VCUQatar Hosts Awards Ceremony

The ceremony was also an opportunity for VCUQatar to acknowledge industry leaders, donors and sponsors who have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of art and design in Qatar.

A gathering of students, staff and faculty congratulated recipients as they received their certificates. VCUQatar students were honored for academic and personal excellence.

Donors this year included Qatar Insurance Company, Ras Gas, Q-Media, Arab Engineering Bureau and Sarah and Sumai Abdulghani. Dean Allyson Vanstone thanked Qatar Foundation and the donors for continuously demonstrating proactive leadership in advancing design thinking. She also recognized the Higher Education Institute for their continuous support of VCUQatar’s Qatari students.

Guest speaker Dr Kholoud Al Obaidli, senior manager of Qatar Airway’s National Scholarship Programme, then addressed the gathering. “Today, design thinking is highly recognized by business leaders in the world and has helped us look at design differently,” she said.” As we evolve as a country, leadership skills will be in high demand and that’s where the expertise of VCUQatar’s graduates comes in,” she added before sharing her own work experiences with the audience and letting them in on her ‘14 Laws of Abaya Management.’

During the ceremony, the 63 freshmen students representing VCUQatar’s BFA class of 2015 were honored, as were the seven first year students representing VCUQatar’s third MFA class. The two winners of International Internships were also recognized during the evening as well as the students from VCUQatar and VCU Richmond who participated as exchange students.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the scholarships and awards to 20 students including two full four-year Sheikha Moza bint Nasser Scholarships for Creativity to study at VCUQatar presented to Dhika Rahmawati Rahmawati and Farah Syafiqah Binti Zamri and four full VCUQatar International Student MFA Scholarships awarded to Lina Hani MaHusain, Al Hussein Ahmed Wanas, Esra Kazem and Patricia Duignan for being the best qualified international student applicants for the MFA program. Four Dean’s Scholarships and six Community Class Scholarships were also presented besides one Qatar Insurance Company Scholarship, one Ras Gas Scholarship and two Sarah Abdulghani Scholarships for Rising Sophomores in the Fashion Department.

The Q-Media Awards in Graphic Design were presented to Noora Mohammed al Khulaifi
Maha Ali al Darwish. The two students were nominated by VCUQatar and selected by Q-Media to participate in the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is a seven-day global festival for those working in advertising and related fields.

The ceremony came to a close with Dean Vanstone thanking everybody for sharing in the recognition of the talent and creativity of VCUQatar students. “The work carried out by the awardees this afternoon represents a much larger range of important contributions made by the members of the faculty and the whole community who work hard to bring all kinds of experiences to our students. We are confident that their education at VCUQatar will prepare them to meet the art and design challenges of today and tomorrow,” she concluded.