Dear Gunnar,

Thanks for your note. I’m responding to two specific points in your
response to my note concerning the role of research in the university.
(For this reason, I am shifting to a new title so that the thread “Re:
Typographic research influence on practice?” can continue on topic.)
In this sense, I address an aspect of university life that effectively
concerns all university disciplines and all the faculties.

These are serious issues, so this is a long post. If anyone does not
wish to read a careful and reflective argument for the value of the PhD
as a requirement for academic staff at university, please feel free to
delete this post now.

Universities face four challenges that have been at the core of higher
education for five thousand years:

1) Creating new knowledge,
2) Preserving existing knowledge,
3) Training specialists, and
4) Educating citizens

These challenges establish an inherent tension at the heart of the
contemporary university.

The requirements of new knowledge demand a foundation in earlier
knowledge. They also require us to expand the boundaries of what we
know. This requires us to negotiate the forces that draw the past into
the future. The need for preservation emphasizes the past, and love of
the past often involves a tendency to preserve the past intact. The need
for new knowledge can overwhelm the past, and those who move forward
sometimes care little for what we have known as societies and as
individuals.

In a similar way, the dialectic between specialized professional
knowledge and citizenship create opposing and cooperating tendencies.
Professions require specializing and preserving a coherent body of
knowledge. This cements professional engagement and permits the
management of professional practice. At the same time, professions
require new knowledge to improve and grow. This demands research and a
challenge to what is known. This challenge can weaken professional
solidarity while strengthening the profession in the long term.

Professions are by nature inclined in two directions. In one direction,
they serve the larger polity. Most professions gain formal control of
professional affairs and high social status because they serve the
larger polity. In this sense, professionals are citizens who act on
behalf of the larger society. At the same time, the privileges and
opportunities that drive professional development set professionals at
odds with fellow citizens outside the professional group.

Because society funds universities to educate professionals,
universities face the contradictions inherent in meeting all these
needs. 

In a contemporary knowledge economy, those who teach at university
educate professionals rather than training vocational students. We have
different responsibilities and requirements than those who teach at
two-year and four-year colleges, at vocational schools, polytechnics,
and TAFEs, or at subject-specific professional schools of art and
design. I do not argue that one should require a PhD to teach at schools
other than research universities. 

It could be, in some cases, that the difference between these very
different kinds of schools is growing fuzzy. At one point, educational
authorities in many places began to restructure all tertiary teaching
into universities. In these jurisdictions, different forms of tertiary
education institutions have been merged into universities or declared to
be universities. In other places, many schools that were once called
colleges, teacher’s colleges, or polytechnics are now called
universities. At the time, it was believed – perhaps wishfully –
that all institutions now designated as universities would be first
rate, and that the scholars working in them would all conduct research.
It was hoped – with greater emphasis on the wish than the reality –
that all of this research would contribute new and useful knowledge to
the world.

Making the shift from tertiary level teaching institution to research
university is more difficult than governments and education ministries.
At least it is more expensive to provide the resources to permit such a
transition. As a result, some nations are now beginning to sort and sift
among universities, considering distinctions that will ultimately
designate some as research universities and others as teaching
universities. While my note referred to universities, it might better
have used the term research universities.

In the older use of the term, the designation university was nearly by
definition restricted to research-intensive institutions. In North
America, there were many entities known as colleges that specialized in
teaching with some research. In the UK, these were known as
polytechnics, with other designations in Europe and elsewhere.

What made the difference was that the university is a specific kind of
institution, a research institution. Nearly all academic staff members
in a research university should properly have a PhD. This allows them to
play a full and appropriate role in university education.

As it happens, I believe that design belongs in the university. I
believe this is so for many important reasons. I wrote an article on
this topic (Friedman 2003) setting design as a profession in the context
of the global knowledge economy to explain my views. In the same
article, I also examined the reasons for design research.

My note in the earlier thread stating that all staff at a university
should have a PhD is more than an explanation. It is an assertion. I
base the assertion on the distinctions between a university and other
kinds of tertiary institution. Perhaps I should more clearly have
identified research universities as contrasted with all the many kinds
of tertiary institution now labeled as university.

While this is my view, there is a caveat. I do not argue that every
teacher in a professional school ought to have a PhD. I believe that we
have a place at university for first-rate practicing professionals
without a PhD. Nevertheless, the role of academic staff without a PhD
may be limited with respect to departmental decision-making. I have
observed in many universities that excellent studio professionals
without a research degree teach design skills well while performing
badly with such central issues as curriculum development, pedagogy, or
educational policy, as well – obviously – with research supervision.
The problem here is that many students are moving beyond a vocational
curriculum to a broader professional education.

Swinburne University of Technology made a decision on this issue before
I arrived as dean. Our university-wide mandate is that every new staff
member hired at Swinburne must have a PhD.

Could I see a different approach? Yes. Many first-rate universities
hire professional staff without a PhD. 

Do I think our university mandate is wrong? No. In the years since our
Vice Chancellor developed our current strategy and the policies to
implement it, we have moved from being a good Australian university in
the middle of the pack to one of the world’s 500 best universities. At
least we are in this league if you believe such league tables as the
Times Higher Education Supplement or the Shanghai Jiao Tong index. While
I am delighted that we have achieved this standing, staying in the top
league tables is tough. We are the eighth smallest university in the
SHJT. Size matters when it comes to the resources and funding that make
it possible to perform at a top level. Design professors – and design
lecturers – capable of doing research and publishing their results
make a difference. Most universities speak about the triple mission of
research, teaching, and service. 

At Swinburne, we take all three seriously. The Faculty of Design
workload model allocates 20% of paid hours for each staff member to
engage in research and scholarship. We expect people to use the time we
provide. Quite clearly, a foundation in research skills will make this
easier and more effective. We are also investing in resources and
support to help the less experienced develop their research skills, but
we new staff with a PhD on the expectation that they arrive with skills
in hand and some experience.

For these many reasons, I assert the value of a PhD among those who
teach professional education at university level. I do not argue that
this must be so for all design teachers. It is certainly not the case
for anyone teaching in a program that is not research-intensive.
Swinburne Design is a research-intensive faculty in a research-intensive
university. This explains our position. I believe that the situation is
similar at other research-intensive design schools. Research is one of
the key issues for our faculty. Traditional research distinguishes us
from many of the design faculties that focus on creative production as a
form of research measured in the new Excellence for Research in
Australia (ERA) protocols. While we also engage in creative outputs, we
emphasize other forms of research, including traditional research linked
to creative practice. If you don’t see the value of transitional
research to design and the design field, then I can understand that
requiring a PhD of all new staff members seems to be questionable. 

Like faculties in most fields of professional practice, we seek
excellent professional practitioners that are also capable of high-level
research. These people exist, and some are looking for jobs. They will
form the difference between the best schools and those schools that may
be merely good or not quite as good.

The second point you noted involves the role of design in the
university and designers in university governance.

Here, you seem to have read me wrong. I was not describing faculty
governance but university governance. My point was incidental to the
larger argument. Nevertheless, the point was that only research-active
designers will be able to play a successful role in university
governance. This requires a PhD.

The analogy about military history is inappropriate in this sense. I do
not believe that everyone teaching design ought to be qualified for a
role in university governance. I certainly did not argue that a PhD
should entail a competency in university governance.

What I said was that a PhD is necessary for anyone who hopes to become
active in university and I suggest that more designers should become
active in university governance. 

University governance entails responsibility for university-wide
divisions or functions. This is different to faculty governance. In
faculty governance, we are responsible for the activities of the faculty
and those that work and study within it. A few senior managers at
faculty level form an interface with university executives. In that
sense we advise those responsible for university governance and we
sometimes vote in specific university-wide forums. Very few people from
any discipline rise about department or faculty governance to university
governance. At Swinburne, we have one designer in senior management at
the university governance level. This is Prof. Helmut Lueckenhausen, my
predecessor as dean. Helmut is now Pro-Vice Chancellor and CEO of our
campus in Sarawak, Malaysia. 

On this issue, I’m not arguing that anyone should enter university
governance. I don’t even argue that everyone should enter faculty
governance. This kind of job means a massive shift in priorities from
the research professoriate or the studio professoriate. It entails a
focus on serving others rather than addressing the problems and puzzles
we want to solve for ourselves. Nevertheless, I propose that it will be
good for our field if some people do enter university governance. Just
as natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists bring something
to the larger university when they take on leadership roles, so it will
be when designers take on these roles. To do so, like Helmut, they must
be qualified.

I hope this explains my statements. There are often large issues packed
into few words, and this was such a case. Once you brought forward those
specific points, I felt that I owed you a thoughtful response.

And a few more delicious cookies!

Warm wishes,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (chi), FDRS
Professor
Dean

Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia


References

Friedman, Ken. 2003. “Design Education in the University: a
Philosophical and Socio-Economic Inquiry.” Design Philosophy Papers.
No. 5, 2003. URL: 

Goodall, Amanda H. 2009. Socrates in the Boardroom. Why Research
Universities Should be Led by Top Scholars. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.



Gunnar Swanson wrote:

—snip—

Ken also says: 

“It is the peculiar nature of life at university that we do expect
many of our teachers to be able to understand research at a high enough
level to teach, so many universities now expect all staff to hold a
PhD.” 

I hope that this is an explanation rather than a defense. Auto
mechanics should understand business but if we expect them to have MBAs,
we should also expect them to know less about how to fix cars.

Ken tell us that:

“Only when more designers and artists have a solid research
foundation will we see designers and artists rising into university
leadership roles 

[snip]

designers who also conduct research have a role to play in university
governance.”

I think we need to reconsider the notion that universities are all
about research in the sense that Ken seems to be defending in his
objections to broadening the definition of a PhD. If this sort of
research is the exclusive mode, the role of design in universities
becomes more like the role of military strategy in a history department
– a subject of consideration but hardly central. Someone who wants to
be an army officer might do well to get a degree in history but if we
lead students to believe that the path to battlefield glory is a history
degree, we do a disservice to history and contribute to an incompetent
military. (Some may object to the analogy and you’re right: If West
Point would just emphasize baking, we’d have fewer wars and more
delicious cookies.) 

There has been much discussion here about what a PhD is or should be. I
suspect that nobody wants to defend adding a concentration in faculty
governance to the list of competencies the degree should imply.

—snip—