Connected Community

The fall season presents a range of sensory delights: cider doughnuts, hayrides and haunted houses, roaring fires and many traditions that call us to gather with friends over food and good cheer.

At RISD, fall also means back to school and reconnecting with our community. I always find it a time of great rejuvenation, innovation and excitement. It is lovely to be on campus experiencing the infectious energy of new students (and their parents) and returning students, staff and faculty. Excitement abounds. And possibility takes root in the form of new friends, new skills, new learnings and life lessons, and new opportunities to make lasting memories and connections.

This year, we are especially focused on how we intentionally co-create and continually foster a strong, vibrant, inclusive community. RISD is a place of great complexity. Students from all over the world come to RISD to study and learn together with and from exceptional faculty and talented peers. Our student community hails from 60 countries, representing six of the world’s seven continents. Our youngest degree-seeking student is 16, and our oldest is 54. Our incoming class speaks 34 different languages, and many of those students speak multiple languages. Community members identify across many races, ethnicities, genders, sexual identities and expressions, learning styles, abilities, faith traditions, political persuasions, and more. With such a richly diverse community of students, staff and faculty, we must intentionally approach the creation and fostering of community. Our goal is to ensure that RISD is a place where everyone feels they belong, and everyone feels that not only do they have an opportunity to thrive, but we are all here to ensure that they do.

And, although alumni are no longer regularly in residence on campus, their presence from afar is a crucial component of the RISD community. Many alumni express their enthusiasm and passion for our institution through active engagement with other alumni in cities across the globe or with current students through mentorship, the creation of internship or fellowship programs, or through their critical support of RISD scholarships and student support funds. Each of these ways of engaging helps support a vibrant, thriving community and helps ensure that RISD continues to be an institution that provides an unparalleled setting for the study of art and design.

I hope the stories herein give you deeper insight into what continues to make RISD such a special place, a place of abiding community. No matter where you are in your RISD journey, I hope you are inspired to continue learning, growing and giving back.

Crystal Williams President, Rhode Island School of Design

The Institutional Advancement division is dedicated to advancing RISD’s mission by fostering lifelong relationships with alumni, parents, friends and organizations to strengthen goodwill and philanthropy. PHONE