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Dear Ellen, I've read your note several times, but I'm still puzzled by your comments and concerns. Could you try restating your ideas again? My fault, I am sure. As I think about what you have said, I believe there are several issues mixed too tightly together. Perhaps it would be useful to separate them out a bit. For example, I wonder if your note has conflated master's programs in design with master's programs in design studies. Master's programs in design are, to me, programs of professional practice. And the master's degree seems to me to be appropriately the terminal degree of professional practice. However, I see such programs in professional practice to be seriously deficient if they fail to develop a student's ability to discuss design in a broader context of history, theory, and criticism--or, indeed, philosophy. That is why our master's programs at Carnegie Mellon require a thesis that has two parts: one is a studio project (and preferrably one that pushes the limits of contemporary design work rather than something pedestrian), the other is a written thesis on a theme of design studies. We have no trouble with the combination, and our students seem to flourish in both areas. We want our students to be excellent in design practice and excellent in further exploring the nature of design in one of the areas of design studies. But there is also room, I believe, for master's programs in design studies, per se. We do not offer such a degree at Carnegie Mellon, but some schools do. For example, there are degrees in design history. Over time, I suspect that we will see many more. In this regard, I was deeply troubled that the meeting at La Clusaz did not include extended discussion of the nature of master's and doctorates in design history or of the possibilities and significance of design criticism, or even design theory. Perhaps you recall my comments at the time on this matter. And my own presentation focused specifically on a philosophic issue in design--specifically and quite purposefully not a discussion of doctoral education or of design practice. I felt it was time to get on with the work of inquiry and begin discussing substantive problems that are appropriate for doctoral level understanding. Your note also includes some discussion of doctoral education in design. Once again, I wonder if several issues are being conflated. I do not see the doctorate as a single, one-size-fits-all, degree. There are many reasonable kinds of inquiry, and each institution may find one or another suited to its strengths and interests--and to its vision of what will count most in the future of our field! Perhaps as a general comment on your note--and you will have to tell me if I have totally missed the point--I find the central issue to be uncertainty over the relationship of theory and practice. Personally, I would include "production" or "making" as a third element, because the problems of design practice and the problems of "making" are not identical--though many people seem to think they are identical. The relationship of theory, practice, and production is and remains profoundly puzzling at this point for our community, it seems. Perhaps this is because of the novelty of the combination. In any case, I believe that the great danger of doctoral education in design is that we will form our programs on the models of other fields, where theory and practice are sharply divided--and where there is no recognition of the problems of production or making. I call this approach "paleoteric"--the old learning. In contrast, the "neoteric" institutions and programs will find a much more interesting interplay of theory, practice and production. We need to get past the old division and separation of theory and practice. It belongs to another time. I hope these comments have some relation to your concerns. Let's keep trying. I have a hunch that you and I agree on many points and that further conversation may clarify things for me. Regards, Dick Richard Buchanan, Ph.D. Professor and Head School of Design Carnegie Mellon University %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%