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On Oct 8, 2011, at 10:34 PM, Ken Friedman wrote: > In some universities, requiring a PhD is a university-wide policy. This > is the case in research-intensive universities. Is the policy a requirement for a PhD or for a doctorate (which is usually a PhD)? > At Swinburne, it is one > aspect of an interdisciplinary context where the goal is to hire > designers who can work with engineers, information technologists, > chemists, or physicists as equals. And only PhDs can work as equals? And, conversely, PhDs can always work as equals? (Ken--I'm trying to understand this in context of your vigorous defense of the nature of the PhD degree in past posts.) > It is a > mistake to allow people who know nothing about research to manage > researchers or control research policy. It is also problematic to allow > such people to sit on search committees for positions that require > research. I would think it a mistake to hire someone who knows nothing about research to teach at a university. It is probably also a mistake to allow someone who has one notion of the nature of research to manage researchers who work in a very different manner. Is it a mistake to allow researchers who know little about design practice to manage design education? > does the university expect its professional > schools in such fields as design, business, or IT to meet the same > research standards as the schools of the sciences, humanities, and > liberal arts? Does "same research standards" mean a quality level (as opposed to meaning research in the mode of sciences, humanities, or liberal arts)? It is interesting that a question regarding education (most of which is undergraduate education) gets answered in terms of research standards. They are, of course, not unrelated but by letting the two bleed into each other too easily, we might narrow our view of education, perhaps to the detriment of design students and design alike. Gunnar ---------- Gunnar Swanson Design Office 1901 East 6th Street Greenville NC 27858 USA [log in to unmask] +1 252 258 7006 http://www.gunnarswanson.com