TheRhode Island School of Design (RISD/ˈrɪzdiː/, pronounced "Riz-D"[3]) is aprivateart and design school inProvidence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 byHelen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the accessibility of design education to women.[4] Today, RISD offers bachelor's and master's degree programs across 19 majors and enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduate and 500 graduate students.[2] TheRhode Island School of Design Museum—which houses the school's art and design collections—is one of the largest college art museums in the United States.[5]
TheVenetian Renaissance Waterman Building (1893) was the first permanent home for the school.
The Rhode Island School of Design's founding is often traced back toHelen Adelia Rowe Metcalf's 1876 visit to theCentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. At the exposition, Metcalf visited the Women's Pavilion. Organized by the "Centennial Women," the pavilion showcased the work of female entrepreneurs, artists, and designers.[9][10] Metcalf's visit to the pavilion profoundly impacted her and motivated her to address a deficiency in design education accessible to women.
Following the exhibition, the RI committee of the Centennial Women had $1,675 remaining in funds; the group spent some time negotiating how best to use the surplus.[11] Metcalf lobbied the group to use the money to establish acoeducational, design school in Providence. On January 11, 1877, a majority of women on the committee voted for Metcalf's proposal.[10]
On March 22, 1877, theRhode Island General Assembly ratified "An Act to Incorporate the Rhode Island School of Design", "[f]or the purpose of aiding in the cultivation of the arts of design". Over the next 129 years, the following original by-laws set forth these following primary objectives:[12]
The instruction of artisans in drawing, painting, modeling, and designing, that they may successfully apply the principles of Art to the requirements of trade and manufacture.
The systematic training of students in the practice of Art, in order that they may understand its principles, give instruction to others, or become artists.
The general advancement of public Art Education, by the exhibition of works of Art and of Art school studies, and by lectures on Art.
Metcalf directed the school until her death in 1895. Her daughter,Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, then took over until her own death in 1931.[13]
The school opened in October 1877 in Providence. The first class consisted of 43 students, the majority of whom were women.[10][14]
For the first 15 years of its existence, RISD occupied a suite of six rooms on the fourth floor of the Hoppin Homestead Building inDowntown Providence. On October 24, 1893, the school dedicated a new brick building at 11 Waterman Street on College Hill. Designed by Hoppin, Read & Hoppin, this building served as the first permanent home for the school.[15]
Students at RISD played a key part in the nationalprotest of the Vietnam War, producing various notable anti-war protest art from 1968–1973 and taking several on tour as part of a mobile artwork petition. The most well known isLeave the Fear of Red to Horned Beasts, a reference toVictor Hugo novelLes Misérables in the form of a watercolor-on-canvas painting of a charging red bull. An original print of this painting is on permanent display at theWar Remnants Museum inHo Chi Minh City,Vietnam in a section dedicated to international protest of theVietnam War, and also features subtly as a bar mural in the Vietnam War filmPoint Man.
In 1969 the Black Student Community of RISD published a manifesto demanding of university faculty the establishment of "a meaningful liaison with the spirit and expression of Black culture."[16] RISD subsequently hired administrators to begin recruiting and admitting increased numbers of students of color.
After the outbreak ofCOVID-19 and the subsequent closure of the RISD campus in March 2020,[17] RISD suggested a future of a hybrid of classes online and in-person.[18]
In July 2020, President Somerson began negotiations with the RISD faculty union over the avoidance of possible layoffs by suggesting cost-cutting measures.[19] The part-time faculty union, theNational Education Association, rejected the initial proposal.[19]
In the summer of 2020, after theBlack Lives Matter andGeorge Floyd protests, RISD students and alumni came forward to voice outrage at the institution for failing atsocial equity and inclusion.[20][21] They formed a student-led RISD Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC) alongsideBIPOC faculty.[20][21] As a result, in July 2020, RISD announced they would hire 10 new faculty members that would specialize in "race and ethnicity in arts and design", the RISD museum would return toNigeria a sculpture that was once looted, expand and diversify the curriculum, and the school would, "remain committed to reform".[20][22]
In April 2023, after months of negotiations, the RISD employees union held a picket line protest in demand of better wages. The union, which represents custodians, groundskeepers and movers, was joined in the strike by student supporters and community members.[23][24] The strike lasted two weeks, until workers approved a new contract and returned to work April 19.[25]
Some students at RISD, along with many across the country in theBDS movement, occupied a campus building for multiple days in support of a cease-fire of theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict in early May 2024.[26]
In 2014,U.S. News & World Report ranked RISD first amongst fine arts programs nationwide.[28] In 2020, graduate programs in Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, and Photography, among others, were ranked in the top 5 nationally, however, in 2023, RISD announced its withdrawal from the rankings, citing its inability to accurately assess art and design education, while also running counter to principles of social equity and inclusion.[29][30] The school's undergraduate architecture program ranked 6 in DesignIntelligence's ranking of the Top Architecture Schools in the US for 2019.[31] In 2018, the institution was also named amongForbes' America's Top Colleges[32] and theChronicle of Higher Education's Top Producers of US Fulbright Scholars.[33]
RISD's acceptance rate is 13.8% (2024).[34] In August 2019, the school announced it would be adopting a test-optional policy for admissions.[35]
A salon-style gallery of paintings in the RISD Museum
In the past, RISD buildings were mostly located at the western edge ofCollege Hill, between theBrown University campus and theProvidence River. In recent decades, RISD has acquired or built buildings on the downslope nearer the river, or inDowntown Providence just on the other side of the waterway. The main library, undergrad dormitories, and graduate studios of the college are now located downtown.[36]: 21 [37]
The RISD Museum was founded in 1877 on the belief that art, artists, and the institutions that support them play pivotal roles in promoting broad civic engagement and creating more open societies. With a permanent collection numbering approximately 100,000 works, the RISD museum is the third largest art museum attached to an educational facility.[38][39]
RISD has many athletic clubs and teams.[40] The hockey team is called the "Nads", and their cheer is "Go Nads!"[41] The logo for the Nads features a horizontal hockey stick with two hockey pucks at the end of the stick's handle.
The basketball team is known simply as "The Balls", and their slogan is, "When the heat is on, the Balls stick together!"[41][42] The Balls' logo consists of two balls next to one another in an irregularly shaped net.[43]
Lest the sexualinnuendo of these team names and logos be lost or dismissed, the 2001 creation of the school's unofficial mascot,Scrotie, ended any ambiguity. Despite the name, Scrotie is not merely a representation of a scrotum, but is a 7-foot tall penis.[44]
^Austin, Nancy. "Towards a Genealogy of Visual Culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, 1875–1900". Dissertation, Brown University. Ann Arbor: ProQuest/UMI, 2009. (Publication No. 3370099.)
^Austin, Nancy. "What a Beginning is Worth". Infinite Radius. Ed. Dawn Barrett and Andrew Martinez. (Providence: Rhode Island School of Design, 2008) 170–196.
^Austin, Nancy. "No Honors to Divide". Infinite Radius. Ed. Dawn Barrett and Andrew Martinez. (Providence: Rhode Island School of Design, 2008) 197–217.
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