Ringling College Announces 2015 Creative Awards Contest Winners
Sarasota, FL (PRWEB) March 16, 2015 -- Ringling College of Art and Design recently announced the winners of the 2015 Ringling College Creative Awards, a national contest that promotes art-based learning for middle and high school students.
Winning students receive an all-expense paid trip for two to the Ringling College Creative Award Ceremony at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL and to Universal Orlando Studios.
The teachers of these winning students will receive a scholarship to Ringling College’s Summer Teacher Institute, a week-long professional development experience for educators in the arts and related disciplines.
The winners are as follows:
PreCollege Scholarship Winner
Inka Schulz was chosen as the winner of the 2015 PreCollege Scholarship, Ringling College’s immersive four week summer program for high school students.
Photography Grand Prize Winners
Grade 7-9: Neona Wong – Central Middle School, Parsippany, NJ
Grade 10-12: Justin Graffa – Detroit Country Dade School, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Illustration Grand Prize Winners
Grade 7-9: Anthony Elkhatib – Suncoast Polytechnical High School, Sarasota, FL
Grade 10-12: Inka Schulz – Mariner High School, Cape Coral, FL
Written Grand Prize Winners
Grade 7-9: Anu Desai – Holton Arms, Bethesda, MD
Grade 10-12: Alison Loases – New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL
The Ringling College Creative Awards is a national competition intended to help students in grades 7-12 meet the challenge of communicating through a variety of media in this new century. The contest was designed to be integrated into teachers’ current curriculum for classroom assignments or could be submitted by individuals. The Ringling College Creative Awards, formerly called the Ring Awards, marks the second year of the contest.
“We started this contest to help students understand how to use art to communicate or tell a story,” said Jeff Bellantoni, VP for Academic Affairs at Ringling College. “So much of the world focuses on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) but we believe that the world needs creative thinkers and therefore STEAM (science, technology, engineering, ART, math) is really what schools should be focusing on. Many well-known companies come to recruit our students not only because of their skills, but because they are able to think in a different way, to see the issues and find a creative way to solve problems.”
This year’s contest theme was based on The Giver, a featured film produced by Walden Media and The Weinstein Company, and based on Lois Lowry’s award winning novel of the same name. In The Giver, an insular society known as The Community, a culture of “sameness” is embraced. Pain and suffering have been eradicated from daily life, along with any notion of individuality or choice. Members of the Community lead a seemingly perfect existence, unburdened by the harsh realities of the “real” world. A lone man among them has been designated to retain all memories of the way life once was. Now the time has come for that man to pass his knowledge to another.
Entries were judged in three categories and 2 age groups (grades 7-9 and grades 10-12):
• Photography Entry: 100 words or less, complemented by one original photo
• Illustration Entry: 100 words or less, complemented by one original illustration
• Written Entry: 250 words or less in an essay, poem, song lyrics, haiku, or other writing
New this year is the “My Choice” award, where the winning entry was determined by popular vote via the Creative Awards website.
This year’s My Choice winners are:
Kendall Koelsch – Suncoast Polytechnical High School, Sarasota, FL
Esther Zhitomirsky – 21st Century Cyber Charter School, Downington, PA
You can read more about the Ringling College Creative Awards and view a complete list of winners at http://www.ringlingcreativeawards.info.
About Ringling College of Art and Design
Ringling College of Art and Design is a private, not-for-profit, fully accredited college offering the Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in 11 disciplines: Advertising Design, Computer Animation, Film, Fine Arts, Game Art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interior Design, Motion Design, Photography & Imaging, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Business of Art & Design. Located in Sarasota on Florida’s Gulf Coast, the picturesque 48-acre campus now includes more than 110 buildings, and enrolls nearly 1,300 students from 48 states and 65 countries. It is recognized as being among the best and most innovative visual arts colleges in the United States as well as a leader in the use of technology in the arts. http://www.Ringling.edu
# # #
Rich Schineller, Ringling College of Art and Design, http://www.ringling.edu, +1 (941) 780-8100, [email protected]
Share this article