SMK College of Applied Sciences Celebrates 30th Anniversary: Why Were These 30 Years Meaningful?

SMK College of Applied Sciences, a private higher education institution established in Klaipėda in 1994, which later opened its branches in Vilnius and Kaunas, is celebrating a significant milestone this year. The largest private higher education institution in Lithuania, which has been in existence for 30 years, is marking its anniversary with a special campaign and with the light of a symbol through the decades of this creative journey – the lighthouse.

Gabija Skučaitė, co-founder and chancellor of SMK College of Applied Sciences, along with her team, reflecting on their accomplishments, called the anniversary the 30 Years of Meaning. Working with branding and digital design agency "andstudio", a special visual campaign was created.

“We looked into the past and tried to understand what the accumulated years mean to us as an organization, as a team, as individuals. After all, years are not just a past calendar time that can be counted arithmetically. It's a sequence of experiences, events, and successes, which for SMK was not so short.Thirty years is a significant period for an organization. It was sufficient to look back and understand the meaning of the events and everything we had created. It is sufficient to start articulating the meanings of the things that happened and what we created ourselves. When  this articulation of meaning became clear, the next stage followed – how to tell this to others?

Working with the agency, a visual campaign was born, based on a totem as a symbol of creativity, which can take any form. This totem's visuality is fluid and flexible, revealing how forms can change, creating new configurations. Similarly to people who are open to change, it is flexible and can take on new forms. Such metamorphosis of the totem symbolizes the change that SMK constantly invites people to. The colour design of the campaign also reflects SMK's identity, based on bright symbols and clearly expressed positions. Such a harmony of colours demonstrates the courage to act and speak,” says G. Skučaitė, introducing the campaign created for the anniversary.

The creative mission was undertaken not only by the marketing agency but also by the entire community of SMK College of Applied Sciences. While conducting the visual campaign search, SMK employees were gathering  in creative workshops where the SMK Book of Meaning was created. It was through these workshops that the totem materialized into a specific Lighthouse, which became the symbol of the SMK's 30th anniversary.

“The visual campaign and its symbolism show our inclination to become what we ourselves do not yet know we can become. This also happened in the creative workshops at SMK, which invite us to create meaning together. Meaning is not a property that hovers in the air; it is revealed through reflection, through a look at who we already are. We directed that gaze to the past, searching for figures, allegories, events, people, and objects. In the search for meaning, it often happens that some things occur  at the right time and place. Thus, after our workshops, as a continuation of  the artistic process of creative interactions, the lighthouse entered this co-creation space. Initially, the photographer Viktorija Vaišvilaitė extracted this symbol from my story, focusing on the lighthouse, although I mentioned other figures as well. I had the lighthouse, created by my father, at home, and thus it 'invited itself' into our 30-year celebration. Are these two campaigns related? Yes, because one shows our portrait as an institution, and the image of the lighthouse specifies everything. If the totem is a whole, inviting everyone to become a symbol, then this year's collective symbol is the lighthouse, which illuminates the past 30 years,” says the SMK co-founder.

Gabija Skučaitė, who laid the foundations of SMK together with her mother Nijolė Skučienė 30 years ago, is convinced that the survival and growth of the private higher education institution is possible thanks to its people who are resilient to circumstances and see meaning in cherishing their institution. 

“When my mother and I founded SMK together, it later became a joint effort that gradually involved other people. Thirty years is a period during which we can grasp things in a material dimension  – what and how much we managed to create: we have buildings, branches, whereas  we started with nothing. The number of study programs and people has grown. Only time matures the loyalty of people who started working at SMK and have remained here for decades.

What was needed to survive? Endurance. And endurance is a time-dependent quality – you can only endure over time. Time has been a good helper for us, although it flies quickly. It required patience, consistent work, to continue even when we had fewer resources, when deadlines or various inevitable accreditations in higher education were pressing. It required a great deal of dedication to work, so I am grateful that we have a core group of people who, like ships, dock at our lighthouse and take on its qualities. Therefore, SMK has become a lighthouse that illuminates the way and waits for those ships that hear its voice and want to experience transformation.

SMK has survived these 30 years resiliently, regardless of political peripeteia, crises, demographic changes. Our aim remains  to enlighten people so that each one could become a totem, transforming themselves into the symbol of their unique life,” says the SMK chancellor.

Gabija Skučaitė emphasizes that the SMK 30th anniversary celebration is far from just a corporate event. This celebration will bring together a large group of artists and creators who are already creating music, films, photo pictures, artistic installations, sculptures, and other works that will, by their nature, forms, and properties, reveal what SMK is – a space to create and be a creator.

“We are currently creating special sculptures, a Lighthouse art installation with sculptor Tadas Gutauskas, writing a book about lighthouses where photographer Viktorija Vaišvilaitė is creating  photo pictures, and transferring the lighthouse with me to various locations. I, Gabija, am writing texts where the Lighthouse lives and I am inviting  others to write. We will create a new anthem, a jubilee celebration will take place, a scientific conference, a symposium, an event on future trends, a career forum for graduates, a student event, etc. The most important message is that the Lighthouse invites everyone to create and join in that creation, enabling  the Lighthouse itself to change according to the times, people's needs, and visions,” says Gabija Skučaitė and invites creators to respond to the call of the Lighthouse  and to contribute to the 30th anniversary celebration.