Ken - Of course this was tongue in cheek, but my reference to "design self flagellating" comes from my observation over the last 10 years or so that design educators have a special self-conscious sensitivity to what we believe are our unique weaknesses in stewarding its disciplines, and especially in our approaches to education. Perhaps medicine is the only other discipline that scolds itself as badly as design, but in my observation (I did a year of research into medical education practices) medical schools are among the earliest adopters of any pedagogical advance and they take measured risks in improving curricula. Medicine is a field that typically sees the "annual scold letter" in the top journals from some old hand pronouncing that "medical education must change." Well it has, and yet old hands still call for changes, not seeing that the results of changes in med school take 10 years to show up in practice! (Residency, early career practice, and then influencing institutional decisions - takes time.)
I think it’s the same with design, and our scolds (thanks Ken and Don ;) have probably made a difference. And the top schools will of course be the leaders, why worry about also-ran design departments in colleges that don't have the student talent (let alone a grad school) to lead in in a practice area, so these departments, just like their sociology depts., shouldn't be viewed as representative of our field or practice or training. Even in OCAD's graduate school, we have a huge reject rate (accept 40 of about 120 apps), and we have some great students. But at the MDes level we sure don’t get a lot of researchers - so the research concern is separate from design education in my view. Those wishing to pursue design research go to an even smaller number of institutions. The MDes was considered a terminal degree until just recently.
And if you look at our history though, perhaps only 5 years ago the same top schools (and I've listed more than the usual suspects of the Top 10 as well) were not yet moving into these progressive programs. Most of the truly innovative programs have come about in the last 5 years or so. If you go back further than that you see almost no reference to systems and futures thinking, product/service design, social design, integrated design for complex practices, and problem-based learning. That's what I meant by "it takes time" - program directors have to prove a business case for a marketable program, they have to hire good faculty (try finding good PhDs - we've had trouble with this, certainly in healthcare), and they have to develop meaningful curricula, without overtly copying "competitors" for the same or similar students.
I'm glad you're not sitting on your laurels - I'm not, we're building another new program here and are gaining some research credibility after 7 years. But I am optimistic that the best schools will lead and new program models will grow, or the weak schools will die off due to lack of demand. There's nothing wrong with that, it's as with any ecosystem. It's not because we've failed as a discipline. We're muddling through and I believe doing the right things. We're all maxxed out as well - nearly everyone who teaches in design and this is not the same case in sciences. And we have so little capacity - and I'd say perhaps work-life issues and educator burnout should be considered a compelling issue these days, certainly a necessary design concern for designing educational journeys that work for learners and faculty.
Best, Peter
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
