Columbia College Chicago’s Office of Academic Affairs has a lot to contend with in their home office at 600 South Michigan Avenue. Eight floors above the Museum of Contemporary Photography, in the Office of Academic Affairs and the Faculty Center, Academic Affairs is the “nerve center” for faculty, supplying service, training, and support. Recently, combining the need to take a breath and recharge staff members’ batteries coincided with wanting to rekindle connections with academic programs and Centers at Columbia.

Interdisciplinary Book and Paper MFAs and the Center for Book and Paper Arts were perfectly poised to accommodate an Academic Affairs staff retreat while showcasing the excellent facilities and talents of the Interdisciplinary academic department.

AcAff staff divided in to two groups, and took turns rotating through the current Gallery exhibition (with a gallery talk by CBPA Curator Jessica Cochran), then dove into an interactive demo in the CBPA Paper Studio (facilitated by MFAs Alex Borgen, Liz Isakson-Dado, Hannah King, and Elizabeth Gilder), complete with rubber aprons and boots.