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



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