Interior Design is Again Top Ranked in the U.S.

I’m pleased to report that CAHNRS design majors continue to excel.

DesignIntelligence recently released its 2009 list of best interior design schools and, for the first time, Washington State University’s graduate program in interior design, based at the Interdisciplinary Design Institute in Spokane, was ranked among the nation’s best. DesignIntelligence is a bimonthly journal for architecture and design professionals.

WSU’s graduate program in interior design was ranked the ninth best program among all of America’s interior design programs.

Rankings are based on surveys of professional design firms around the country. The ranking shows that WSU graduates are excelling in their profession. “What the ranking suggests is that our graduate students are doing extremely well in entry level positions,” associate professor and department chair John Turpin said.

The ranking also shows the growth of the program in Spokane. “We have had the program for seven years and enough students have now gone through the program to where people are starting to take notice,” Turpin said.

This is DesignIntelligence’s tenth annual list of America’s best interior design programs.

This isn’t the first time WSU’s interior design program has been ranked among the nation’s best. A couple years ago, the undergraduate program in ID was ranked eighth in the nation, again by the prestigious DesignIntelligence.

A few months ago, I wrote that the “Big ‘H’” programs in CAHNRS “are transforming themselves in order to make significant impacts in research, graduate education and outreach, as well as continuing to excel in their traditional roles of providing world-class undergraduate instruction.”

This new ranking from DesignIntelligence further confirms for us that the transformation is well under way.

Go Cougs!