Savannah College of Art and Design

An Atlanta-based art teacher’s frustration led to the establishment of the largest art school in the country. The armory building on Bull Street that she and her parents purchased in 1978 to house the school’s first forty students is now home to shop SCAD, where the efforts of the creative community are offered for purchase. With its third location opening next year, in Hong Kong, SCAD now has 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students in Savannah and Atlanta and also runs an international program in Lacoste, France. The Savannah campus encompasses more than 60 buildings throughout the Historic District.

Paula Wallace, the private, nonprofit university’s president and cofounder, takes as her mission “no starving artists,” so the curriculum emphasizes commerce along with the arts. (Its official tagline is “SCAD prepares talented students for professional, creative careers.”) Fashion designers teach seminars, and Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley attends the end-of-year fashion show, presenting Lifetime Achievement Awards to designers like Vera Wang and Karl Lagerfeld. The industrial-design students work on sponsored projects for international companies that often put the pupils’ prototypes—like Baby Einstein toys and Hobie Cat kayaks—into production and hire them after graduation.

In addition to bringing an incredible pool of talent to Savannah, the university has restored dozens of old buildings. The library occupies a former department store, and an old riverside warehouse now houses the painting department. The next major project is an expansion of the SCAD museum in rehabilitated former rail yards, which will hold one of the world’s best collections of African-American art. Tours of campus are available through the college.