Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s interior design program has received a grant from the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education to create an innovative lecture course that will enable students to earn a lighting certification.

To be offered in spring 2020, “Lessons from the Theatre: Architectural Lighting Design” is the brainchild of MSU Interior Design Instructor Robin Carroll, who served as principal investigator for the $20,000 Nuckolls grant.

Established in 1988, the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education is an endowment fund in support of college-level programs that inspire students to learn, appreciate and apply the basics of lighting and design in architecture. Each year, this fund solicits proposals from colleges and universities for state-of-the-art new or expanded lighting courses. Grants are awarded after rigorous review.

“Through my research and networking in lighting, I discovered many lighting designers started in theater lighting,” Carroll said. “The artistic and practical aspects of stage lighting for theater can transform and enrich the lighting design process, and I wanted to offer a class that would introduce students to theater lighting.”

Carroll said she worked with MSU Assistant Professor of Communication and Theatre Coordinator Cody Stockstill to provide a multi-day introductory workshop for students on this type of lighting.

The new “Lessons from the Theatre” academic course will address how theater lighting techniques—filtering, controls, textures, lenses and color mixing—can be implemented into lighting architectural spaces, Carroll said.

“This course is moving the interior design program closer to offering a lighting minor, which will enhance interior design students’ degrees, as well as those for students in related disciplines,” said Carroll, who holds an MSU bachelor’s degree in special education and a master’s degree in instructional technology.

Beth Miller, professor and director of MSU’s interior design program, said she is proud of the program receiving its second Nuckolls grant and the opportunities it will provide MSU students.

“We were one of two universities in 2019 to be awarded a Nuckolls grant,” Miller said. “Robin Carroll has worked tirelessly to develop MSU’s interior design program into a leader in lighting design education.”

For more on the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education, visit https://nuckollsfund.org.

Learn more about MSU’s College of Architecture, Art and Design and its interior design program at www.caad.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.