Dear All,
Does the PhD pose a threat to design education? Not with respect to the
quality of design with a PhD, but certainly with respect to the fact
that there are too few. As Mark noted, requiring a PhD imposes capacity
constraints on hiring. There are not enough solid, bi-lingual designers
around who are skilled at design practice and research both. As Lily
wrote, a solid PhD implies is no more threat to design education than
outstanding craft skills. Martin’s note echoes both points, and both
are correct. While the PhD is no threat, constraints threaten capacity.
There is a genuine shortage of highly skilled practitioners with a PhD,
and universities that require a PhD cannot hire excellent designers who
lack one.
Supply being low and demand high, it is a seller’s market for people
with a PhD who are strong in research as well as design. It is even a
seller’s market for solid, workaday contributors in one area who excel
in the other.
Nevertheless, it is a buyer’s market for design schools that are
hospitable to the bi-lingual minority. Researchers have a tough time in
art and design schools where the vast majority still lack a PhD.
Everyone who has attempted to develop research within such a school has
tales to tell and scars to show.
Schools that support research on significant questions remain uncommon,
along with senior staff members who run interference when needed. It’s
a seller’s market for good designers with a good PhD. It’s a
buyer’s market for positions at design schools with a strong
research program.
In some universities, requiring a PhD is a university-wide policy. This
is the case in research-intensive universities. At Swinburne, it is one
aspect of an interdisciplinary context where the goal is to hire
designers who can work with engineers, information technologists,
chemists, or physicists as equals.
Not all universities aspire to research intensity. Where they don’t
case, Tiiu’s suggestion of two tracks is appropriate. There are also
strong universities that do not expect staff across all disciplines to
contribute to research in equal measure. Tiiu’s university
–University of Montreal – and others like it are highly ranked in
the league tables. These universities are so strong in so many fields
that they can afford practitioners who do not contribute to research.
But such universities tend to be relatively old and reasonably wealthy.
That is not the case for younger universities that aspire to research
intensity on a lower resource base. Two tracks also work for independent
art and design schools, polytechnics, and universities with a primary
teaching mission.
In “Design Science and Design Education,” I made a suggestion along
the lines of a two-track system. There is also a warning. It is a
mistake to allow people who know nothing about research to manage
researchers or control research policy. It is also problematic to allow
such people to sit on search committees for positions that require
research.
In deciding whether to require a PhD of designers, therefore, one must
ask two questions. First, is the university research intensive? Second,
does the university expect all faculties and schools to contribute to
research intensity – does the university expect its professional
schools in such fields as design, business, or IT to meet the same
research standards as the schools of the sciences, humanities, and
liberal arts? If the answer to both questions is “yes,” then one
must require a PhD of designers, and it must be a solid PhD that gives
people the background they need to conduct research, publish their work,
and develop the next generation of researchers.
Martin is quote right about the need for a rich relationship between
practice and theory. This rich relationship was the driving force for
improvements to medical education and engineering education over the
course of the twentieth century. This is the best future for design
education in the twenty-first. This will take the same kind of hard work
that medical schools and engineering schools put in to achieve the
transformation they have undergone. The future is bleak for design
schools that are not prepared to make this kind of investment.
Yours,
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
39214 6078 | Faculty
--
Mark Evans wrote:
—snip—
he threat that I alluded to in my presentation to the IDSA and subject
line of this thread is that an increasing requirement for new staff to
have a PhD may be impeding the capacity of institutions to deliver
undergraduate/masters design education of the highest standard.
—snip—
--
Lily Kommonen-Diaz wrote:
—snip—
PhDs are not a threat to design education anymore than having great
craftsmanship in a particular area is. Being a good 3D modeler in
digital media is a highly sough after craft skill, for example. It is
one more way in which a designer can communicate his/her
ideas/concepts/results.
—snip—
--
Martin Salisbury wrote:
—snip—
You are absolutely right to say that PhDs are not a threat to design
education. They are a welcome addition. Making them a precondition to
employment in design education however is, as Mark Evans observes,
seriously at odds with the capacity to deliver the highest standards of
all round design education. Such preconditions, at the expense of highly
skilled practitioners, are also very much at odds with student needs and
expectations. I would suggest that Mark’s priorities in setting up a
new design school are spot on though I would expect that some of the
practitioners might choose (voluntarily!) to undertake PhDs and some of
the researchers might choose to explore their subjects through advanced
practice.
—snip—
--
Tiiu Poldma wrote:
—snip—
We have an interesting mix of what Mark describes, with the older
faculty from the teaching / consulting backgrounds and the newer faculty
with mixed theoretical or theoretical/practice mix or pure traditional
Ph.Ds....Ideally, a practitioner who has reflected on their practices
and brings this to all levels of education, baccalaureate, masters or
Ph.D. is interesting as a way of allowing both perspectives to co-exist,
not “either-or”....in my mind, theory informs practice and practice
in turn informs theory and this is the richness of design education.
—snip—
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