Recently John Maeda (who will become RISD’s next president in June) took a stroll around the campus with a film crew. Along the way he encountered some of the people who comprise our unique community: groups of prospective students on tour with their parents, current RISD students mingling between classes and faculty and staff conversing on street corners. So take a walk with John — someone like you, who’s just beginning to learn about our incredibly valuable people, places and things. It’s your first glimpse into life at RISD.

P.S. This is the first of seven video “webisodes” that feature John exploring different aspects of the unique RISD community — they’ll be posted here weekly, so make sure you return to welcome.risd.edu often! (Next up: the Fleet Library at RISD: not your typical library.)

Commentary from JM: You can see the entire set of clips on the original welcome link in case you can’t wait. In this first clip I start wandering from a building called “Prov Wash” which is where the current President’s office is … as well as a host of departments and other units. I head out walking up all these up-down hills that connect RISD — RISD feels a bit like San Francisco with the seriously steep grades. Will continue with commentary as we progress.