Dear All,
Been lurking and thinking ever since Don launched this thread. I’ll
return later with some broader thoughts. Here, I’d like to respond
specifically to the Australians comment on requiring a PhD for
university positions.
Swinburne hired me three and a half years ago with clear goals. Our
Vice Chancellor set the challenge of developing a pre-eminent design
faculty able to contribute to the university-wide research mission on
the same basis as our other faculties. Such league tables as ARWU, QS,
and THES place us in the world’s top 500 universities, and we rank in
the top 100 in physics. For design to contribute to this standing as the
sciences, engineering, and ICT do means far more than hiring people with
a PhD. It means hiring research-active designers able to conduct serious
basic, applied, or clinical research in the domain of design. We hire
“bi-lingual” staff. They must speak the language of research and
they must speak the language of advanced professional practice.
Does it making recruiting difficult? It does, and it sets the bar high.
That said, excellent researchers want to work with other good people,
and good people come to Swinburne. At first, the distance to Australia
made it difficult to recruit the people we need. Changing global trends
and the increasingly strong situation of Australia’s universities
makes distance less important now, so we recruit globally. With students
and staff from over 40 nations, our global reach makes us Australia’s
most international design school. That’s vital in today’s global
knowledge economy, and every serious researcher welcomes the opportunity
to work at a university that values real research.
Our emphasis on research leads to good partnerships and great
alliances. The Swinburne Design Factory is Australia’s design-based
Living Lab. This is one of three such facilities in the world, developed
in collaboration with Aalto University in Finland. Here, we translate
design research into breakthrough innovations, products, and services
for industry and business, while building the skills of the next
generation of designers.
We are unique among Australian design schools in our capacity for
science-based basic research. The members of our research cluster in
neuro-affective design have joined Delft University of Technology in
Project UMA (Universal Model of Aesthetics) together with Cambridge
University and University of Vienna. Our neuro-affective design team
even contributes in a small but genuine way to Swinburne’s physics
ranking –with an article in the Review of Scientific Instruments,
journal of the American Institute of Physics.
We simply could not do this if we did not hire people with a solid PhD
and a demonstrated capacity for research.
In my view, the Swinburne requirement of a PhD for all new staff makes
us a better design school. I work hard at recruiting, and that’s all
to the good. If I had wanted an easier job, I would have remained at the
Norwegian School of Management. I loved my work in Norway, and I turned
down headhunters more than once. Swinburne offered me the opportunity to
work at a design school where our agenda is brilliance WITH substance.
That kind of school requires people who do research, and research
requires a PhD.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3
9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
--
Alison Barnes wrote:
With regard to design educators who don’t draw or make, I was
chatting to an Australian colleague recently who expressed concern that
if all new appointments in Australia (as seems to be the current
thinking) demanded a PhD, then there was a danger that graphic design
courses would find themselves short of educators who could actually
‘do’.
|
