Good design is never stagnant – and neither is RRC’s Residential Decorating program!
When’s the last time your work impacted a generation of students? Josephine Pulver has been able to make a difference in just a few short years.
Pulver joined Red River College’s faculty in 2011 as an instructor in Continuing Education’s Residential Decorating program. Since then, she’s implemented the Residential Decorating Practicum, partnered with Palliser Furniture to offer students the opportunity to design for an international company, and introduced two new courses: Decorating Software Applications and Eco-Friendly Décor.
“I think it might be a little bit of an ongoing joke now,” Pulver says of the frequency with which she brings ideas to her department head. But Pulver’s creativity and innovation is students’ gain – especially since RRC prides itself on producing industry-ready grads.
“[The College is] open to creative ideas,” says Pulver. “They’re open to suggestions as to how to move forward with the program. It’s not a stagnant situation.”
Pulver graduated from the University of Manitoba’s Interior Design program in 1995 and has worked in the industry ever since. She felt a practicum would have been beneficial to her own career and wanted to give RRC students the opportunities she didn’t have. Enter the Residential Decorating Practicum, which is brand new this year.
“When we graduated [from university] we didn’t have support from the community at all,” Pulver explains. “It’s hard to get your foot in the door to meet people. A practicum really helps a student because even if they don’t get a position where they’re placed, they’ve met people, they’ve seen how the industry works, and they have a reference.
The Palliser project is also new this year, and will hopefully prove to be an invaluable opportunity. In the final term of the Residential Decorating program, students will be tasked with creating a display booth for Palliser Furniture. Read More →