Ah, the fine art of cupcake making while learning the lastest in graphic art. I love it. Kudos also to the exceptional art school at TCC in downtown Portsmouth. This is the true gem of Hampton Roads!
Passion to Productivity: The Art Institutes Get Creative
Tuesday, 24 November 2009 01:05 | 
Author: Leona Baker | 
Maybe you're one of the thousands of Virginians who've lost their jobs recently. Maybe you're sitting around the house in your skivvies right now wondering what you're going to be when you grow up. You were always creative, but at some point you had to get a "real" job. So you did. And look where it got you.
Well, the Art Institute of Virginia Beach just might want you.
The Art Institutes, one of the nation's largest for-profit education companies has expanded into Hampton Roads with a new building at Two Columbus Center in Virginia Beach. Construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the interior of the six-story facility, a hard-to-miss addition to Town Center with its sleek, red "Ai" logo featured prominently on the side. It's the third Art Institute to open in Virginia. There are more than 40 locations around the country.
The first classes will begin locally January 11. But a cluster of administrative offices on the first floor is already operational.
That's where Marilyn Burstein, newly appointed president of the Art Institute of Virginia Beach, recently showed off over-sized floor plans for the school. The third story will house one of their more popular programs: culinary studies. It will feature two test kitchens to start out with, a dining lab, walk-in freezers and refrigerators, locker rooms (budding chefs have to suit up) and lecture areas. There's room for a third test kitchen to be added as the school grows.
The Art Institute of Virginia Beach will initially offer bachelor’s degree programs in Advertising, Culinary Arts Management, Fashion & Retail Management, Graphic Design, Interior Design, Media Arts & Animation, Photographic Imaging, and Web Design & Interactive Media; and associate’s degree programs in Culinary Arts, Graphic Design, and Web Design & Interactive Media. Their approach is practical and business oriented, emphasizing the real-world applications of creative pursuits in an ever-changing market.
The culinary programs are often popular with non-traditional students, especially those looking for a career change.
"[Students] will come back sometimes in their 40s," explains Burstein, "and they'll say, 'This is what I really want to do, this is my passion.' And that's what I like to tell students is that we take them from their passion to productivity. It's wonderful to be passionate about an art and design career. It's wonderful to be passionate about wanting to be a chef, but if someone is not going to help you train to be productive, you end up being a starving artist, which we don't want any of our students to do."
Burstein spearheaded the opening of another Art Institute location in Charleston, South Carolina in 2007. She moved to Hampton Roads about two months ago and has been getting to know the area. A big part of the Art Institutes' mission, she says, is to promote community involvement.
"In our first year in Charleston, I think we were involved in about 18 to 20 community events," she remembers. "I want to do very much the same thing here, get our students involved with the community because we are an applied arts program. Everything they learn here is hands-on, but you want them to have the ability to go out there and try and do it in real life, in the real world. That's all really just part of being a lifelong learner and being part of a community."
She says they hope to be a part of Food Bank's annual fundraiser and to participate in the Chrysler Museum of Art's Student Gallery among other events.
She's also concentrating on creating the school's identity.
"Start-ups are difficult because you have a limited staff to begin with. You end up wearing all kinds of different hats until the students come on board and the faculty comes on board and everybody else is on board and you begin growing. But it's also very exciting to get into a community and establish the culture of the school...a culture where students feel that they really want to be here, a culture where students feel that we are here to support them, but with that maintaining the rigor of the programs. So it's kind of a balancing act."
As of early November, the school had about 42 students enrolled. They hope to start off with 45 to 50, grow to 600+ in their current 35,000 square feet of space, and expand the facility as needed--including the addition of student housing. The most popular programs thus far are fashion design and culinary. The Art Institutes typical student demographic runs the gamut from fresh high school grads to older career changers.
Tuition rates fall between in-state and out-of-state fees for public schools in Virginia: $472 per credit across the board (as compared to $236 in-state and $651 out-of-state at ODU). But many students attend Art Institutes year-round. Bachelor's degrees can be achieved in three years, associate's in a little more than two.
The opening of the Art Institute of Virginia Beach also marks another notch in the Town Center's development belt--and hopefully an interesting cultural addition. Its students presumably will hang around between classes, a potential new customer base for the restaurants and retail businesses there, many of which have struggled in the down economy.
"I have been here three years and business has been good," says Juliet Smith, manager of the Daily Grind, a coffee shop just around the corner from the school on Central Park Avenue, "but recently things have been tighter. But people still drink coffee, so we're hanging in there." The opening of a school can only help, she says. "I think it's great. Anything they open, I think encourages people to come here--different customers."
Marilyn Burstein hopes the school's presence will be felt in a positive way in Town Center and beyond.
"We think we are going to be be a good fit for the whole Hampton Roads area."
Last Updated ( Sunday, 21 February 2010 16:02 )
