Dear Terry (and All),
The formatting of my last post was scrambled to the point of illegibility. My apologies. I will try again.
Terry's proposal for educating integrative specialists is interesting, but the way he suggests that we do it isn’t workable.
Terry writes about “integrative polymaths who have a way of seeing the world that includes and integrates multiple specialisms and specialist skills. Their way of seeing the world is different from that of a polymath who is a multiple specialist, and [different from] pure polymaths … it is a higher-level integrated theory view into which the theory and knowledge of other specialisms are translated.”
Terry also writes, “The primary reasons for doing this are that the education process is time and cost effective. It can occur in the same time as the current (and much less than training specialist polymaths) and with a much greater range of specialisms and specialist skills.”
The goal of educating integrative specialists is sensible. Terry’s view of the cost and time required to educate such specialists doesn’t seem reasonable.
This kind of education cannot take place in the same amount of time that universities now use to train people for any normal degree.
Integrative specialist education cannot take place in the same time that universities use for Bologna norm single-track specialist training. Not even the full 3+2+3 sequence of bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD affords enough time and experience.
A robust PhD built on top of a good bachelor’s program with general education affords a decent foundation for integrative specialist training for selected individuals. Ideally, the bachelor’s program should be in another field than graduate work. (A tip of the hat to Michael Meyers at UCSD DesignLab for this suggestion. Michael took his BA in physics at UC Berkeley, his MBA Harvard, and the United States Navy Nuclear Power Officers’ School. He’s a good example of an integrative specialist, skills that he put to work at IDEO, frogdesign, and Adaptive Path.)
Even talented individuals with the capacity for this kind of work must invest time and effort to become integrative specialists. These individuals also require work experience at different points along the way. This must be followed by a few years of professional practice to absorb, polish, and embed what they have learned in professional expertise. No normal curriculum can educate them properly or inculcate the necessary skills.
A few schools such as Minerva are making a responsible effort at this kind of education:
https://www.minerva.kgi.edu
Minerva built their program based on careful research and extensive pedagogical work by many leading experts. Founding dean Stephen Kosslyn is a good example. He is a neuroscientist and psychologist, formerly of Harvard and Stanford, where he served as director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
Another good example is Olin College of Engineering. They only offer undergraduate degrees. They are doing a serious job:
http://www.olin.edu
Like Minerva, Olin only opened their doors after several years of focused, funded research. Making the Olin method work is expensive. It requires massive funding from from the F. W. Olin Foundation. The Olin program requires a staff:student ratio of 1:8. This is financially impossible for any public university, and financially impossible for most design schools. One condition for employment at Olin is a distinguished record of teaching and research both.
Educating integrative specialists is a worthy goal. It is more expensive than current education methods. It takes more time, not the same amount of time. And it requires careful preparation to build the kinds of colleges and universities that can undertake this kind of educational mission at a proper level.
This is not a “10,000 hours” issue of balancing specialist expertise vs. generalisation. It’s not even an issue of some kind of new education that trains integrative specialists in the context of older institutions. Today’s universities and design school cannot provide the context for this kind of education. That’s why KGI and the Olin Foundation built Minerva and Olin College.
The issues are far more complex than Terry’s post suggests.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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