Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-settings.php on line 516

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-settings.php on line 531

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-settings.php on line 538

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-settings.php on line 574

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-includes/cache.php on line 103

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-includes/query.php on line 61

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /nfs/c02/h09/mnt/27817/domains/iii.bobulate.com/html/wordpress/wp-includes/theme.php on line 1107

119
Bobulate » School Day 1.0
posted on
August 31, 2009
by Liz Danzico

School Day 1.0

spacer

Backpacks, notebooks, and leather shoes in need of a firm breaking-in; even if years are significant since the days when there was a purchase protocol for attending school, the metaphors for tradition are no less vivid.

More than 60 years ago, Silas Rhodes and Burne Hogarth founded the Cartoonists and Illustrators School with three faculty members and 35 students, creating a model whereby faculty were working professionals and courses were held at night. This model allowed students to work during the days, brushing up on professional skills if desired. By blurring boundaries between the profession and academia, the founders set pace for art education going forward. They, simply, started a tradition.

The school changed its name in 1956 to the School of Visual Arts, but the tradition remains unchanged. This blurring of the lines between profession and academia still holds true today — more than 60 years later, SVA is a multi-disciplinary institution with more than 900 faculty members predominantly still professionals in the field.

spacer
Incoming student Derek Chan studies the map (drawn by Jeff Kirsch) at orientation. Map courtesy of Kicker Studio.

Today, we added to this tradition the new MFA in Interaction Design program — a graduate-level program at the School of Visual Arts with 18 graduate students and 25 faculty members.

An article that will be published in the September issue of Interactions Magazine by Alex Wright (full disclosure: Alex is also on the faculty), reviews the following about the curriculum:

The SVA curriculum tries to give students a grounding in design fundamentals, while helping them cultivate the soft skills so often required in the modern workplace: strategic thinking, entrepreneurship, ethics, and communicating with clients. “Designers need to be rhetoricians, able to articulate the value of their work,” says Danzico. They must also be “improvisers” who can work with emerging paradigms like gesture, physical computing, and other still-emerging forms.

To that end, design is what we’ve come this far to do, and what we’ll carry forward after we leave. The pursuit of it involves unique skills crucial to shaping experiences and creating lasting value in our society.

I’m looking forward to watching this group build on their skills over the next couple of years — and our program both carrying forward a tradition and charting some new ones of our own.

Categories: Design, Education, Tradition | Responses

10 Responses

September 1st, 2009 | 9:04 am *
MFA Interaction Design, Day 1 – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report

[...] a beautiful post at Bobulate, Liz places the opening of the new program in the context of SVA’s [...]

September 1st, 2009 | 9:23 am *
Geoff Barnes

Hearty congratulations on the long-anticipated first day of this exciting new program, and best of luck to all its faculty, advisers, supporters and students!

I expect we’ll see great things from the offspring of this beast.

September 1st, 2009 | 9:38 am *
Gene

I enjoyed the ‘blurring of the lines’ speech and found it quite inspiring. So glad that SVA is and has been heading in this direction for so many years. This is what undergrad everywhere else should be like, learning and applying skills throughout the year instead of knowledge regurgitation when it comes to exams. Anyway, looking forward to the start of school!

September 1st, 2009 | 10:58 am *
Russ

Here’s to it!

September 1st, 2009 | 6:59 pm *
Adena DeMonte

Congrats on the opening of SVA’s Interaction Design program! I look forward to following the student work over the coming year, and learning more about the program as it comes to life.

September 4th, 2009 | 1:02 am *
Liz Danzico

Thanks @Geoff and @Adena. It’s been a busy time, and I look forward to seeing courses begin in earnest next week. @Russ and @Gene: Looking forward to getting started! Congratulations goes to the staff as well who’ve done a superstar job at working with me to put the program together this summer.

September 8th, 2009 | 12:49 pm *
Andy Polaine

Congratulations to you all. I’m at the same stage next week here in Switzerland. Eeek!

I have a banal question too: what’s on the wall that makes it a giant whiteboard?

September 8th, 2009 | 2:01 pm *
Liz Danzico

@Andy It’s IdeaPaint. Every white wall in the department is writeable. Good luck to you!

September 8th, 2009 | 7:31 pm *
Antoine Bonnin

Regarding the MFA, is it available for international students? It really sounds like the perfect Master’s program.

IdeaPaint is the best invention since the BIC pen :).

September 10th, 2009 | 6:35 am *
Liz Danzico

@Antoine Great to hear. The program is available for international students as well. Our current class is nearly 40% international in fact. You can find out more about international application guidelines here.

Leave a Response



gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.