Fourth year interior design student Maggie McCoy was awarded the 2018 Angelo Donghia Foundation Senior Student Scholarship Award. McCoy is one of only 12 candidates to receive this national prestigious award.

Annually, the Angelo Donghia Foundation invites two students from each interior design program with Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) to submit scholarship applications. This year, the foundation received 69 student projects for consideration.

In the last 15 years, the College of Architecture’s Interior Design Program has had nine recipients of this highly competitive national award, 10 total. The merit-based scholarship, which has a value of up to $30,000, is determined by a jury comprised of interior design professionals, interior design educators and interior design editors.

“When our students receive the very competitive Donghia Scholarship award, it is a testament to their rigorous pursuit of design excellence in space and place making for people,” said Lindsey Bahe, associate professor and director of the interior design program. “Having students at UNL receive this honor consistently over the last 15 years, serves as an indicator of our program’s successful teaching and learning mission. When our students are selected, they are amongst peers from other nationally recognized programs which adds credence to our belief that we deliver one of the best interior design education experiences in the country.”

“I am extremely grateful, humbled and honored to be one of the 12 recipients receiving the award this year, and am truly blessed that all my hard work is being recognized,” said Maggie McCoy. “This award is a huge stress relief for me. This award will go a long ways towards supporting me financially while studying abroad.”

McCoy’s winning submission was titled “Nebraska Art Therapy Collective” a project from the IDES351 design studio taught by Lecturer Erin Miller and mentored by Bahe.

The project proposes the creation of a built environment designed to retain the creative class in rural American communities by providing a place for healing, learning and self-discovery through expressive arts therapy. The concept aims to not only foster people of the creative class, but also to provide ample job opportunities that are otherwise unavailable in the rural market.

McCoy is from Omaha, Nebraska, and is entering her senior year in the Interior Design Program at UNL’s College of Architecture.

The Angelo Donghia Foundation, created under the will of the Angelo Donghia, is a private, nonprofit organization that supports two distinct fields: The advancement of education in the field of interior design and initiatives researching AIDS.

Since its launch, including the amounts to be distributed to the scholarship winners, the foundation has awarded in excess of $15,000,000 to the above causes.