Dear Ken:
I like the new subject header. Thank you.
You wrote:
> You are quite right. I did not consider the role that NASAD accreditation plays in raising the standards at universities without adequate resources.
I can only speak to the situation at my own (perpetually underfunded,
public) institution, but it seems to me that over the last fourteen
years our most effective arguments for resources have taken one of two
forms:
1) "OSHA says we must have exhaust fans (or respirators, or better
storage facilities for silica, etc.) in this facility." (For those who
aren't familiar with this government agency, OSHA is the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration.)
2) "The NASAD evaluators say in their report that a school our size
should have X" (where X one was at one point a computer lab, then a
slide librarian/visual resources person, and then another tenure-track
line in design, and so on).
At one point we debated as a faculty whether we really needed NASAD
accreditation, and we decided we did, not least because it enabled us
to point to things in the external evaluators' reports that needed
attention (and funds) from the upper administration.
Signing off now for a few days...more next week.
Carma
Carma R. Gorman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, School of Art and Design
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Associate Editor/Lead Reviews Editor, Design and Culture
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