SCAD Hong Kong is a sinking ship. It is being reported in the HK press that SCAD owes an estimated 21 million dollars in back payments on the 32 million dollar investment fronted to the Gold Coast Art School by the HK Development Agency.

News agencies in HK are reporting that the HK Development Agency will decide later this year (2013/14) whether or not to “recover” its $32,000,000 investment in SCAD’s Hong Kong campus by “reclaiming” the building.

Local HK business leaders are blaming a “serious lack of interest” in the low country art school as the primary cause for SCAD’s failure to pay its debts. Current SCAD HK enrollment appears to be 35% of what was estimated three years ago.

In order to make sure there are some warm bodies in the building, SCAD has resorted to exporting students from her struggling Savannah and Atlanta campuses. “Without those students here,” a friend close to Dear Leader told us, “this place would be a ghost town—the SCAD Hong Kong campus is sinking—fast!”

In response to the descending fortunes of the SCAD HK campus, SCAD has hired ‘Sinking Ship’ expert, Captain Francesco Schettino, of the Italian cruse ship The Costa Concordia.

As SCAD secrets readers may recall, Captain Schettino capsized the Concordia off the coast of Italy last January, and famously “tripped off the sinking ship into a lifeboat.”

“We could really use his expertise right now,” said the Mad Turk from an undisclosed location off Bull Street, “Dear Leader needs a lifeboat to fall into, and Captain Schettino is just the man to show her where to fall.”

SCAD has four months before the Honk Kong Development Agency makes its decision, we wish Dear Leader a quick landing into a soft lifeboat.

From her porch at the Landings, Dear Leader encouraged members of the SCAD community to put women and children first when escaping their personal sinking ships by stating: “the highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on www.SCADSECRETS.com are parodies. All content on www.SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a University of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way.

Double Trouble! Is it True?!? SCAD Accused of Buying Awards and Rankings—and the Award-Winning Hong Kong Campus May be Doomed!

The Greenaway Group, one of the design industry’s leaders in vanity publications and awards, is a trusted “consultant” for SCAD in promoting its burgeoning Savannah and Hong Kong campuses. Recently, SCAD’s loyal supporters were enraged to learn of accusations that their beloved school was bribing its way into faculty awards and higher academic rankings.

“These wild accusations could not be farther from the truth,” Hyacinth Bucket, SCAD’s director of Public Relations shot back to this reporter in a phone interview. “SCAD has always…and always will earn its awards and recognitions the old-fashioned way—through highly-paid promotional consultants, membership in sycophantic professional associations such as the AIA and AIGA, and strategic PAC donations to political candidates.”

But, in this moss-draped city, there remain whispered rumors that SCAD may not just be paying someone for its “rankings” but, even more ominously, that SCAD’s Hong Kong campus will close in 2015 due to lack of interest, authentic academic standing…and students.

Awards Bought and Sold

Scurrilous wags assert that the pseudo-pub DesignIntelligence and the Greenaway Group (which quietly owns it under the guise of vanity design-club, the “Design Futures Council”) are mired in conflicts of interest. Greenaway is a consultant to design industries and for-profit art schools. Their vanity pub, DesignIntelligence seems to hand out awards in strong correlation hiring Greenaway.

Sorrowful cynics have accused SCAD of “buying” its DesignIntelligence award for Hong Kong along with other Greenaway-based teaching awards for such luminaries as The Lady Dean Victoria, award-winning transvestite and Dean of SCAD’s School of Design.

These sad scallywags are looking into Greenaway Group and its pseudo-academic publications to ask: What is this DesignIntelligence publication that is naming SCAD administrators and professors “In the top 25 in the country” and SCAD as the “Best interior design school” in the country?

Surely, they wonder, there must be some mistake.

How could such a thing happen? How could well-meaning design-business consultants lure a new client in such as a large mediocre midwestern architecture firm or for-profit university such as SCAD and bill them extensively for “institutional research” and marketing strategy?

How could their Design Futures Council club and pseudo-pub, DesignIntelligence, then present them with design awards! That’s not right!

Could It Be True?

Rumor has it that SCAD, suffering form abysmal rankings and general disdain by nonprofit, independent foundations, decided that a few vanity awards and kudos from a pseudo-pub could help.

Such is the unthinkable theory now being whispered along the moss-draped streets of Savannah’s and in quiet tones on porches at the Landings—the Gated Community where Dear Leader her son and anointed heir Tik have lived for decades.

Another Shocker: Selling Degrees

As if buying awards and rankings weren’t enough, detractors have even gone so far as to accuse SCAD of selling degrees—its life-blood and reason for existence, other than profit.

According to disgruntled Ex-professor Houeix, SCAD was in the regular business of “selling degrees” in the 1990s. (Link has been updated) If only they had a “way-back machine” SCAD detractors would love to get their greedy hands on that evidence—yet, that won’t happen. The case was settled “out of court” after Dear Leader was called for a deposition. Case Closed.

The Final Blow: Selling the Hong Kong Campus

In our next installment, we will ask how, with its great success and reputation, how can the Hong Kong campus possibly close in 2015? How absurd can rumors get?

—What would become of Hong Kong’s founder and President, the wunderkind, Trigger Tik?

—Could he find new purpose?

—Would he fight his mother in an epic battle to keep his Asian pup and colony alive and ready for new awards?

—And what about that buried deposition over allegedly selling SCAD degrees?

Stay tuned friends of SCAD. Dear Leader’s fight is your fight too.

From her porch at the Landings, Dear Leader encouraged members of the SCAD community to accept the closing of SCAD Hong Kong in 2015 stating: “the highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on www.SCADSECRETS.com are parodies.  All content on www.SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a University of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way.

As we all know, Dear Leader is a busy woman.  Organizing little black dress exhibits, arranging horse and pony shows with Asian Vogue editors, and the continuous challenge of grooming  of her vacuous, but delightfully attentive son, the heir apparent, Dear Tik.

Yet, Dear Leader also has a well-deserved dream, to be a guest on Oprah—and what better way to do so than to write a blockbuster autobiography that empowers the unemployed housewives who comprise Oprah’s main demographic?

But writing a great memoir requires, of course, that one can write. And though Dear Leader has a heroic low-country empire—building story to share, Dear Leader simply has not the time to tell her story, and as is well know, she is also exceedingly modest when drawing attention to herself.

Thus, a suitable ghost writer had to be hired to pen Dear Leader’s keen insights, musings, and of course the rise of her art school in the swamp from after school courses in art appreciation to a behemoth corporate leader in arts education.

Dear Leader had two requirements for her ghostwriter: 1) she must be an eager go-getter, and 2) she must provide the young, fresh voice that has proved so difficult for Dear Leader to capture on her busy schedule.

“We need to appeal to two distinct groups,” said Mary Dweeb, Vice president of SCAD Institutional Promotion: “Young people considering Art School—and Oprah.  Our solution was right under our noses—quite literally!”

Yes, crawling on the office floor of the President’s office located at Lai Wa Hall, gurgled the solution to Dear Leader’s authorship dilemma: Little Baby Wa Wa, new born daughter of Dear Leader’s personal assistant, Maureen Makeshift.

“I was honored that Dear leader chose little Wa Wa to write her memoirs, Makeshift told SCAD Secrets, “But after all, Dear leader is known for promoting from within, no matter what your level of competency. We are confident that baby Wa Wa is the perfect choice to capture Dear Leader’s business acumen and educational vision.”

The writing schedule is grueling (and drooling) for both Dear leader and baby Wa Wa.  Most comfortable speaking to children whilst they are placed in attics, Dear leader and baby Wa Wa meet each morning in the make-shift attic of Lai Wa Hall to flesh out details of the book.  Dear Leader paces the floor, recounting the founding of SCAD in the late 70’s while Baby Wa Wa, crayon in hand, attentively scribbles notes.

There are tales of heroism and bravery, tales of clearing vast swaths of virgin forest to make room for SCAD’s Equestrian Center, tales of Leon Talley fighting off native tribes from NYC who dared to encroach upon her newly founded institution — tales of administrators who showed too much love for vulnerable SCAD students. No topic is off the table at this critical juncture in the story’s development.

“I don’t think I am speaking out of turn here by saying that this autobiography has Oprah Book Club written all over it!” said Hyacinth Bucket, SCAD’s Director of Public Relations, “It will be written in a voice that appeals to a younger audience; and it will be filled with tales of conquest and glory that Dear Leader is known for. Oprah would be a fool not to recognize the importance of Dear leader once this book hits the shelves!”

It is not a secret that Dear Leader considers Oprah an equal.  Few, other than her close friends Leon Talley and Dr. Phil, can claim such a distinction… and it is only natural that the two should finally meet.  Tik is being groomed to meet the queen of daytime talk as well.  SCAD public relations department are busy at work reinventing our Dear TIk poolside at the Landings.

It is hoped Dear Leader’s book will stem the tide of shrinking enrollment numbers at SCAD’s flagship couture school in Savannah, as well as solidify its loosening grip on its Lacoste campus. When super-achievers like Oprah and Dear Leader come together, anything is possible.

From her porch at the Landings, she encouraged members of the SCAD community to purchase her upcoming book, (so as to increase its rankings on the NYT best seller list) stating that “the highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on www.SCADSECRETS.com are parodies.  All content on www.SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a University of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way.

SCAD’s “Little Black Dress” Takes New York by Storm

As if this summer’s world-acclaimed opening “Little Black Dress” at SCAD’s Museum of Art weren’t enough, this synchopantic show is now basking in a command performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York!

Vogue Contributing Editor and friend of Dear Leader André Leon Talley curated the exhibit to include eighty variations of the evening wear standard defined by Coco Chanel in the 1920s, and made famous by Holly Golightly, the high-class prostitute in Capote’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys.’

Exhibited in a bold military line-up, all items in the New York venue will be for sale at undisclosed prices and to the right ‘Georgian Low Country’ people—many of whom appeared for the glamorous opening night.

Wearing a floor-length endangered snow leopard coat, curator Talley greeted guests as they arrived at the top of the Metropolitan’s famous steps. The biggest cheers went up when SCAD’s party arrived, fresh off their corporate jet ride from Savannah and a carefully staged roman chariot parade up Fifth Avenue.

Dear Tik, son and heir-apparent of Dear Leader, and fashion leader Marc Jacobs walked up the red carpeted steps in see-through upper body hugging pink t-shirt dresses by Comme des Garçons. Jacobs appeared both confident and solid in his man-dress, muscled arms, and tattoos. Tik, with his mother’s stubby legs, Rubenesque figure, and baby soft skin, greeted admirers before moving inside to luxuriate on a fainting couch in preparation for his photo shoot.

Not wanting to “steal the show” as she so often does by simply showing up, Dear Leader tried to be as humble as possible. She greeted her old friend Talley wearing the top half of a black man-dress, white boxers and, to complement her short little legs, high socks and the pilgrim-buckle shoes from Marc Jacobs’ personal collection.

Completing the first family entourage, first daughter Kim Jul Tik, Director of SCAD’s renowned Center for Equestrian Expenditure and a renowned equestrian herself, sported black full-leather English jumping regalia including an oversized ox-tail riding crop. To say the least, the flash bulbs were popping.

With ripped arms and stiletto heels, she cut a dominating figure as she entered the gallery, immediately out-manning Jacobs in his little black man-dress as the room’s Alpha Male. Locking horns, she quickly wrestled him to the floor, reversing the designer in a Granby roll, and pinning him with a side headlock in less than thirty seconds. Humiliated, Jacobs accepted his submissive role by kneeling and kissing Kim Jul’s ox-tail crop.

Clearly both amused and aroused by the struggle, curator Talley had to leave the room for an unannounced costume change. When he returned wearing a rare black feathered Valkyrie costume from an early Beyreuth production, Talley and Dear Leader ascended to the podium to thank the show’s lenders—Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, Beatrice de Rothschild, Lisa Airan, Maureen Dowd, Whoopi Goldberg and Patricia Altschul—all of whom were granted honorary doctorates from SCAD and scheduled as future graduation speakers.

Maureen Dowd was also honored for her adulatory New York Times column about her friend Talley when the show opened last summer in Savannah.

Contrary to professional journalistic practice, she had somehow forgotten to disclose that she was one of the show’s lenders.

“It’s in the New York Times, so whatever she writes has to be true,” observed Hyacinth Bucket, SCAD’s Director of Public Relations, from her office in Savannah. “I would have loved to meet Ms. Dowd as I have long admired her couture collection,” Bucket added. “It’s just too bad that I wasn’t invited to come along with our great SCAD team for the opening.”

From her porch at the Landings, Dear Leader encouraged members of the SCAD community to continue to acknowledge her coastal empire—low country fashion supremacy stating “The highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on www.SCADSECRETS.com are parodies. All content on www.SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a University of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way.

Thanks to the wonders of virtual communication and SCAD’s corporate jet, Vice President Tik is able to run SCAD’s entire Hong Kong campus from a poolside command post at his Southern-Traditional home in The Landings.

As the son and Appointed Successor of our Dear Leader, we naturally expect great things from Tik. But his poolside direction of Hong Kong marks a new step in Global outreach.

“His masterful guidance of a campus half a world away should come as no surprise!” observes Sue Anne Nivens, the perky Dean of SCADlite™—SCAD’s recently launched off-the-rack outlet brand. “I’ve been to the Hong Kong campus to tape my blockbuster cooking course, Wontons for Westerners and WASPs, and I’m just so impressed by Dear Tik’s poolside leadership! You would think he actually lives there!

Following Dear Leader’s maternal precedent, Tik likes to stay close to his students. Thus, he finds that, given that none of them enrolled at the Hong Kong campus are currently from Asia, it makes more sense to stay at The Landings in Georgia.

“We learned early on that no Chinese students wanted to pay our American tuition fees when they could go to an American school in America,” Tik explained recently to shareholders. “But then, having lived near the Red Menace for so long, our Hong Kong market just never had much exposure to the brand promises of SCAD and SCADentology™. That will change.”

For now, SCAD’s Hong Kong students come from the suburbs of Atlanta and SCAD’s flagship campus in Savannah. It is these Georgians who will carry the magic of SCAD to the Far East. In the long-term, SCAD’s Manifest Destiny lies on Asian shores.  With Dear Tik’s enlightened remote direction and continuing local subsidies, SCAD Hong Kong will one day have Asian students.

Having lived in Hong Kong at the Peninsula Hotel for over two months when the campus opened in 2009, Dear Tik is just the man to open China for SCAD. “I guess you could say I’m an old China Hand,” he recently joked with this reporter. And, to share his insider knowledge, Tik is just putting the finishing touches on his new website. How to Be an Old China Hand, soon to be found at: www.DearTikInChina.com.

Like SCAD’s Hong Kong Campus, the new website is sure to be an instant hit with Americans, if not Asians right away. And of course, Dear Tik is writing the whole website from…you guessed it…poolside at his home in The Landings. “It just makes so much sense to stay close to our student-customers and the six wonderful golf courses that we have here on Skidaway Island,” Tik says. Indeed, this manicured gated community seems to inspire Tik’s genius because it was also at his poolside here that he wrote his original blockbuster website, How to Be a Southern Gentleman (www.RhettButler.com).

From her porch next door at The Landings, Dear Leader encouraged all members of the SCAD community to spend an academic quarter at the Hong Kong campus. “The highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on www.SCADSECRETS.com are parodies.  All content on www.SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a University of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way.

Today SCAD leadership made the bold and ‘out-of-the-box’ cost-cutting moves that it is known for.Under the marching orders of Dear Leader’s new Austerity Initiative, SCAD announced today that is will replace its security force with psychics.

Kojak, head of SCAD security, announced the bold initiative from his office atop the emerald city stating, “Today SCAD boldly moves into the 13th century—by introducing the element of magic into our comprehensive security and emergency preparedness program.” The plan, according to inside sources, relies on the psychics ability to ‘sense’ danger before it happens—allowing SCAD to proactively address any potential threat, both foreign and domestic to its bottom line.

Wall street analysts are impressed as demonstrated by the sudden rise in SCADINC’s stock prices. Psychics will cost SCAD between $5-$10 per ‘building reading,’  which is a huge cost savings for the

institution compared to hiring a full-time security guard  which would run the institution an estimated $250 a day. The use of  psychics also allows SCAD to avoid paying additional employee costs like healthcare and retirement benefits (at an estimated annual savings to the university of over $110,000).

The Mad Turk is credited with coming up with the new cost saving scheme. “The initial idea of using psychics came to me while watching the movie ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats,’” the Mad Turk told SCAD Secrets, “Like all my brilliant managerial decisions, I was inspired while watching television.”

The Mad Turk is making quite a name for himself on the SCAD campus as a decisive, bold leader who is not afraid to try new approaches in educational management. Insiders say that the secret to SCAD’s administrative prowess is the current administration’s utter lack of educational administrative degrees. “SCAD’s administration can make these bold moves,” says analyst Robert Reportio of the Carnegie Institute, “Because they are not burdened by years of higher education management experience, or by any higher education degrees in business or educational administration.”

The Mad Turk explained to SCAD Secrets where his decision-making expertise comes form saying, “It comes from my gut,” said the Mad Turk pointing to his belly, “my gut is my guide.”

The introduction of psychic security guards is just one of the Mad Turks many institutional improvements. Other security improvements include: (1) Replacing full-time security guards during school hours with ESL students at heavily trafficked building during school hours, and; (2) Doing away with any security from 7am-5pm in SCAD buildings located in ‘safe’ neighborhoods.

Total saving costs were not available at press time, but are estimated to save SCAD well over $58,000 per quarter.

Dear Leader is pleased by the new cost savings and security updates and addressed the media from her porch at the Landings stating: “The highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

All stories on SCADSECRETS.com are parodies. All content on SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated with the Savannah College of Art & Design, a university of creative careers founded by Ms. Paula Wallace who is practically perfect in every way

The MFA is the new MBA, or so says Fast Company, America’s best known and most respected higher education publication. SCAD’s crack team of business entrepreneurs is busily developing the next ‘MBA/MFA’ program exclusively for corporate executives. No word yet on its official name, but SCAD Secrets has heard from an unnamed source that it’s working name is ‘CRASS’ (Creative Resourceful Artistic Sensible Sagacity).

The SCAD CRASS MFA will take four days to complete and the course work will be designed with the busy corporate executive in mind. “There won’t be a lot of reading,” Said SCAD Institutional Quality Director, Sally Worth, “We find that reading just takes up too much time, so we will provide our executive students with audio summaries of all our material.”

Our Dear Leader is rumored to have taken the lead in the new program’s development by drawing on her extensive experience as a kindergarten teacher.

“Executives are a lot like 5 year olds,” says Ms. Marple, SCAD Director of New Opportunities and personal secretary to the Dear Leader, “So it makes sense that our Dear Leader should have her little fingers all over this project.”

When asked what distinguishes the SCAD MFA for executives from similar programs, Ms. Marple replied, “that’s simple: SCAD will provide individual attention in a positively oriented university environment… and we will provide them with lunch.”

The new degree program is slated to launch in Spring quarter of 2013. SCAD is keeping its initial enrollment numbers secret, as well as the names of the faculty who will be teaching in the program.

Professor Karl Komptant, SCAD design school’s elder statesmen appeared to be the most likely candidate to lead the new degree program. Professor Komptant  is well respect in his field, he has written numerous books on the topic, and he is a highly sought after speaker and expert in the field of ‘design thinking.’  However, in a shocking move, the Mad Turk nixed Professor Komtant’s roll in the program justifying his decision by stating: “Corporate executives don’t want to be taught creativity by an old guy, it’s… well, gross.”

Dear Leader held a press conference from her porch in the Landings and had this to say about the new Executive MFA program: “The highest and best use of a front porch is to enable and encourage the art of conversation. We entertain ourselves with stories on the porch. We invite people in. We sit. We visit.”

SCAD Secrets will continue to follow this story as further developments occur. We wish professor Komptant the best of luck.

All stories on SCADSECRETS.com are parodies. All content on SCADSECRETS.com is fictionalized and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This site and the content contained within it are not affiliated