Charles Burnette said

>>Having been Dean of a
school with 2000 students in a University of 40,000
students I don't make these observation in ignorance<<

It would be helpful if Charles and some others who have contributed could be a bit more specific about where they come from in this
multi-disciplinary debate.  His own background  and the subject base of the school where he was Dean are both highly relevant if we are to
understand his contribution.

My impression is that people who approach this debate from an art & design background are not closed to new ideas, new methods or new
connections (I'm not interested in the ones who haven't noticed that the debate is going on).  What we are really worried about is the
onslaught that is being mounted on us by some who are blatantly ignorant about what really goes on in our work at any level of detail. I
would commend everybody to have another look at the recent message from Martti Lemieux and ponder the evidence of what a real player in the
game (Alias) are doing and the fact that Martti's expertise and insight starts from her experience as a cabinetmaker.

For some people in this debate (and my concern is wider than this particular conference), design seems to be an exciting new cake and they
are anxious to stake their claim to a slice of it. The strategy seems to be to chase out the cooks and knock down the kitchen.  For the
cooks this is not an interesting theoretical debate, it has become a matter of life and death.  Some days I almost imagine that the last few
art schools will become like those communities of Irish monks who kept learning alive on the fringes of Europe in the "Dark Ages" against
the day when the rest of us would need them again.

We have heard many descriptions of how other disciplines have come into the university fold in the past and that history is an excellent aid
to understanding our own situation.  But history is not a map of the future any more than the practices of software development are a
precise or reliable analogy for those of other design disciplines. We do have the opportunity to both move forward and retain what is
valuable but we have to recognise that it is very easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I have worked with some wonderful scientists and engineers and the common feature of our collaboration has been a real interest in what we
can learn from each other and what we have to share.  It takes humility and sensitivity for an expert in one of the established and
"certain" disciplines to pay attention to the sometimes incoherent and aggressively uncertain ideas of the newcomers and I am grateful to
those who have made the effort.

best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust

*******************************
Professor Chris Rust
Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
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