By Ashley Scott

A UK college is redesigning its interior.

The College of Design has made new appointments, been equipped with new Mac computers and has offered a new lecture series and more opportunities to travel abroad for students as part of a restructuring in the school, said Dean Michael Speaks.  Speaks, who has been dean for a year and a half, has made significant strides in reorganizing the program.

Five years ago, the architecture, interior design and engineering programs all merged to become the College of Design. Disorganization and poor planning led the college to the state that it is in today, Speaks said.

Students also felt the brunt of the cluttered college, including dealing with scheduling conflicts.

“It was always hard to get the classes you wanted,” said design alum Amanda Tate.

Speaks said these conflicts were the result of many factors.

The college’s advising department is in charge of arranging which classes meet in which rooms.  Advisers procrastinated and often classes had to be moved to different times or cancelled, Speaks said.

Fourth-year students were also concerned about limiting space in the college.  The college offers one studio for the fall semester and one for the spring semester. However, many students will be attending an international conference in Germany in May.

Students were concerned their absence would interfere with their studio class, resulting in a large number of students trying to take the fall studio with a limited number of seats.  To fit as many students in the fall course, Speaks added another fall studio.

The College of Design has been restructuring its programs, such as the new Design Energy Initiative, which generates more money for the college in addition to crafting more energy efficient buildings.

The UK College of Design was also chosen for the Solar Decathlon, in which 20 schools globally were selected to participate. All the designs can be seen in Washington, D.C., in October.

Another project the college is participating in is the River Cities Project, a multi-city project to revitalize the economy of river cities, starting with Henderson and eventually reaching Paducah and Owensboro.

Speaks said reorganizing the College of Design will not happen overnight.  He said the goal is to provide design students with the “best education they could have.”