COMMUNITY POP WITH KORRIN HOWARD

09.14.2021

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Welcome to IIDA Northlands first Podcast episode of Community Pop! We are thrilled to introduce you to a new concept developed by our incredible team of volunteers with IIDA Northland.

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We invite you to come back next month for our upcoming Community Pop Podcast with another exciting interviewee, nominated by this month’s Korrin Howard!

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Podcast Transcript:

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Introduction: Welcome to Community Pop, an IIDA northland podcast where we get to know members of our community. Where each Interviewee gets to nominate the next person for me to pop over and ask a question to. I’m your host Caitlin Wolff and today I’m interviewing Korrin Howard, Director of Design, Graphic Design, and Production programs at Dunwoody College of Technology. Hi Korrin and welcome to our podcast!

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Korrin: Hello!

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Caitlin: For those that might be wondering where the title of our podcast. Came from the current did you ever have a teacher in grade school that played popcorn?

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Korrin: Oh, I sure did that was such a fun game.

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C: So for our listeners that aren’t familiar instead of the teacher or just reading paragraphs or pages aloud. I had this to my teacher. Would start reading and then say popcorn Korrin and then Korrin, you would start reading a paragraph or two and whenever you are ready to stop you would say popcorn, Caitlin and so on until it reached around the room and so we’re really hoping to accomplish something cool in our industry through this format. Popping around the community to get to know each other a little bit better.

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So, as you know Korrin, you were nominated by a Northland past President Megan Duffy, and she has a couple of questions she wanted me to ask you. But before we get to those first, can you tell us a little bit about your background and maybe what sparked your interest in interior design?

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K: Yeah, when I was a kid, I loved moving furniture around. I think I drove my mom crazy. She would come home and the living room was given a different configuration. I always wanted to paint my bedroom, but I also love to tinker with things I thought at one point he would be an inventor. But really, design is kind of inventing things, so I think I knew my path come as a as a young person. So I loved art classes growing up, and so I think it was a natural thing for me to go to college for something in design. I chose interior design again because I think that I really had a space or a brain for understanding space so. That also led me into a great career in the industry in interiors, but it also led me into education. I wanted to be a teacher since I was young as well, so it was just kind of a natural progression for me to kind of stay in education. I’ve been teaching and being in some sort of higher education for the past 20 years, so I’m really excited and inspired by students and helping our industry grow.

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C: And amazing and huge news, you recently became like I mentioned your title before the Director of Interior Design and graphic design and production programs at Dunwoody. So unpack a little bit what that title means and your journey at Dunwoody that led you to this role.

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K: Yeah, yeah. So just taking over interiors and graphics home has just been a really great evolution of my past experience in education and in the industry. So part of my job is really developing relationships and partnerships. With people outside of the campus that will help support our students and help grow our program, I’m really getting students connected to the industry and the industry connected to Dunwoody is really important. A lot of my job is to help to support faculty and students so we do a ton of things on campus from you know re-looking at our curriculum, making sure that our curriculum and the things that we’re teaching our students are aligned with our industry practices and standards, but also making sure that we’re giving the students that college experience. Right where they are getting to know each other. They’re making friendships. They’re exploring things off campus. We do things like study abroad trips. We go to Neocon in Chicago. I’m trying to get again the students out in our great industry here in the Twin Cities and the surrounding areas. So that’s really a lot of my job to help kind of foster those relationships and experiences with students.

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C: And on top of that, I know you’re very involved in many professional organizations in the community, including being on the idea Northland Chapter Board. So tell us a little bit about your involvement with IIDA.

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K: Yeah, so in the past couple years I just reached out to idea. I’ve been a member of Idea for many years. I thought it was about time for me to get involved and to lead by example. I want our students to be involved. I think it’s really important to be able to build new relationships and to strengthen our industries. So I thought I should lead by example and I reached out and I actually was put in charge of developing a new program for the Student Affairs Committee and so that they were tasked. They tasked me with kind of thinking about some sort of student competition and I got a couple people together, formed a committee and we came up with the idea of spark. So we’ve rolled out Spark last year. For the first time and spark is really an opportunity for students to come together to do a day long design charette. So that was really fun to develop new programming for the student affairs. From there I then decided to kind of sit on from a board level. So this year I’ll be leading our Student Affairs committee and we’re going to have a great year with a lot of fun programming for students. Yeah, we can’t wait.

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C: So Megan Duffy, like I mentioned, nominated to popcorn or Pop over to you, and she wanted me to ask you what are interior design students learning today that we didn’t learn in school 10 years ago? Give us some insight.

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K: Yeah, I think the students are learning about inclusive design. I don’t feel like that was a conversation 10 years ago. The students are, you know, they’re still learning about sustainable design. But this generation values are perhaps a lot different than the values of students ten years ago, where we don’t necessarily need to teach them about sustainable design. They already know that that’s inherently what they should do, so that has definitely been interesting to kind of see where students baseline is at, where they weren’t at before. So I think continuing with the this younger generations, values of inclusion, and really talking about how do we create. These spaces around us, and how do those spaces make people feel included, excluded and as designers, how can we foster some of those inclusive values that we want to see in all of our spaces?

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C: So wonderful, the next generation is really going to shape the world a lot differently, isn’t it? What do you wish [your students] were learning more of?

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K: I wish that the students were more expressive and confident. I think it’s really intimidating coming into school. You might have been creative in high school, or you might have had creative endeavors younger in your life, and a lot of our students are afraid to be expressive and I really want them to learn that it’s OK and we really value that part of being creative is to think of new and innovative ideas. So yeah, allowing the students to also learn how to fail. Not every idea is a good idea. Failing, I think, is a strength that I would really love students to learn early on because they’re going to continue to fail. But through that failure they’re going to  get it right in the end.

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C: Well, now it’s time for our Lightning round, so we were inspired by Vogue 73 questions Style interviews. We don’t have time for 73 questions, so we’re shortening it to 33 or times sake. Go with your gut. Korrin, are you ready?

K: I’m ready.

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C: What do you usually drink in the morning?

K: Decaf coffee.

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C: If you were to go back to school, what would you want to learn?

K: More program software.

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C: What’s a design trend you would like to see disappear forever?

K: I would like to see things that are not inclusive disappear forever.

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C: What’s your favorite season?

K: Fall.

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C: What’s the best thing that happened to you during COVID?

K: Our new puppy Leroy.

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C: What’s the worst thing that happened to you during COVID?

K: Not using paper to mark-up students work?

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C: Where’s your hometown?

K: Zumbrota, MN

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C: What’s the best vacation you’ve ever been on?

K: Germany

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C: Describe the style of your home in 2 words.

K: Bespoke Modern

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C: If you can be a tourist in the Twin Cities for a weekend, what hotel would you book?

K: The Hewing.

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C: When are you most inspired doing?

K: Research.

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C: Dogs or cats?

K: Dogs.

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C: What’s the best thing about being a professor?

K: Seeing students find their passion.

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C: What show could you watch over and over?

K: 30 Rock.

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C: What’s your favorite place or space in the Twin Cities?

K: The train bridges over the Mississippi River.

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C: What’s your favorite IIDA Northland event?

K: Spark.

C: What city would you move to in a heartbeat?

K: San Francisco.

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C: What dessert do you not like?

K: Cake?

C: What’s what was your worst subject in school?

K: I would say science.

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C: What’s inspiring you in life right now?

K: Seeing people.

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C: Minneapolis or Saint Paul?

K: Minneapolis, but specifically northeast Minneapolis.

C: What makes you feel accomplished?

K: Checking off my list of things to do.

C: What do you do on a rainy day?

K: Nap.

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C: Mac or PC?

K: I wish a Mac, but I have to use a PC, but I wish I could use a Mac.

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C: What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to try?

K: But I’ve been too scared to do skydiving.

C: What’s your favorite local restaurant?

K: Chimborazo.

C: What’s your favorite podcast?

K: My favorite murder.

C: What’s your favorite smell?

K: Harvesting crops in the fall.

C: How do you decompress?

K: By reading a book.

C: If you were to make a documentary, what would it be about?

K: Design process and how things are made.

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C: Cooking or baking?

K: Neither. I want somebody to do it for me.

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C: What’s one thing you can’t do?

K: Whistle.

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C. What’s one goal you are determined to achieve in your lifetime?

K: To learn how to whistle (LOL).

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C: Alright, Korrin, that’s all the questions I have for you today. We can’t wait to see who you’re going to nominate next. In the meantime, connect with Korrin on LinkedIn and keep up with all things Dunwoody on Instagram and Facebook. Thanks for being a part of our podcast!

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K: Thank you for having me. This is really great.

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Caitlin Wolff – Social Spaces Specialist

IIDA Northland Chapter Blog



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