Drexel Exhibition Reveals What Students Keep in Their Dorms
“How do objects in dorms and other student housing spaces shape students’ lived experiences?”
That’s the question that a new exhibition at Drexel University explores. It was originally posed by Joseph H. Larnerd, PhD, assistant professor of art history in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, when co-creating the fittingly titled Dorm Objects 101 exhibition.
“As I tell my students, design history is not just a body of knowledge one might attempt to master (if such a thing is desirable or even possible); it is a way of seeing and being in the world that makes us attentive to how visual culture and material culture impact lived experiences,” he said.
Dorm Objects 101 is presented by the Drexel Founding Collection, the University’s flagship collection of art and artifacts. Registration is required, but it is free and open to the public until June 19 in the Rincliffe Gallery in Drexel’s Main Building. Starting in May, there will be guided tours Thursdays at 1 p.m. and Fridays at 2 p.m from May 14 to June 19. Student docents who had contributed to the show will lead the tours.
Most of the objects, photos and labels on display in the exhibition came from about 70 students who took Larnerd’s 2025 and 2026 “Visual Culture: Furniture” classes, as well as a few from the “History of Modern Design” classes he’s taught since 2024. Many of these Dragons have lived in on-campus housing, Drexel-affiliated housing or off-campus housing and wrote about their personal experiences and connections.
Temple University students also contributed objects and labels as part of a “Material Culture for Historians” class taught by Seth Bruggeman, PhD, an associate professor of history at Temple. Larnerd had taken his first-ever class on material culture with Bruggeman as a graduate student in the art history master’s program at Temple, which he said set him on the path to a faculty position at Drexel, where he now teaches classes on the histories of design and material culture.
During the Drexel classes that contributed to the show, some students critically examined an object from their own bedroom — and even loaned, drew or photographed it for the show. As a result, the exhibition displays everything from office chairs and a suitcase to a Barbie Bluetooth speaker and a Philadelphia Flyers plush Gritty mascot.
Irina Scaduto-Mendola, product design ’29 from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, found initial inspiration not with her own coat rack, which is displayed in the show, but instead by the heavily adorned one in her friend’s dorm room.
“I thought of the unconditional support of this coat rack, how it demanded nothing of her while it carried the artifacts of her busy life. I was fascinated by the intimacy born in a relationship between object and human, and wanted to capture the power of unconditional love from a supporting figure,” she said.
Students also reflected on University-provided residential living furniture loaned to the exhibition for a mock set-up of a dorm room: a lofted bed, wardrobe, chair and desk (the empty Red Bull can on the desk came from a student).
Other Dragons described objects that could be seen in photographs taken inside Drexel student housing from decades ago. Some of these photos in the show come from sorority scrapbooks, fraternity photo albums and student handbooks housed in Drexel University Archives.
Larnerd had worked with University Archivist Matthew Lyons to select over 30 images to be used in classes and in the show itself; the resulting 20th century photos were taken in Drexel’s Van Rensselaer Hall, Kelly Hall and the since-demolished Calhoun Hall. Digital Curation Librarian Matt Sherman provided high-resolution scans of the photographs for the show, and Drexel University Archives also lent two sorority scrapbooks and a student handbook from the 1950s to be displayed.
The 1979 photograph of students inside Kelly Hall that inspired Philip Camera, a second-year interior design student in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Photo courtesy Drexel University Archives.
Philip Camera, a second-year interior design student in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, found an immediate connection to a 1979 photo of a dorm room in Kelly Hall. Male students were photographed hanging out near a bunkbed with a United States flag hanging from the top bunk; the mattress had been removed and replaced with personal belongings as part of a newly created open storage space.
All of it —the bunk bed, the young men, the flag, the room’s structure, the organized cleanliness — reminded him of his first Army barracks room at 18, which he wrote about in his label. It also made him think of the role bunk beds have played throughout his life: the top bunk he had growing up (his brother had the bottom, his preferred spot); the countless ones he slept on during seven deployments and 23 years in the military; the one he slept in at the Airbnb he and his friends rented during a recent trip.
“It really resonated with me right away and it made me realize this simple piece of furniture has been prevalent throughout my entire life, no matter where I’ve went,” he said. “It’s been tied to a lot of my experiences.”
Larnerd’s classes helped students meditate on why everyday design matters. His writing-intensive courses also included hands-on object workshops, writing workshops and specialized readings.
“This whole class was phenomenal in showing an even deeper look at how furniture can be tied to culture and genres of art and art history, which was really interesting to me at this point of my life after seeing many different cultures around the world,” said Camera.
The interpretative labels that appear in the show were finalized through a one-on-one Zoom review session with Larnerd, followed by an intensive peer review with students in the class.
“Watching my work come to life and celebrated by professors and peers was instrumental in building confidence in the work I produce. I learned to be less afraid of critique, a skill very crucial in the professional world of design,” said Scaduto-Mendola, who wrote about her coat rack.
The classes also included a field trip to the Drexel Founding Collection as well as expertise and guidance provided by Lynn Clouser Waddell, the Collections’ director and executive director of University Collections & Exhibitions. As Dorm Objects 101’s co-curator, she created the mock dorm room set-up as well as an interactive magnetic display with furniture decals and blueprints for Drexel’s Race Street Residences, Millennium Hall and North Hall.
Additionally, students working at the Drexel Founding Collection contributed designs, research, labels and other aspects of the exhibition as well. That’s why Waddell calls it a valuable teaching resource for the University.
“The Drexel Founding Collection is a historical and design research collection that provides hands-on training for students interested in the museum field and exhibition design,” said Waddell. “Our exhibitions involve students at every level, and specifically the Rincliffe Gallery shows, like for Dorm Objects 101, are 100% student- or course-curated, with a focus on student object selections, interpretation, interests and design.”
The beginning of the show features an introductory panel designed by Lani Chung, graphic design ’26. The suitcase is on loan from a student.
Lani Chung, graphic design ’26 from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, was hired to design the show and ultimately created the graphics, branding, University City Campus map and imagery seen in the exhibition. Chung also designed an exhibition souvenir booklet highlighting select labels.
“I was very inspired by the nostalgic photos of dorms from the 1950s and 1960s, which is why you’ll see details on the walls like gingham and polka dots,” said Chung.
While she had designed a hypothetical museum exhibit in an environmental design class, this was her first time creating one in real life. During the show’s opening, she said it was so rewarding to finally see everything in person.
“The quality of her work speaks to her professionalism and creativity; it also speaks to the quality of training provided to students in Drexel's graphic design program,” said Larnerd. “The design is a perfect complement to a show with labels penned by students from the 1960s to the present.”
Dorm Objects 101 includes a section on Van Rensselaer Hall, which opened in 1936 as Drexel’s first student dormitory (it was originally only for women). Two alumna who graduated with home economics degrees in 1968 wrote four labels describing the building and what they remembered about living there. They became involved with the show after one roommate had reminisced about “Van R” experiences at an alumni event held by Larnerd and Waddell last fall.
Kat McKeown, history ’27 from the College of Arts and Sciences and an intern at the Drexel Founding Collection, cross-referenced those “Van R” photographs with Lexerd yearbooks from the same year to identify students. McKeown will continue working at the Drexel Founding Collection during her spring/summer co-op as a collections assistant.
Though they also didn’t take Larnerd’s classes involved with this exhibit, design graduate students also contributed to Dorm Objects 101. Anushka Agarkar co-wrote the label for the power strip shown in the exhibition and also designed the “trompe l’oeil” doors in the exhibit — you’ll think a doorway is opening to a dorm, but it’s really a lifelike rendering inspired by a photograph of a current dorm room door in Kelly Hall. As a student intern at the Drexel Founding Collection, she is organizing, photographing and digitizing its collection of miniatures (she also makes her own),
Atharva Gogate is doing the same for the Drexel Founding Collection’s collection of puppetry. Gogate was on a team of students who wrote a label about the desk lamp in the mock dorm room diorama and also helped install the show.
They first became involved with the Drexel Founding Collection after visiting it fall term in Larnerd’s “History of Modern Design” class; Larnerd had brought students there for hands-on workshops. Their work is exhibited in “When We Sketch...”: Student Drawings of Everyday Objects in the Drexel Founding Collection, which is currently on display at the W. W. Hagerty Library; Waddell and Larnerd co-curated that too.
The first exhibit the duo co-curated was The Museum of Where We Are in 2021, which featured student-written labels about everyday objects they valued during the lock-down period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Larnerd started it as a virtual museum in 2020 and updated it with additional student work each time he has taught “History of Modern Design;” some of the students were invited to participate in Dorm Objects 101, which he considers a “spiritual sibling” to that project.
“Images and objects — from academic paintings to couches and toys — shape lived experiences. They had this power in the past, they have this power now, and they will have this power in the future. Once we learn to see this power, we can begin to critically engage how it works and its consequences,” said Larnerd. “Ideally, this will help us become more ethical designers, historians, or thinking and feeling people in the world.”