FACULTY

Sarah Lowe - Associate Professor
Office: A+A 334
Telephone: 865.974.3208
Email: slowe@utk.edu
Education: North Carolina State University - MGD

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"Design is an ongoing learning process, pulling from every aspect of everyday life. There is a thrill found while immersing yourself in the content and discovering the best possible way of conveying the information to the intended audience. Working with educational content in a digital medium affords me the opportunity to explore a vast array of subject matter and work with experts from a variety of disciplines."

Sarah received her Masters of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University where she concentrated on the study of interactive media. She worked for several years at WGBH, Boston's public television station, where she was a Senior Designer in the Interactive Department. Her work at WGBH focused on creating educational experiences using digital media, including web, broadband and DVD. She continues to focus on the educational use of interactive media in her current research through projects such as a CD-ROM exploring prehistoric archaeology of East Tennessee, and an electronic inspiration tool. She has also produced online work for Discovery and Apple's Quicktime channel. Her classes focus on interactive media, motion graphics, and visual vocabularies.

Debbie Shmerler - Associate Professor
Office: A+A 312
Telephone: 865.974.3203
Email: dshmerle@utk.edu
Education: Virginia Commonwealth University - MFA

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"My motivation is to instill a passion for the power of communication in my students and to inspire them to find a balance between the poetic and the pragmatic in their design solutions. Smart students realize that the best solutions come from a thorough understanding of the content they are trying to communicate. Since the bulk of design projects come from outside the field of the arts, a liberal arts education is imperative to the development of an independent thinker and creative problem solver. I encourage students to be curious of everything that goes on around them, to blend rational and intuitive thought in their design process, to be respectful and yet critical of each others work and to take risks so that each stage of a project is an opportunity for growth."

Deborah Shmerler received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has worked extensively in the private sector holding art director and creative director positions for design firms in the northeast. During this time she completed design projects across a broad range of industries, medias, and applications. In her last position she focused on developing corporate identity systems and branding initiatives, and establishing a collaborative working environment between clients and designers. Her design work has been recognized by the AIGA Boston, CASE, The CT Art Directors Club, as well as Print and How magazines. Shmerler considers her greatest reward to be education and motivation of a client to use thoughtful design. Her academic career has included adjunct faculty positions at VCU and Massachusetts College of Art. She has been a visiting critic and juror at the University of Connecticut and The Art Institute of Boston. Most recently she held an assistant faculty position at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her teaching experience ranges from foundational typography classes to advanced design courses.

Cary Staples - Professor
Office: A+A 321
Telephone: 865.974.3210
Email: staples@utk.edu
Education: Michigan State University - MFA
URL: http://web.utk.edu/~staples

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"In the classroom I seek to create an environment where students can discover the rigors and realities of the design field through practical experience. Assignments are designed to build on one another and become progressively more complex until they all require research, visual organization, concept development, typographic organization and all display a mastery of craft. My commitment toteaching parallels my commitment as a professional designer. As I see it, my job is to relate the excitement and wonder as well as the hard work and problem solving that characterize the design profession. I think of myself as a “learning facilitator.” I see the students and myself as equal participants in a collaborative learning environment."

In addition to being a design educator, Cary Staples has done freelance work for a wide range of clients, including Prentice Hall, Simon + Schuster Publishing and the New Orleans Jazz + Heritage Festival. Her designs have been published in HOW Magazine, Communication Arts, and Aldus Magazine. Additionally she has received awards from UCDA, The Advertising Federation and the ADDA. Professor Staples is currently the coordinator of Design center, a student-run design studio. She is an Innovative Technologies fellow and has participated in community outreach projects through the Scholars in the Schools Program. Her current research concerns developing interactive course materials to be utilized in an electronic environment. She is working collaboratively with primary content authors in Physics and the Life Sciences.

Bill Kennedy - Professor Emeritus
Email: wkennedy@utk.edu
Education: University of Wisconsin - MFA
Bill Kennedy, former Associate Department Head, retired in 2001. He works on mixed-media projects in the studio of his home in Knoxville.