Hi, Teena,
There is some semantic slippage here. Frankie is describing a qualitative dimension.
You are describing the range of activities people perform. You've stated this with
an emphasis on how you "prefer to think of people."
As noted, people who "work in universities ... practice a range of things, including
designing, teaching, researching and writing."
People who work at universities do all these things, but they do not do them all well.
To suggest that doing all these things means that wide-spread excellence is common
isn't so. It's a bit like Garrison Keillor's mythical Lake Woebegone, where "all the
women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all children are above average."
Over the past 30 years, I have probably visited some 400 or so art and design
schools. I've reviewed the staff and curriculum at several hundred more in the
course of working on a dozen reference books and research projects. As a
professor and dean, I've evaluated several hundred applications here, and I've
been an external evaluator for promotions at another two dozen universities. My
experience supports what I wrote earlier: those who perform very well as BOTH
research and practice are quite rare. Even those who perform WELL at one while
doing a SOLID job at the other are uncommon.
If one includes writing -- and I didn't in my earlier note -- then the pickings get
genuinely thin. Anyone who reviews for journals and conferences knows just how
rare good writers are. The number of excellent designers and researchers is far
greater than the number of those who write well.
Equally to the point, many of the best people work in universities where the
curriculum and systematic structure condemn them to institutional mediocrity
despite their personal excellence. That's why excellent people move to better
universities when they can.
On this issue, I have to agree with Frankie. We want to improve our field ...
that is what doctoral education is about. To say that the majority is already
very good ... Well, that may be the case at Lake Wobegone University, but
not at most of the several hundred I've studied.
My two cents.
Ken
p.s. It's also been my experience that people at half the schools I've seen
tell me their school is in the top 10 per cent of the field.
On Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:23:13 +1100, Teena Clerke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
--snip--
>I don't agree that
><very' good practitioners as well as 'very' good researchers� are (exceptionally) rare>
>
>I prefer to think of people who work in universities in design as design scholars who practice a
>range of things, including designing, teaching, researching and writing. In my experience and
>through my research, each of the people I spoke to are doing just this, and on a daily basis. Not
>rare at all.
--snip--
|