Dear IDEC Colleagues,

As headlines can attest, this year’s zeitgeist could be identified as ‘change’ and with it, the imperative to evolve. I believe I speak for the IDEC Board in declaring that we see this time as not the occasion to lay dormant, but to retool and rethink, enhance our organization’s services and reinvigorate our historic grassroots orientation and outreach to existing and potential members.  It is these reflections that have spurred on the IDEC Board to much discussion and action this summer and fall.

Despite national news headlines, there is much to celebrate within IDEC. Our membership has topped 700 members for the first time in its history, and many of these individuals are new to IDEC, attesting to the validity of our mission while challenging us to maintain the utility and relevance of the services and products IDEC provides.  Thanks to the sound leadership of past presidents John Turpin, Jane Kucko and their associated Board members and our able Executive Director Jeff Beachum and staff, IDEC is on sound financial ground with reserves in place to weather nearly any storm that comes our way. This permits IDEC to engage issues both within and beyond its boundaries, as the examples below will describe.

• Internally speaking, progress is being made on a variety of issues. Specifically, I would like to address one of IDEC’s most important core goals- that of teaching excellence.  Not only is this a topic of unanimous interest for IDEC members (after all, nearly all of us teach), it is also true that the current economic climate will likely dampen the critical need for current/future interior design educators only briefly. The 2010 annual conference in Atlanta (http://www.idec.org/events/2010.php) will target this issue and will include multiple opportunities designed to strengthen our teaching effectiveness and attract new educators. This will include three new teaching workshops, panels on tenure and practice-as-scholarship and an identified track of teaching-oriented presentations in the conference schedule. Also, I’m excited to tell you that the Board is eagerly awaiting the recommendations of a task force on teaching resources that will seek to make high-quality teaching ideas and strategies available to us all.

On external fronts, IDEC is enhancing its engagement with other professional organizations to further our educational, scholarship and service mission. Our voice is a part of the dialogue on those issues best addressed through coalition building.

• IDEC is now a member of the National Academy of Environmental Design (a sibling entity to the National Academy of Sciences), and is also represented at the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative, an organization dedicated to increasing U.S. economic competitiveness. As president, I will also represent IDEC at this year’s annual General Assembly and Congress of the International Federation of Interior Architects and Designers (IFI) in Dubai to build our participation at the global level.
• IDEC maintains its place at the table with ASID, CIDA, IDC, IIDA and NCIDQ with twice yearly discussions. Direct outgrowths of these discussions include the Interior Design Education Video Competition with CIDA and NCIDQ (Have you entered yet?  Visit http://www.idec.org/videocompetition.htm) and a series of educator-specific webinars on legislation with ASID.

Indeed, it is a time of reflection coupled with action. Much is afoot, and I look forward to sharing more of these activities with you in the coming months. If you haven’t done so already, you might enjoy exploring the ongoing audiocast series that provides further detail (a member benefit at http://www.idec.org/members/IDECMinute.php).

Respectfully submitted,

Jill Pable, IDEC President

In an effort to better accommodate Institutions and larger group memberships, IDEC is introducing an Institutional Membership this renewal season that will allow your entire interior design faculty and staff to join for a fraction of the cost of individual memberships.  As we are working to finalize the Institution Membership process, IDEC renewal notices will not be mailed until the week of November 16.

The IDEC Institutional Membership is only available during the Membership Renewal period. Watch your mailbox for details.

Updates to your individual membership record can be made online. Please review and update your record electronically to make sure you receive your membership renewal notice.

Update Your Membership Information

The IDEC Annual Conference is quickly approaching! During the week of the IDEC conference, the city of Atlanta will host the Hinman Dental Society. This is a citywide group which peaks at 4,300 rooms. IDEC does have a block of hotel rooms reserved. However, please book your room early! We do not want you to miss out on hotel accommodations for the IDEC Annual Conference.

Hotel: The Westin Peachtree Plaza

         210 Peachtree Street

         Atlanta, GA 30303

Room Rate: $179 Single/Double, $199 Triple, $219 Quad

                 (not including taxes)

Book Online or by calling 800.937.8461.

This network opens a dialogue between faculty members regarding the development of collaborative teaching and developing a pedagogy for multidisciplinary studios and courses. The network serves as a think tank and as the network is developing, as a resource for teachers of multidisciplinary courses.

Network Chair: Hepi Wachter, Univeristy of Oklahoma

Listserv: To join the listserv for this network send an email to idecinsideout-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

YOU are invited to take part in an interior design student and educator video event that celebrates your preparation to be an interior design professional and informs others about the value of your skills.

Thousands of students and practicing interior designers across North America and other countries are currently pursuing or have completed education and examination requirements that fully prepare them to practice and to protect the public's health, safety and welfare. Yet, the public nor other design professionals do not always fully understand this, nor do prospective interior design students.

This is your opportunity to create and share a short video with the public from your point of view that celebrates and explains the importance of established interior design education and examination standards your are participating in—and that prepares you to assist the public as an interior design professional.

View Complete Details

Congratulations to the newest members elected to help lead IDEC in 2010! Please take a moment to congratulate these members!

President Elect, Lisa Waxman, Florida State University

Director of Development, Scott Ageloff, New York School of Interior Design

Director of Communication, Lisa Tucker, Virginia Tech

Pacific West Regional Chair, Darrin Brooks, Utah State University

South Regional Chair, Jane Nichols, Western Carolina University

Dr. John Turpin is teaming up with Professor Anne Massey from Kingston University (UK),to co-edit a new international journal focused specifically on interiors. The Journal—Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture—focuses on the interior and examines it from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives.

The Journal’s content will be relevant to the disciplines of interior design and architecture; anthropology; art and design history; cultural studies; film studies; gender studies; geography; material culture; sexuality studies and visual culture. Similarly, there are no limits in terms of geography or chronology. Scholars from Europe, Asia, Australia and the US constitute the editorial review board and represent a wide range of disciplines. Interiors: also aims to challenge divisions between theory and practice and seeks to be a place of inspiration and information for architects and interior designers.

The journal will launch its first issue July 2010.

NCIDQ has announced a policy effective in 2010 that requires candidates taking the NCIDQ Examination to earn the NCIDQ Certificate to pass all sections of the examination within a five-year period or retest. This five-year “rolling” window of time describes the way in which the timing accrues. Rather than one five-year fixed period of time, a candidate’s time “rolls” forward in five-year increments depending on when he or she passes an exam section.

Candidates who do not take any sections of the examination within five years of being made eligible by NCIDQ will lose their eligibility status. Candidates who lose their eligibility status due to non-testing must reapply, meet the requirements in effect at that time and pay any application fees.

For more information on this policy, click here.

In the event that a candidate does not begin the exam within five years, NCIDQ will destroy his or her records unless a candidate requests an extension. NCIDQ attempted to contact the candidates affected by this policy and has now created an online document that lists all candidates affected. The list represents those candidates who have not responded to our previous notices or whose email was returned.