WISE Program model presentations serve a multitude of purposes: introducing potential WISE students to the program, highlighting the accomplishments of outstanding WISE students, inspiring and setting the bar high for those WISE seniors with presentations still to come. And Jack Sullivan’s presentation, at Somers High School, on April 21, did all that…and more.

Somers has more than its share of outstanding projects but Jack’s stood out for many reasons. It attracted the attention of Gabrielle Bilik, a reporter for the local news newspaper, the Somers Record, who has twice covered current WISE projects this spring, including a May 3rd write-up on Jack’s presentation, an article which can also be read online at  www.tapinto.net/ towns/somers. Not hard to see why: the article began with a description of the huge swastika displayed across the screen in Jack’s presentation, followed shortly thereafter by the ill-fated score card that flummoxed Steve Harvey in this year’s Miss Universe Pageant. But these images were used not to be sensational but to bring across a point, the crux of Jack’s project: design matters.

Design Matters                                                                                                                  With a presentation called ‘The Power of Design’ Jack set out to show the effects of design, for good or ill, beginning with that swastika, a powerful but shocking and totally negative image today evoking the horrors of fascism but once a very different symbol in ancient Indian culture where it stood for enduring, eternal beauty. He also showed the effects of design failure, as in that notorious Miss Universe score card. As the Somers Report article quoted him, “There’s so much wrong with this card. It ruined a lot of people’s nights.”

From Project — To Business — To Advocacy                              
For his project, Jack not only put together a powerful study of the influence of design but worked on creating designs of his own, designs meant to fuel a design career for his future and to advance causes about which he feels strongly. He has developed his own design business, with a broadening base of clients, and is using his design acumen to advance causes about which he feels strongly, causes such as world-wide access to clean water and the work being done to halt violence against women. These causes were also highlighted in his presentation as he reached out to engage and enlist other students as activists in these and other causes.                                                                                                            

What A Model Presentation Should Be                                                                     Clearly, Jack’s met every criterion for an outstanding model presentation. He attracted the attention of his audience there in the auditorium and, thanks to the article written about it, well beyond that auditorium. He conveyed the power of the WISE experience, of mastering a subject and making it your own. He communicated the incredible passion he felt for that subject. He displayed the graphic skills he had developed on his own. He ­­­­pointed to the direction that this project was going to take him in the future. He left the audience inspired, informed and looking towards the future.

His was a true illustration of the power not just of design but of WISE. The power of design was not just a technical power but a power for good, he told Somers Record writer, Gabrielle Bilik: “I am learning to hone this and with it I am going to do nothing but good,” he said. His impressively developed skills, his depth of conviction, his stunning presentation communicated that power to an appreciative audience. A­­­nd to show that still more good things come from good, Jack has been brought on to design a brochure for WISE Services – expect to see that sometime soon in the future!