Christ, John, and list members,
On this same topic of disciplines, I was director of the School of Design at
Arizona State University until very recently. The school was typical of many
multidisciplinary settings. In this case, it included graphic design,
industrial design, and interior design. As director, I taught a large,
first-year lecture course called 'Design Awareness,' which included all of
the students in the three aforementioned design disciplines as well as
others such as architecture, engineering, and business. Regularly, students
would ask about working across the disciplines and if that was at all
possible in their education while at ASU. Not only was the willingness for
interdisciplinary activity alive but the desire to belong to a discipline
was not yet well developed, or so it appeared.
By the third year, however, these same students were deeply entrenched in
their discipline of choice. More than that, they had learned the stereotypes
of the other disciplines. Interior design students, for example, now saw
architecture students as the 'design enemy.' For their part, architecture
students now realized that they could design anything‹graphics, products,
etc.
For a variety of good reasons, the three units of my former school were spun
off as individual departments and allowed to pursue their individual
disciplinary agendas. As for me, I was asked to create a new academic unit
(Cross-College programs), one that would ultimately work across the
disciplines of our College, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
In doing so, I faced a central challenge: faculty members often
identity‹even at a personal level‹with a particular discipline. Believing
that I was not about to change that situation, I instead focused on the
students because their situation was significantly different. Most were not
yet wedded to a discipline. From that perspective, the mission of the
academic unit developed to be, "Don't ask me what you want to be but tell me
what you want to do." We are sending a clear message that what you want to
do in life is perhaps more important than what you want to be.
Warm regards from Arizona (and I do literally mean warm)
Jacques Giard, PhD
Director and Professor
Cross-College Programs
BA/MSD/PhD
College of Design
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2105
P 480.965.1373
F 480.965.9656
The College of Design‹selected by Business Week as one of the top 60 global
D-schools!
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