A Letter to SCAD.
I wrote this letter to the President of the Savannah College of Art and Design today, after learning that my favorite professor there has apparently been suspended. Since there are many fellow comics students and SCAD kids specifically here, who owe their major to the fact that Bob Pendarvis founded the department, I thought I'd share my letter here.
To Paula Wallace,
I'm writing today after hearing that Professor Bob Pendarvis has been removed from his position in the Sequential Art department. As a graduate of the Sequential program and a student of Bob's, I am incredibly disturbed by this news.
Just a few years after graduating, I am now a professional writer and artist, working for DC Comics, with several projects due to release later this year. I consider my success in large part to be the result of the excellent quality of the Sequential Art department Bob created, as well as the specific knowledge and attitude his own classes engendered in me and my fellow students.
Bob's dedication to his students, his enthusiastic and honest teaching methods, and his personal ethics were so influential on me that I count him as one of the two best teachers I had in my entire education. I still consider him a personal hero, and try my best to foster the same love of art and people that he sought to instill in his students, in the young comics hopefuls I meet every day. His correction was never bullying, his lessons were never for the sake of his own vanity, and his dedication to our school and its mission was never less than one hundred percent. In the hearty variety of excellent teachers at SCAD, Bob was an integral component, without which the whole program will be diminished.
As I entered my senior year at SCAD, and began the process of forming all that I had learned there into my own cohesive style and preferences, Bob's heartfelt advice, guiding me to make my own choices and offering insights I had not yet considered, helped me so much, I'm honestly not sure what path my creative career would have taken without it. Now I have my dream job, working on my own projects as well as contributing to the mythos of a global cultural icon. I owe much thanks to my ever-encouraging favorite professor, Bob Pendarvis.
I truly hope you will use your power to reinstate Bob at the job he was always best suited for, in the department he founded. Without him there, so many students will miss the forrest for the trees. Without enthusiasm, drive, encouragement, and honesty, all the lessons of function and form will lack heart, and ultimately produce artists of capability without capacity.
Bob's classes challenged me to challenge myself, and I haven't stopped since.
Thanks for your time,
Dean Trippe
Class of 2003
http://deantrippe.com
To Paula Wallace,
I'm writing today after hearing that Professor Bob Pendarvis has been removed from his position in the Sequential Art department. As a graduate of the Sequential program and a student of Bob's, I am incredibly disturbed by this news.
Just a few years after graduating, I am now a professional writer and artist, working for DC Comics, with several projects due to release later this year. I consider my success in large part to be the result of the excellent quality of the Sequential Art department Bob created, as well as the specific knowledge and attitude his own classes engendered in me and my fellow students.
Bob's dedication to his students, his enthusiastic and honest teaching methods, and his personal ethics were so influential on me that I count him as one of the two best teachers I had in my entire education. I still consider him a personal hero, and try my best to foster the same love of art and people that he sought to instill in his students, in the young comics hopefuls I meet every day. His correction was never bullying, his lessons were never for the sake of his own vanity, and his dedication to our school and its mission was never less than one hundred percent. In the hearty variety of excellent teachers at SCAD, Bob was an integral component, without which the whole program will be diminished.
As I entered my senior year at SCAD, and began the process of forming all that I had learned there into my own cohesive style and preferences, Bob's heartfelt advice, guiding me to make my own choices and offering insights I had not yet considered, helped me so much, I'm honestly not sure what path my creative career would have taken without it. Now I have my dream job, working on my own projects as well as contributing to the mythos of a global cultural icon. I owe much thanks to my ever-encouraging favorite professor, Bob Pendarvis.
I truly hope you will use your power to reinstate Bob at the job he was always best suited for, in the department he founded. Without him there, so many students will miss the forrest for the trees. Without enthusiasm, drive, encouragement, and honesty, all the lessons of function and form will lack heart, and ultimately produce artists of capability without capacity.
Bob's classes challenged me to challenge myself, and I haven't stopped since.
Thanks for your time,
Dean Trippe
Class of 2003
http://deantrippe.com