Paula Wallace

“Paula Wallace built one of the world’s premier institutions of design, art and education. In her candid and compelling memoir, she weaves the story of its founding together with her deeply personal meditations on creativity, family and faith.” –  Arianna Huffington.

In The Bee and the Acorn (Assouline, March 2016) Wallace shares the remarkable story behind the creation of the most revered and comprehensive art and design university in the world.

In The Bee and the Acorn, readers journey with Wallace from her Atlanta Public Schools elementary classroom to storied Savannah, where, just as General Oglethorpe built a new kind of city, Wallace built a new kind of college — marrying the best of higher education tradition with pedagogical and curricular innovation. For four decades, Wallace’s path has paralleled that of the university she founded. Through touching tales that span the purchase of SCAD’s first building to its global expansion and more, Wallace reveals herself as an educator, entrepreneur, designer, preservationist, mother and wife.

Eschewing convention, Wallace’s pioneering spirit and commitment to innovative excellence transformed a tiny art college with an incoming class of 71 students into an international university. With a mission to prepare talented students for professional creative careers, SCAD has grown to define Wallace’s singular vision. Evidenced the world over by SCAD’s four locations on three continents, the university now encompasses 45,000 students and alumni. “I imagined a student-centered university where the hands readily made what the mind dreamt and what the heart desired. SCAD is that magical triad of a place. The Bee and the Acorn is my way of sharing with others what they can do, if only they dare to try,” said Wallace.

Sincere, witty and candid, Wallace shares the trials and triumphs of building a university and the visionary SCAD story that appeals to students, educators, entrepreneurs and anyone who dares to dream big and do the impossible. Titled after SCAD’s mascot, the bee, and the university’s crest emblem, the acorn — two beings that defy the odds of nature in their ability to rise to great heights — Wallace’s memoir is about joy, determination and a life filled with gratitude. Whimsical illustrations by SCAD alumna Emily Isabella (B.F.A., fibers, 2008) punctuate the story with artful vignettes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paula Wallace is the president and founder of the Savannah College of Art and Design, a private, nonprofit, accredited university for creative careers. Wallace served as academic dean and provost of SCAD for twenty-two years and has served as president of the university since 2000. Wallace has authored several children’s books and two interior design titles — A House in the South and Perfect Porches. Among many awards and honors, she has been named Southeast Area Ernst & Young Principled Leadership Entrepreneur of the Year and was awarded the inaugural Elle Décor Vision Award. Wallace has been appointed a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the Conseiller Culturel and Consul Général of the French Embassy in the United States of America, and the Georgia Historical Society named her a 2015 Georgia Trustee. She currently serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.