Diane Schneider Pease ’71 had no ordinary homework assignment this past year: recreate four rooms of a Scottish baronet’s 18th-century country house, destroyed more than 100 years ago.

Then again, Pease has no ordinary classroom. She left her TCU design, merchandising and textiles studies for a year to become one of only 10 budding designers accepted into the Decorative Arts Programme offered by the University of Glasgow (Scotland) and Christie’s, the world renowned London auction house.

“Each piece has a history, just as each building has a history,” said Pease, at far right with the course’s director Sally Rush. “And it makes you wonder about the people, what they were really like. This program teaches us that each item has not only design and architectural importance, but historical and sociological significance.”