Event

Matters of Art & Design Education (MADE)

Register at https://made2018.eventbrite.com

The study and teaching of design-related skills is a growing area of interest within higher education. News stories like the recent Chronicle of Higher Education article “Can Design Thinking Redesign Higher Ed?” represent an example of broader interest.

The College of Arts & Architecture has a rich history of scholarship and teaching within design disciplines. Architecture, landscape architecture, graphic design within the Stuckeman School are all established design programs. School of Theater’s Design and Technology and the School of Visual Arts’ Interdisciplinary Digital Studio programs are design-focused degrees. The School of Visual Arts also leads an online degree through World Campus called Digital Multimedia Design (DMD) as a coordinated interdisciplinary collaboration with College of Information Sciences & Technology and College of Communications.

Beyond the established degree programs within the College of Arts & Architecture, there are a confluence of initiatives that make matters of art and design education of particular importance at Penn State,

  • As a major research university, design is an important aspect of many degree programs across campus including engineering, IST, and business to name a few.
  • Over the last 3 years there has been a lot more attention on design and digital fabrication across the curriculum including a Maker Commons at the Penn State library and a TLT fellowship that sponsored six faculty from architecture, visual arts, and engineering to develop a general education class called Making for the Masses
  • The College of Arts & Architecture has a strong and growing research centers including the Art & Design Research Incubator and the Center for Pedagogy in Art & Design
  • Penn State is in the midst of a major overhaul of the general education requirements that includes a requirement for up to 6 credits of integrative studies coursework that draws from multiple disciplines

These emerging opportunities draw attention to the dynamism of our curricular innovations and set the stage for a robust conversation about the future of design as a discipline and focus of interdisciplinary education both here at Penn State and on a national stage.

Themes important to the symposium will focus on design as an interdisciplinary set of methodologies in formal and informal modes of learning that center on project-based inquiry with a deep investment in making. Making is defined as conceptual and material exploration invested in process inquiry to invent, design, and fabricate. Leveraging the expanded capacity to make through forms of digital fabrication and attentive to the implications of an engaged scholarship of design important to the educational identity of Penn State are important opportunities for our gathering.

Thematic threads of the symposium will include design for all, maker culture, universal design, cultural preservation, ecological sustainability, spatial literacy, social practice and participatory frameworks. The broader goal is to promote interdisciplinary teaching and innovative thinking in line with College priorities and to speculate on the future of design at Penn State and beyond.

View the full program schedule at http://sites.psu.edu/made2018/program/

  • SPONSORS
    • ADRI
    • College of Arts & Architecture
    • KEYNOTES
      • Robin Vande Zande
      • Michael Gayk

Register at https://made2018.eventbrite.com