MILFORD – Samuel Rapien, previously an adjunct instructor, has been appointed the new program chair and instructor for the Graphic Design program at Southeast Community College in Milford.
He was chosen to succeed Merrill Peterson who retired from the job after nine years. Peterson had 36 years in the field and 18 years of teaching experience.
Last year, Peterson encountered a health emergency and, upon returning, decided it was time to retire because he still had many things he wanted to accomplish.
Rapien, who was born in Grand Island, was working with Peterson “on moving the program towards more digital and interactive design applications.”
Their goal was to make sure students were prepared for the industry as it evolved from print to a more web and interactive focus.
Since he became the Program Chair/Instructor for Graphic Design, Rapien doesn’t plan on making too many big changes to the program.
“Merrill did a really fantastic job at growing and building this program to what amounts to being one of the best programs for Graphic Design in Nebraska,” he said. “I’m not going to fiddle too much with that formula and instead focus on naturally evolving the program to meet the requirements of the current industry.”
A typical day as the graphic design instructor, starts out with administrative duties before the students arrive, followed by teaching from 8 a.m. to noon, an hour break for lunch and more administrative duties, then teaching again from 1 to 3 p.m.
“Currently, I am teaching all of the classes this quarter, which makes for really long but pretty entertaining days,” Rapien said. “When I get home at night, there’s usually a slew of freelance projects waiting to get done, so I usually spend most of my evenings working on those things.”Rapien got his first taste for teaching during graduate school at UNL. Teaching a class was a requirement for the tuition wavier he received in order to get his master’s degree in graphic design.
“Teaching was the last thing that I wanted to do,” he recalled. However, once he started, he said he began to really enjoy teaching.
“It was shocking to me that I actually had something to say and to offer to students and that what I was doing could have an impact on their understanding of the field, create better and more thoughtful designers and artists, and get people excited about visual communication,” he recalled.
Before teaching at SCC, Rapien taught at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, teaching Basic Typography, Beginning and Intermediate Graphic Design.
“I have also been a freelance graphic designer for about 11 years working in print, web and video production for various clients in a range of different industries,” he said.
His favorite class to teach is Typography. He admits, “I enjoy is getting people excited about typography and ‘ruining’ them so that they’ll never be able to look at a single typeface or menu or sign ever again without a critical eye and understanding of what they’re looking at.”