Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

VS America Names New Education Director

  • By Matt Jones
  • 08/01/22

Furniture solutions company VS America recently announced that it has named Jill Ackers as its new Education Director, responsible for the company’s educational planning and professional development. A news release reports that Ackers has more than 25 years’ experience in school design, education and leadership positions in both K–12 and higher ed environments, as well as being a certified learning environment planner with A4LE.

Ackers’ new role will focus on researching the learning environment patterns required for agile space design, supporting the connection between pedagogy and space, the news release reports. Her previous partnerships with architecture firms, interior designers and furniture vendors have fleshed out her experience in designing responsive, flexible and agile spaces during all phases of the process, from the master planning phase to schematic design to design development.

Jill Ackers VS America
Jill Ackers
Photo Courtesy of VS America

“She has successfully engaged school boards, leaders, and educators in short-term and long-term visioning, strategic planning, and professional development to align and utilize innovative spaces with instructional delivery methods,” according to the news release. “She has developed extensive lessons-learned libraries through experiential research and collected data through post-occupancy studies to share how building design and classroom layout impact student achievement and well-being.”

In her position as Education Director, she’ll focus on educational planning for K–12 and higher education environments; designing and implementing professional development in schools; and communicating with architecture firms, design firms and dealer partners.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Nashville Elementary School Receives LEED Gold Certification

    Goodlettsville Elementary School, part of Metro Nashville Public Schools in Nashville, Tenn., recently achieved LEED Gold Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), according to a news release. The 81,750-square-foot school opened in 2023 and was designed by Goodwyn Mills Cawood (GMC).

  • Building Beyond Simulation: Creating Immersive Ecosystems for Healthcare Education

    Health sciences education is one of the fastest-growing facility types in colleges and universities. The demand for medical, nursing, and allied health professionals is driving the creation and renovation of medical simulation training facilities that provide students with real-world experience through advanced simulation-based learning.

  • Planning with Clarity: Using AI to Make Better Campus Decisions, Not Just Better Designs

    Higher education leaders are being asked to make increasingly high-stakes decisions about campus facilities amid greater uncertainty than ever before. Social and economic pressures, shifting enrollment, and evolving learning models compete with growing deferred maintenance needs to strain even the most robust infrastructure budgets.

  • University of Pennsylvania Releases Design of Future Physical Sciences Building

    The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in Philadelphia, Penn., recently released renderings of an upcoming 350,000-square-foot Physical Sciences Building, according to news release. The facility was designed by CO Architects and will unite the university’s departments of Physics and Astronomy, Mathematics, and Earth and Environmental Science.