Davis College
News/Events

A group of students from the Interior Design program in the Division of Design and Merchandising recently attended the 2008 Create West Virginia Conference at Snowshoe Mountain. One of the student attendees, Interior Design major Anna Marie Orso of Wildwood, MO, was kind enough to share her impressions of the conference and some of the lessons she took away from it. Click “Continue Reading” below to see what Anna had to say?

“Well, the conference consisted of a lot of different speakers from different backgrounds. Every day started out at 7 a.m. with breakfast in the convention center where a keynote speaker would start the day off. After that, everyone would attend a couple of ‘track sessions.’ There were different genres, such as place, diversity, education, and business tracks. Based on what interested you, a person would go to that particular speaker. Again, we’d meet in the convention center for lunch, hear another speaker, then listen to two more track sessions of our choice. After those, we’d have dinner, listen to a closing speaker for about an hour, and the day was over around 7:30 p.m.

“The track sessions were really great—all of the students in our group went to different ones based on what they were interested in. A lot of people went to the place tracks because many of them were relevant to interior design. For example, one of the place track sessions was about Redefining Community—basically, how aesthetics play a huge role in community and the community identity. Speaking for myself, listening to this track session really hit home to here in Morgantown because I currently am trying to get the Interior Design and Design Studies programs to work with Sunnyside UP here in Morgantown. We have already volunteered one afternoon to make a difference in our community. I personally am passionate and interested in making Morgantown a better place to live. The speaker during this place track gave a lot of inspiration for how even small changes can make a big impact in a community. He gave a lot of real-world examples of what other cities are doing and he expressed how a lot of communities allow for such low standards and how we all deserve more than what we are considering acceptable.

“He had a lot of incredible ideas that need to be adopted here in Morgantown. A lot of the students in my class who went to this place track thought it was a great session. After leaving that track session we started talking about bigger ideas for Morgantown and how we want to really get involved and moving with Sunnyside UP and the rest of our community. I think after this, we realized the importance of community development and its link to community strength and identity. Relating this back to Morgantown, we all felt that it is important that Morgantown develops an identity that is inclusive to not only the university, but to everything else that makes Morgantown a unique place to live.

“All in all, I think our group got a lot out of the different speakers. We were the youngest ones there, but I think people recognized our maturity. We were treated like any other attendee and really felt a part of this design-thinking community.

“Change has to start somewhere and what better then to start change early on. We have been exposed to ideas that are being pushed for the future. We students can influence the people of our future and help to implement these ideas; we can help create West Virginia and other states in which we choose to live. We are being exposed to these ideas, we are learning the skills in school; sooner or a later we will have to do something with all of that. By going to this conference, we are one step closer to making all of these things a bigger reality and spreading them beyond just this state. We have the possibility to change our world.”