Lamphier will use the Ina Mae Kaplan Historic Preservation Grant, supported by the Washington, D.C., Chapter, to restore an important “blunt arch” doorway at a landmark building in the old gold mining community of Grass Valley, Calif.
Jeanne A. Mercer-Ballard, assistant professor at Appalachian State University, Boone, N.C.; will use the Texas Chapter’s Elizabeth Brown Grant for Interior Design Programs to provide scholars with a years’ network access to BuildingGreen Suite, the highly regarded Web-based eco-resource..
Kimberly Melhus, assistant professor at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, is applying her Irma Dobkin Universal Design Grant, supported by the Washington Chapter, to a multi-day symposium on universal design for lay-people, as well as faculty and students.
For Lauren Shelby, interior designer from Half Moon Bay, Calif., the Tony Torrice Professional Development Grant, supported by the Northern California Chapter, will finance preparation and taking the California IDEX exam, increasingly a necessity for professional interior designers in the state.
The Educational Foundation (www.ifdaef.org) is the philanthropic arm of the IFDA, the only all-industry organization in the design industry. Founded in l947, IFDA now has l8 chapters across the U.S., and one in Japan.
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