About Us

A Field Guide Born from Experience

The Savannah Art School Field Guide began with a simple conversation between a father and his son.

I had been developing the Moultrie Field Guide, an independent resource designed to make useful information about our community easier to find, understand, and put to work.

The idea was straightforward: bring together the questions people actually ask, research meaningful answers, and organize everything into a resource that helps people make better decisions.

Then my son, Bower, a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), came home for a couple of weeks.

As we talked about the Moultrie project, our conversations naturally turned to his experiences at SCAD.

We discussed the decisions students face before arriving, the questions that emerge once they're there, and how much time and effort can go into finding information that should be easier to access.

Housing. Financial planning. Academic expectations. Choosing a major. Internships. Career preparation. And dozens of other subjects that shape the experience of being a student.

Much of the information exists. The challenge is often knowing where to look, which questions to ask, and how to connect the answers to your own circumstances.

We began to wonder whether the Field Guide approach could help.

From Conversation to Publication

The student perspective met the Field Guide approach we had been developing in Moultrie. During those conversations, we began sketching what a resource organized around the student journey might look like.

We wanted to start before the admissions decision, follow students through their studies and life in Savannah, and continue through internships, graduation, and the beginning of a creative career.

That idea became a publication organized into nine major categories and 63 detailed subject pages, supported by thousands of researched questions and answers. Rather than simply listing university services, we wanted to address the practical questions that students and families may not yet know to ask.

Bower's firsthand experiences helped sharpen the questions. The answers draw on a wider body of research and are intended to keep improving as more students, families, alumni, and professionals contribute their perspectives.

Our hope is that readers will find not only the answer they came looking for, but also the next question worth asking.

An Independent Resource for the SCAD Community

We have enormous respect for what SCAD has accomplished.

Under the vision and leadership of its founder, Paula Wallace, SCAD has grown into an internationally recognized institution devoted to creative education.

Our purpose is not to duplicate the university's official resources or speak on its behalf.

We want to complement those resources by approaching the student experience from a different perspective: the questions students and families ask as they navigate real decisions.

We believe an independent publication can contribute something valuable to that experience.

Our research draws on publicly available information, institutional resources, and the experiences of students, parents, alumni, and knowledgeable professionals.

We welcome corrections, additional perspectives, and contributions that make the Field Guide more accurate and useful.

A Resource That Will Keep Growing

The Savannah Art School Field Guide is not intended to be a finished book placed on a shelf.

It is a living resource.

As students share experiences, policies change, new opportunities emerge, and the university evolves, the Field Guide should evolve with it.

We hope students will tell us what we've missed, parents will share questions we haven't anticipated, alumni will contribute what they've learned, and professionals will help illuminate the transition from education to creative careers.

The best Field Guide is one that becomes more useful because the community participates in building it.