Ken and Carma,
I have been absent as a contributor to the list over the last few days because of a last-minute trip out of town. I am still traveling. However, I wanted to add a bit more about NASAD.
I am a NASAD site visitor. That is, I – along with one or two other site visitors – undertake regular site visits to institutions that are seeking NASAD accreditation. What Carma stated about NASAD addressing issues of safety is correct. A NASAD site report that is negative about the facilities, funding, resources and personnel can have meaningful impact on the upper administration of the institution.
Academic content is another issue, however. In this case NASAD's goal is to elevate all art and design programs to a minimum yet acceptable level. This is where, in my opinion, its role is not as effective as it could be. I cannot speak about art programs but the academic bar is broad for both graphic and industrial design. And it is broad in order to be inclusive. Unlike professional accreditation agencies such as we find in architecture, NASAD is not prescriptive with its mandate. Its goal is to assist all design programs in their desire to become accredited. This direction from NASAD has benefits; for example, middle-of-the road programs can improve with the advice of NASAD. However, reaching the academic bar is about as good as it gets. Moreover, and again in my opinion, the AIGA and the IDSA – the two professional design associations that initially advised NASAD on the accreditation of graphic and industrial design – have not been as rigorous as they could have been in establishing accreditation standards. One reason for this is that there is a strong art-and-design education bias in both AIGA and IDSA. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that the NASAD standards for graphic and industrial design have a strong art-and-design bias.
Reaching the NASAD academic bar also explains why design schools such as Stanford neither seek nor have NASAD accreditation. Accreditation such as NASAD's can be helpful to schools struggling for resources and funding, but for top tier design schools NASAD accreditation is an unnecessary set of handcuffs.
I will catch up to the conversation at hand soon. However, and in the spirit of an open-ended conversation, I would hope that there would be as little focus on NASAD accreditation standards as possible. They could easily divert the conversation from the central topic.
Jacques
Jacques Giard PhD
Professor of Design
The Design School
480.965.1373
http://jrgiard.macmate.me/jrgiard/Welcome.html
Go Green! Please do not print this e-mail unless it is completely necessary.
On 9/6/12 6:39 AM, "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Dear Carma,
To start, I’m taking the liberty of changing the subject header. You’ve transformed this conversation to a genuinely new thread. It deserves a header of its own. I’m choosing “History, Theory, Analysis.”
Then, thanks for your note. You are quite right. I did not consider the role that NASAD accreditation plays in raising the standards at universities without adequate resources.
You are quite right as well about the importance of the undergraduate program. The need for strong, improved undergraduate education was the topic of my presentation at the first conference on doctoral education in design at Ohio State University in Columbus. Some reflections will follow in a day or two on what I think this requires.
Yours,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Phone +61 3 9214 6102
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