Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

NCCC065 – 2022 Annual Meeting Minutes

Monday, October 24^th 1:30 – 5PM

Meeting Room: Capitol @Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel

In attendance:

1. Elizabeth (Missy) Bye, Project Advisor
2. Laurie M. Apple, University of Arkansas
3. Ting Chi, Washington State University, Vice-Chair
4. Sonali Diddi, Colorado State University, Secretary
5. Cynthia Jasper, University of Wisconsin-Madison (online)
6. Chuanlan Liu, Louisiana State University (online)
7. JuanJuan Wu, University of Minnesota, Chair
8. Iva Jestratijevic, University of North Texas (online)

Absent:

1. Jill (Juyoung) Lee, Mississippi State University
2. Debanjan Das, West Virginia University
3. Scarlett Wesley, University of Kentucky

• Meeting called in session by Juan at 1:30 PM MST followed with an overview of the agenda

Approval of 2021 minutes

• Minutes were approved as submitted unanimously.

1. Old Business - Reports/Issues

• Station Reports – Each participant did a station report and shared news at their departments and universities.

• Update address/contact information – Jana Hawley - University of North Texas, Srikant Manchiraju – Florida State University are no longer members of the group

• Updates on NCCC065 sponsored initiatives

• Applications of virtual reality in fashion courses and museum exhibitions: Ideating together

Wu, J., Lee, J., Chi, T., & Liu, C. (2022, May). Applications of virtual reality in fashion courses and museum exhibitions: Ideating together. 48th Annual National Symposium of Costume Society of America. Minneapolis, MN.

• Develop Retail Curriculum using Virtual Reality (VR) – SketchUp Teaching Panel and Workshop

Lee, J., Wu, J., Liu, C., & Chi, T. (2022, Mar.). Develop retail curriculum using virtual reality (VR) – SketchUp teaching panel and workshop. Annual Conference of American Collegiate Retailing Association, New Orleans, LA.

Guest Speaker: Chris Brashar, Visiting Professional Program Manager, Trimble.

1. New Business – Reports/Issues/Plans

• Report: NCRA Administrator – Missy Bye

• NIFA has moved to Kansas City. Missy advocated for more visibility for Textiles and Apparel in conversations with NIFA. Reminded members to update in the NIMSS portal for membership and for meeting authorization. You need to contact your AES for membership renewal.
• Maybe helpful to invite USDA representative to next meeting to share insights on USDA funding priorities

• Recruitment of new members:

• The group brainstormed ways to recruit new members to the group.
• Group’s membership is down from last year and has only 11 members + Advisor
• Discussion on continued awareness of NCCC65 at ITAA for recruitment of members and activities that will elevate research rigor and foster stronger academic and industry relationships.
• Members discussed a few options of land-grant universities, such as NC State U, SC State U, U of Cal. Oklahoma State U, U of Nebraska, Cornell U, U of Missouri, Virginia Tech

• Alicia Chin – Director, Sustainability at Smartwool addressed the group and shared circular economy innovations at Smartwool. The group discussed ways of how this could be included in curriculum.

• Brainstorm group activities that can connect with station events/symposia addressing our group objectives

Ob1. Address existing and emerging issues related to social change in the marketplace by: connecting those with mutual research interests, building research partnerships, and sharing and critiquing research ideas pertaining to the three areas of technology, demographic changes, and sustainable consumption & production.

1. Colorado State University (Sonali) and University of Minnesota (Juan and Missy) are organizing Fashion and Circular Economy Symposium at CSU on April 14-15 at CSU, Fort Collins
2. Sonali (CSU) and Iva (UNT) are guest editors for Special Issue on Circular Economy in the Fashion Industry for Sustainability Journal with deadline for June 1 2023.

Ob2. Develop and foster academic and industry relationships by engaging in research dissemination, idea exchange, and trend identification to help find grant funding, encourage new areas of scholarship, and develop cross-disciplinary collaborations pertaining to the three areas of technology, demographic changes, and sustainable consumption & production.  

1. Based on industry presentations, the group discussed the importance of including industry interactions with the NCCC65 group to help design sessions and workshops.

Ob3. Develop infrastructure (e.g., research groups, workshops, professional development opportunities) that can serve as a connector of scholars to varied projects (e.g., multi-state research projects, cross-disciplinary collaborations, and alternative information platforms), which facilitates the promotion of new collaborations, new methodologies, increased rigor, and impactful research pertaining to the three areas of technology, demographic changes, and sustainable consumption & production.

1. Sonali will submit Special Topics Session for ITAA 2023 titled “Role of multistate research groups in establishing collaborations, elevating scholarship, and developing innovative solutions.”
2. The group discussed future workshops that NCCC65 can lead could focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity and Social Justice. Juan and Missy proposed connecting with Racism Untaught group that conducted workshop specifically around Design and student success. The group hopes to organize a workshop for textile and apparel scholars in 2023.

• Site selection of next meeting: We will meet in Kansas City in 2023

1. Leadership updates and elections

• Nominations for Secretary for 2022 – 23 was discussed. 2 nominations Iva (UNT) and Chuanlan (LSU) were received. President Juan sent an email ballot and Chuanlan will serve as Secretary for 2022-23.

1. Any other business

Leadership

2021-2022

              Chair: Juanjuan Wu

              Vice Chair: Ting Chi

              Secretary: Sonali Diddi

2022-2023

              Chair: Ting Chi

              Vice Chair: Sonali Diddi

              Secretary: Chuanlan Liu

• Applications of virtual reality in fashion courses and museum exhibitions: Ideating together

Wu, J., Lee, J., Chi, T., & Liu, C. (2022, May). Applications of virtual reality in fashion courses and museum exhibitions: Ideating together. 48th Annual National Symposium of Costume Society of America. Minneapolis, MN.

Impact:  Virtual Reality (VR) has re-emerged as a powerful tool in a variety of fields, such as medicine, architecture, tourism, real estate, retailing, and design. Going through the disruption of the global pandemic, the fashion industry is also inevitably faced with decisions regarding digitalization. Virtual and augmented reality technologies offer a new way and perspective to streamline and visualize processes of product development and presentation, working as an effective digital channel for growth. Not only can VR reduce costs in prototyping and experimentations of product presentation, but all ideas and directives can be instantaneously and easily shared across the supply chain’s various stakeholders including designer, merchandiser and pattern makers. VR environments can also greatly enhance users’ shopping or museum experiences.

The aims of this workshop are twofold; 1) to expose participants to the latest immersive VR applications for digitized museum collections, fashion merchandising course projects, and creations of the VR community at large; 2) engage participants in the ideation of how to best use VR to enhance teaching and research.

Twenty professors, museum curators, and graduate students from varous universities and institutions (e.g., Michigan State University, Virginia Tech, Kent State University, UCLA, Ohio State University, and Victoria and Albert Museum) across the country and the UK attended the workshop. The workshop started with an overview of VR applications. Then, participants were divided into focus groups to join one of the demonstrations, including VR museum exhibitions, visual merchandising and store design student projects using SketchUp, and Blu (an underwater VR experience developed by a digital media franchise). Paricipants viewed the demonstrations using Oculus Quest 2 headsets. After the hands-on demonstrations, participants discussed the ways that VR might best be used to enhance their teaching and research and then report back to the larger group.

The presenters were approached by a few attendees and they expressed their interests in VR or adoping a form of VR in their visual merchandising courses. Some also simply shared with us their appreciation for the inspiring experience. A faculty member from Georgia Southern University emailed us for sharing the PowerPoint slides with her.

• Develop Retail Curriculum using Virtual Reality (VR) – SketchUp Teaching Panel and Workshop

Lee, J., Wu, J., Liu, C., & Chi, T. (2022, Mar.). Develop retail curriculum using virtual reality (VR) – SketchUp teaching panel and workshop. Annual Conference of American Collegiate Retailing Association, New Orleans, LA.

Guest Speaker: Chris Brashar, Visiting Professional Program Manager, Trimble.

Impact: This workshop provided a platform for 25 educators in the field of retailing (1) to understand the capabilities of a virtual reality software package SketchUp, and (2) to discuss ways to apply VR in retailing curriculum. The workshop provided an opportunity for educators of retailing to connect with an industry professional, who gave an overview and demonstration of how VR might be utilized as a digital tool for planning merchandising displays and visualize store design results.

• Conference Presentation

Jestratijevic, I., Sonali, D. (2022). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable fashion consumption values among US Gen Z consumers: Implications for Marketers. ITAA, 2022.  

• Peer-Reviewed Publication

Henninger, C.E, Joyner-Martinez, C, Iran; S., Diddi, S., Durrani, M., Iyer, K., Jestratijevic, I., McCormick, H., Niinimaki, K., Thangavelu, P., Sadílek, T., Sauerwein, M., Simek, P., Singh, R., Wallaschkowski, S. (2022). Fashion consumption during COVID-19: Comparative analysis of changing practices across nine countries and implications for sustainability. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption 5, 100056. DOI: 10.1016/j.clrc.2022.100056

Karpova, E., Jestratijevic, I., Lee, J. & Wu, J. (2022). An ethnographic study of collaborative fashion consumption: The case of temporary clothing swapping. Sustianability, 14(5), 2499. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052499

Henninger, C.E, Joyner-Martinez, C, Iran; S., Diddi, S., Durrani, M., Iyer, K., Jestratijevic, I., McCormick, H., Niinimaki, K., Thangavelu, P., Sadílek, T., Sauerwein, M., Simek, P., Singh, R., Wallaschkowski, S. (2022). Fashion consumption during COVID-19: Comparative analysis of changing practices across nine countries and implications for sustainability. Cleaner and Responsible Consumption 5, 100056. DOI: 10.1016/j.clrc.2022.100056

Jestratijevic, I., Sonali, D. (2022). Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable fashion consumption values among US Gen Z consumers: Implications for Marketers. ITAA, 2022.  

Karpova, E., Jestratijevic, I., Lee, J. & Wu, J. (2022). An ethnographic study of collaborative fashion consumption: The case of temporary clothing swapping. Sustianability, 14(5), 2499. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052499

Lee, J., Wu, J., Liu, C., & Chi, T. (2022, Mar.). Develop retail curriculum using virtual reality (VR) – SketchUp teaching panel and workshop. Annual Conference of American Collegiate Retailing Association, New Orleans, LA.

Wu, J., Lee, J., Chi, T., & Liu, C. (2022, May). Applications of virtual reality in fashion courses and museum exhibitions: Ideating together. 48th Annual National Symposium of Costume Society of America. Minneapolis, MN.