We’ve been quiet, which has led some people to write, asking what is happening.
There are updates in the sense that we have been working behind the scenes to get ready to start the work. Given the magnitude of the task, it is taking us some time. We hope to be able to send out a progress report to everyone in the very near future.
(We belatedly realized that we needed a communication committee to help develop a better blog as well as an easy way to send a newsletter to everyone. We have solicited volunteers from our co-sponsor, IBM Design, who have both a deep interest in the topic as well as the technical skills and experience necessary to develop the necessary tools.)
Our goal, of courses, is to develop a family of curricula, one that is relevant to the wide variety of existing design programs, but that also suggests new directions for design in terms of:
- The use of new technologies (especially using AI tools as co-designers)
- New domains of application, especially in addressing the pressing societal issues of our time
- Ensuring that curricula pay appropriate attention to serious ethical issues around the issues of Power, Privilege, and Ethical Responsibility. The field needs to address racial, class, and cultural prejudices. The world of design suffers from a monoculture which has disfranchised many other approaches, especially those of under-represented and indigenous people, hence the calls for “decolonization.”
- A basis in management. This has two goals. First is to encourage and enable more designers to move into positions of authority within their companies (ideally to the C-Suite as Chief Design Officers or CEO). Second is to recognize the deleterious impact of the current emphasis in business upon short-term profits and the viewing the monetary interests of shareholders above the interests of employees, customers, community, and the environment. The rise of Benefit Corporations and B Corps is intended to change this emphasis, but even traditionally companies can change if senior leadership demands it. Designers ought to be among the senior leaders.
We have established four subcommittees to help guide the curriculum efforts:
- Principles
- Value propositions that serve as lenses through which to interpret topics
- Topics
- Nameable, discrete areas of content knowledge
- Characteristics of Graduates
- General skills and attitudes important to success in practice
- Pedagogy: Curricular Principles:
- How curricula and pedagogy should behave / qualities of learning experiences
We intend to finish this work by October 8, which will then permit us to start the more detailed curricula development process. And here is where we will start calling upon the roughly 450 people who have volunteered to help.
Thanks for your interest. And Patience.
Don