Art Department Opening Center Named After Professor

Spring Hill College’s new center for community collaboration will be named after Associate Professor Janden Richards.

Art professor Janden Richards passed unexpectedly in April of 2022. According to Associate Professor of Graphic Design Rachel Hatley, Richards was an integral part of founding the graphic design program at SHC, and she instilled the program philosophy of using design for good.

According to Hatley, the Janden Richards Center for Community Collaboration is aimed to formalize and enhance both local and national community partnerships through experiential learning. The center will offer opportunities for students to collaborate with nonprofit organizations, businesses and public entities through classes, internships and volunteerism.

Hatley said, “The center actually came about three years ago when I had the idea of actually formalizing what we were doing in classes. Last year, I was fortunate to apply and receive the faculty innovation grant on campus, which seeded the whole idea of having a dedicated space for our non profit work, unfortunately, Janden Richards passed away unexpectedly so in between that time period of me receiving the grant, I decided to name the center after Janden,.”

The graphic design program at SHC has worked with local and national nonprofits, including the Caritas Veritate Missions, Connie Hudson Senior Community Center, and Feeding Alabama. Hatley’s graphic design students helped rebrand these nonprofits by creating logos, stationary, website, social media graphics and business cards.

According to Hatley, the graphic design students now have a dedicated space for nonprofit partnerships.

The SHC art department received $2500 in 2022 from the Faculty Innovation Grant but have also received donations made by Richards’s family, including Richards’s entire collection of art and graphic design books.

“It felt like Christmas being a designer and having access to all those design books and being able to read them,” said graphic design senior Peri Carr.

Carr also played a significant role as assistant director of the center. Carr said, “Rachel approached me and she wanted help with promotional material and branding materials for print and digital social media. Rachel wanted me to help her design the space so together we ordered MacBooks, tables, chairs and signs. It’s a lot of networking with knowing the sign company, knowing a good company for the tables and I’ve been helping put together the Janden enter library as well as putting out posters and putting them all around campus to get people excited for the center.”

The Janden Richards Center for Community Collaboration will hold its opening ceremony April 28 in the Murphy Arts Center room 203 at 4 p.m. According to Hatley, the center’s first official class will be nonprofit design which will be offered Fall 2023. For more information reach out to Rachel Hatley at rhatley@shc.edu.