About Us
About Us
Location: 623 S. Wabash, Suite 307
Office Hours: Monday-Friday, 9AM - 5PM
Main Line: 312.369.7280 (NEW PHONE NUMBER!)
E-mail: portfoliocenter@colum.edu
STAFF:
Mercedes Yolanda Cooper, Communications Coordinator / mcooper@colum.edu
Rachal Duggan, Office Administrator / rduggan@colum.edu
Keesha Johnson, Portfolio Production Manager / kajohnson@colum.edu
Caroline Cook Juhlin, Creative Industry Liaison / cjuhlin@colum.edu
David T. Lewis, Creative Industry Liaison / dtlewis@colum.edu
Tim Long, Director / tlong@cloum.edu
Dirk Matthews, Assistant Director: Portfolio Archivist / dmatthews@colum.edu
Weston Morris, Production Coordinator: Web Publishing / wmorris@colum.edu
It seems like only yesterday that I was a bright-eyed economics major at University of Maryland College Park. However, after taking a Brazilian Cinema class my dream of becoming a Foreign Service worker quickly shifted to aspirations of using film to speak about society and culture. After graduation, I took various video production classes, as well as freelanced as a scriptwriter and technical director for non-profit organizations while also working full-time planning national workshops for a non-profit journalism organization. Somehow, in 2002, I found myself in Columbia College's MFA program for film and video production. Since then I've been turning my inner artist inside out. You can check out some of the results at www.mercedesyolanda.com. It's a journey...
Rachal Duggan, Office Administrator
Here at Columbia, I’m an Art & Design student. As a staff member in the Portfolio Center, I maintain order by keeping up with purchasing, payroll and other various office tasks. Beyond preparing my illustration portfolio for debut, I enjoy the company of my beloved greyhound, Speedo.
Keesha Johnson, Portfolio Production Manager
As a graduate of Columbia College Chicago's BA Film program and MFA Creative Writing program, it's no surprise that I am a fan of storytelling. The only thing better than telling stories is hearing them. At the Portfolio Center, I help students translate their artistic story into a professional portfolio that best represents their work. Thankfully, my relationship with the art of storytelling has had more highs than lows. Here are a few of them: I am a 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 recipient of the Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Fellowship. My fiction has been awarded by the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation. My work has also been published in numerous literary journals including The First Line, Hair Trigger, and South Loop Review.
Caroline Cook Juhlin, Creative Industry Liaison
Caroline has been a respected professional in visual arts for over 10 years. She has worked with some of the industry's most talented and successful visual artists as a studio manager, producer and an artist’s representative. These roles allowed her the opportunity to work with countless ad agencies, designers and corporations throughout the United States. Caroline has been a Portfolio Advisor with the Portfolio Center for 2 years and has a passion for education and helping students make sense of their career goals.
Caroline continues to work as a freelance photographer: www.carolinecookphotography.com. When not looking at images, thinking about images, or making images she’s probably eating, sleeping or moving furniture around.David T. Lewis, Creative Industry Liaison
David has spent the last 10-years of his life pinching himself -- not in a weird masochistic way -- but rather because he has had the honor of working with such a variety of talented people. As a teenager he began programming arts events and concerts. Before long he found himself knee-deep either marketing, booking, or running PR campaigns for some of the nation's biggest underground comedians and musicians: Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes, Blur, The Blood Brothers, Brian Posen, Ted Leo, Dr Dog, Patton Oswalt and Jawbreaker to name a few. Upon finishing his degree at the Art Institute Of Chicago Lewis founded Riot Act Media, to offer proactive, scalable, artist-friendly campaigns for the arts & music community.
Lewis has spent time in the trenches as a writer (Time Out Chicago, Planet, Thrasher, Play), a film maker / editor, and most recently as a father of his son, Harper, whom enjoys throwing food, waking up at 4 am, and yelling nonsense .... much like his dad.
Tim Long, Director
I'm a photographer, most interested in architecture and landscape. I have pictures in the Midwest Photographer's Project, at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Mary and Leigh Block Museum, and at the Tweed Museum of Art. In 2003 I was awarded an Illinois Fellowship Grant. In 2008 I received a Graham Foundation grant. I've taught in the Photography Department at Columbia since getting an MFA from University of Illinois at Chicago in 1983 and have worked on staff here for 15 years. I've gathered a lot of information and ideas about portfolios in that time. I'm very interested in how a well-edited and presented body of work so clearly documents an artist's talent and vision and also suggests who they are as a person. You can see my portfolio online at tslong.com.
Dirk Matthews, Assistant Director: Portfolio Archivist
While attending Columbia College Chicago as a student, I was a Film & Video Major with a Cinematography concentration. After freelancing for several years, I began training as a Counselor, specializing in trauma recovery using art and Gestalt therapies. I received my Certified Addictions Counselor certification from the state of Arizona in 1994, and returned to Chicago in 1997 to begin teaching in the Film Department as an adjunct faculty member. My favorite classes to teach draw on my skills as a photographer and cinematographer incorporated with my fascination of the interpretation of images in relation to narrative structure.
Outside of work, I am a freelance videographer, a photographer (view my current experiment), and run a small dessert business with my wife. My more notable freelance jobs are filming golden eagle nests for the ABC special America the Beautiful, and the HD concert film The First Waltz. My work has been shown at the Tucson International Film Festival and Columbia College Chicago.
Weston Morris, Production Coordinator: Web Publishing
Here at the Portfolio Center Weston oversees the web publishing system for student portfolios and the Portfolio Center archive. He also instructs workshops that train students on preparing their web portfolio for the web publishing system.
Weston received his Bachelors of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently teaches Digital Image Design within the Interactive Arts and Media department here at Columbia.
Outside of work, teaching and making art Weston plays bass for relaxation (currently with the reformed GOUDA). He also collects vintage lounge albums and digitizes them for preservation and loves POP culture.