O'More College of Design
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[edit] Introduction
O’More College of Design, founded as O'More School of Interior Architecture and Design in 1970, is a small private college located in the historic district of Franklin, Tennessee, in the United States. It is a non-traditional, accredited college awarding the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Interior Design, Fashion Design & Merchandising, and Visual Communications which includes Graphic Design & Advertising. It has an enrollment of about 200, with a male to female ratio of 1 to 9. The job placement rate for graduating students is in the high nineties.[citation needed]
[edit] History
Founded in 1970, the College is located in the historic district of Franklin, Tennessee. O'More is patterned after Le College Feminin in Paris, France, where our[who?] late founder, Mrs. Eloise Pitts O'More, studied in the early 1920s. The Abbey Leix Mansion (ca. 1866), an Italianate-style home which serves as the College's administration building, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The McAfee Library and Hilliard Institute for Educational Wellness (ca. 1887), a Romanesque Revival-style home now in use as a sensory teaching and learning center and the visual communications department, is one of a handful of remaining examples of the work of H.C. Thompson, arguably Tennessee's most celebrated native architect.[citation needed]
[edit] Mrs. Eloise Pitts O'More
Eloise Pitts O'More realized a life-long dream when she founded what would become O'More College of Design with nine students in her Victorian home in 1970.
Born in 1906 in Fayetteville, Tenn., she developed a passion for architecture and design at an early age. At that time in America, however, only men were encouraged to enter the field. So, at the age of 18, Eloise traveled to Paris, France, where she attended Le College Feminin and studied interior design and ballet. After a year in Paris, she returned to the United States, married and taught ballet.
In the 1940s, she continued her design education at the prestigious Parson's School of Design and married her second husband, Colonel Rory O'More, a military man of Irish descent. While traveling with him, she often taught interior design courses for military wives and designed military officer clubs. In the 1960s, she moved to Franklin. Painting became her passion, and her work included a number of murals around Middle Tennessee. She became very involved with Franklin's cultural life and was one of the early leaders of the historic preservation movement in Williamson County.
Mrs. O'More had always dreamed of recreating, in America, the ambiance of the French design school. In 1970, at an age when most people are considering retirement, she founded O'More School of Design.
Classes were held in her Victorian home on West Main Street in Franklin, and she taught all of the interior design courses. In 1979, the College moved to its present campus, which occupies seven acres on the edge of downtown Franklin. By the 1980s, the school had become a college and had added to its program two new bachelor's degrees: Fashion Design & Merchandising and Graphic Design & Advertising. Mrs. O'More always felt it important to maintain contact with her students, so she continued teaching at least one class each semester until her retirement in 1994. She lived on campus and remained involved in the College's operations until her death in 2002, at the age of 95.
[edit] Degrees
[edit] Interior Design
[edit] Fashion Design
[edit] Visual Communications
O’More College of Design, founded as O'More School of Interior Architecture and Design in 1970, is a small private college located in the historic district of Franklin, Tennessee, in the United States. It is a non-traditional, accredited college awarding the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Interior Design, Fashion Design & Merchandising, and Visual Communications which includes Graphic Design & Advertising. The Interior Design department of O'More prepares its students for professional advancement through preparation for the NCIDQ exam. The Visual Communications department encompasses a variety of traditional print disciplines along with the latest technology-based areas such as interactive, experience and motion graphics. The Fashion Design Department allows students to learn about the fashion industry and present their garments or business plans in the school's annual fashion show. It has an enrollment of about 200, with a male to female ratio of 1 to 9. The job placement rate for graduating students is in the high nineties. The Interior Design Department has been CIDA (formerly FIDER) accredited since 1974. The fashion department presents their annual Fashion Show every May, which showcases original designs by students. O'More is an excellent school, but does not offer housing.
Mrs. Eloise Pitts O'More founded the college and patterned it after Le College Feminin in Paris, France, where she studied interior design and dance. She lived on the O'More campus and remained involved in the college's operations until her death in 2002, at the age of 95. The college occupies six acres (24,000 m²) of park-like land, and includes the Abbey Leix Mansion, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Abby Leix Mansion is named after the ancestral property in Ireland belonging to the O'More family, and was the first residential structure built in the area after the Civil War in 1867. The mansion’s cellar is left over from a previous structure that burned sometime during the war. During the second Battle of Franklin, the Carnton Plantation was used as a hospital while the cellar of the original structure was used as a morgue. The grounds surrounding the mansion were also used for temporary placement of the dead.
O'More has a cooperative agreement with Middle Tennessee State University which allows its students access to the resources of MTSU's College of Design. Also, O'More College of Design is a sister school to Belmont University located in Nashville, Tennessee. This agreement allows students from both O'More and Belmont to dual-enroll and take classes in efforts to complete a minor or a major simultaneously.
[edit] External links
