News and Media

Published: Mar 2, 2011

If you've clicked through this website, then you'll notice what I truly enjoy most is meeting with SCAD students and alumni. I love holding chat sessions with students, visiting with students in their classrooms and at SCAD events, and receiving e-mail updates and phone calls from alumni. What makes these conversations especially meaningful is that, through the global SCAD family of employers, students, alumni, faculty and staff, professional connections often are made that lead to internships, jobs and unmatched opportunities. As a lifelong educator, my greatest joy is to nurture and watch SCAD students grow into successful creative professionals such as 2002 SCAD graduate Andrew Ondrejcak.

I was recently in New York on university business and during Fashion Week ran into Andrew, who was working on the production of the Tory Burch show. Andrew grew up in Mississippi and came to SCAD Savannah to study architecture and performing arts. Shortly after earning his degree, Andrew moved to New York to pursue a career in the arts. Over the years, he would send an occasional e-mail, telling me of his move from working at a bakery to sharing loft space with the founders of a well-known fashion label to helping noted photographer Peter Lindbergh conceptualize shoots for Italian and American Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

As Andrew's career progressed, he soon was designing sets for fashion shows, writing, producing and directing plays, and being invited to Watermill, a renowned center for artists on Long Island, New York. While at Watermill in 2007, Andrew first met the internationally heralded performance artist Marina Abramović. Three years later, in 2010, Andrew took part in a retrospective of Marina's work at MoMA and the two developed an abiding friendship.

When I ran into Andrew in February, he was working on a performance piece debuting at the Guggenheim later this month, and SCAD was quickly nearing the launch of our second SCAD deFINE ART. This event's honoree: Marina Abramović. I mentioned this to Andrew ... and two weeks later, he was back at SCAD, on stage at Trustees Theater, sharing his trajectory from being an undergraduate at SCAD to an accomplished professional to coming full circle to introduce his idol and friend Marina Abramović to SCAD. (Please read more about Marina and deFINE ART here.)

It was truly touching to see Andrew on the stage and know that his SCAD degree helped lead him to that moment. But that's what we do at SCAD. We set our students and alumni down paths that lead only to success, to once-in-a-lifetime experiences and soaring careers. At SCAD, good will persists at every level - everyone, from students and alumni to staff and faculty, believes deeply in the university's mission to prepare talented students for professional careers. So I encourage you to stay in touch, send an e-mail, make a phone call, reach out to me, to anyone in the SCAD family. Let us know what you're up to or where you'd like to go, and like Andrew, you might find yourself at a SCAD event introducing someone as inspirational to your work, your art, as Marina has been to Andrew.

-Paula Wallace