The University for Creative Careers
For nearly five decades, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has prepared talented students for creative professions through engaged teaching and learning in a positively oriented university environment. With locations in historic Savannah, downtown Atlanta, and picturesque Lacoste, France, SCAD combines cutting edge instructional practices with hands-on career preparation to enhance student learning experiences. The results speak for themselves: In 2026, SCAD was named the No. 1 design university in the Americas and Europe by the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Design Ranking. Notably, it was also the only university in the U.S. ranked in top 5.
“That speaks to our mission,” says Kristen Wheelock, Senior Director of Educational Technology. “Everything we do at SCAD is focused on providing students with the skills and experience they need to thrive in competitive creative industries.”
Recent years have seen an explosion in the breadth and popularity of creative professions, something SCAD reflects in its program offerings. The university now offers more than 100-degree programs in fields including fashion, architecture, industrial design, and design management delivered both in person and online via SCADnow, a signature online learning platform that offers on-the-go artists, designers, and professionals the best of both worlds in distance education.
However, that same growth has driven demand for more experienced graduates. As new innovations change the way we work, entry-level jobs in creative fields are becoming increasingly rarer. To meet that challenge, SCAD has had to evolve its curriculum to empower the next generation of creative leaders.
The Challenge
Embed Creativity into Online Learning
At SCAD, world-class environments serve as the catalyst for a rigorous creative mission. Students can access advanced computer labs for developing and rendering games and animations, film student projects in dozens of sets on a full studio backlot, and 3D-print everything from toys to concept car chassis—all in support of broadening their imagination. Those spaces also prepare students to move into advanced jobs after graduation.
As online learning grows in popularity, it’s essential to replicate that atmosphere of creative exploration and career-readiness in the virtual classroom. Students expect their online classes to be just as interactive and engaging as those taught in person, requiring instructors and instructional designers to constantly modernize their approach. “In short, we need our online faculty and courses to prepare students to jump over that first rung on the career ladder,” notes Wheelock. “They need to be ready to enter the workforce a step ahead of their competitors.”
The Solution
Empower Instructor Expression with Blackboard LMS
Kristen Wheelock and her team in the Office of Educational Technology understand that creativity in online learning requires an optimal mix of scale and flexibility. Having reviewed the LMS market during the pandemic and elected to stay with Blackboard, they have since leveraged innovative capabilities in the platform to drive consistency in course design while allowing instructors to express themselves in their area of expertise.
Course templates created in Blackboard are crucial to instill creativity in instructional design. In recent years, SCAD successfully launched a six-week design sprint model, allowing them to design, develop, and deliver world-class courses in a fraction of the time. At SCAD, every student must complete courses from the School of Foundational Studies, regardless of their major. With that in mind, Wheelock’s team put particular emphasis on enhancing these courses, knowing that design best practices would permeate throughout future course offerings.
With these fundamentals in place, instructors can then iterate and add their own ideas and expertise to their courses. This was an important consideration for the team. SCAD’s professors are no less creative than their students, and they also needed the freedom to customize and personalize their courses in their own way. “They need that flexibility,” explains Wheelock. “They want to be able to take a framework we’ve built and then adjust their own content; Blackboard’s user interface and functionality make that easy for them to do.”
These design principles go hand in hand with accessibility. To inspire creativity from students from an increasingly diverse range of backgrounds, instructors at SCAD rely heavily on Blackboard Ally to develop accessible content at scale. “Ally is so seamless, allowing us to support student needs and giving instructional designers and professors more time to focus on intentional, universal design practices,” says Wheelock. “We couldn’t live without Ally.”
Another consideration is the role of AI. SCAD recently In 2025, SCAD launched a new Applied AI degree and minor to meet industry demand. Naturally, the ethical use of AI has been a topic of conversation among students and faculty. Blackboard’s Trustworthy AI approach dictates that all AI features within the platform can be switched on or off depending on the institution’s preferences, which has allowed SCAD to embrace the capabilities they feel best align with their creative mission.
Faculty enjoy using Blackboard’s rubric generation tool as a springboard for developing their own rubrics. It gives them a better idea of what’s possible, which helps them to design more intentional rubrics of their own.
Kristen Wheelock, Senior Director of Educational Technology, Savannah College of Art and Design
Even with all these factors in play, preparing students to enter the workforce above the entry level means they need truly immersive online experiences. As such, multimedia plays a major role in SCAD’s online courses. SCAD have always been innovators in this regard, pioneering initiatives such as access to Adobe Creative Cloud for all students regardless of their major. Blackboard also supports this in two crucial ways: it allows seamless integration with external tools that SCAD’s instructors use to add interactivity to their classes, while also embedding multimedia natively into key workflows within the LMS. “Our instructors love the feedback recording tool in the gradebook,” says Wheelock. “Getting audio and video feedback in an online course makes the experience so much more memorable for students.”
The Results
More students, More creativity
As highlighted in their entry to the 2026 Catalyst Awards, SCAD’s instructional design focus on key courses with the School of Foundational Studies has successfully promoted best practices for students and instructors alike. This work impacts more than 15,000 students and over 100 faculty each year, developing a culture of creativity that spreads to all courses and study areas.
Ongoing innovation within the Blackboard LMS has been crucial to ensuring that SCAD fulfills its mission to promote creative careers. “I’ve really seen the results of the new releases and new features,” confirms Wheelock. “I’ve seen the investment that the product team has put in, and it’s really paying off for us.”
When combined, the partnership between the Office of Educational Technology and Blackboard has laid the pedagogical groundwork for SCAD to continue to grow. With enrollment now exceeding 18,500, SCAD’s rapid growth mirrors a modern economy where creative expertise in fields like Applied AI, UX, and Immersive Reality has become an essential business pillar.
Epilogue
Blackboard thanks Kristen Wheelock, SCAD’s Office of Educational Technology, and the full SCAD team for more than two decades of collaboration. Their innovative use of Blackboard has been recognized through inclusion in our Community Insider program and a 2026 Blackboard Impact Award, a distinction reserved for individuals and institutions whose contributions extend beyond a single category and demonstrate meaningful influence across their educational communities.
