designcareers

[designcareers]

Looking to apply this advice this Spring as an assistant professor!

Keys to Success in Academic Related Design Careers

Advice on how to achieve Success in Academic Related Design Careers:

After polling various experts in the field of academia for this assignment, I discovered that the advice my pattern drafting teacher shared with me as I struggled through my undergraduate experience still applies. Her advice to me was, “Focus on what you are good at, and what you are interested in. There are many opportunities in the field of design, and as long as you apply yourself, you will find them.”

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Few Facts and Advices: Tenure Track Jobs

Should I get a PhD after my MFA?

One of the topics that are worth knowing is MFA to PhD. I, personally, am intending to pursue a PhD degree for several reasons, even though MFA, in many countries consider as a terminal degree.  Most important reason is the fact that all universities (even within the U.S) preferred PhD over MFA. You can see that on job postings. Since MFA is, commonly, not equivalent to a terminal degree in many European and Asian countries, by earning a PhD the domain of your options will grows. I am very adventurous and so as my wife; therefore, having multiple option in different countries is something I personally am looking forward to it.

One of the faculty whom I interviewed, after earning her MFA, taught for three years. Wanting to learn more about research, to be fully armed with all the required knowledge, and to practice more research, she pursued her PhD. Therefore, it is a case of personal interest and one must consider things such as expenses and the time he or she going to spend in a graduate school again.

Some thoughts on job interview

Having a faculty, who is also a chairperson, talk about this part, I thought, was very interesting. In an interview, different topics will be asked based on the appointment, such as your interest in the position or about your teaching philosophy. The committee might ask you to talk about your research or ask you to talk about a project to group of students to see how you would interact with students.   Presentation, obviously, is very important and must be taken seriously.

What is important to remember is you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. You are trying to figure out if you fit in this place. It is a million-dollar commitment if someone stays there for the rest of their academic life. One of the questions you should ask the committee or the chair or people at the meeting is, “Is this a new line?” If it’s not, “Why is the line empty?” And if it’s because someone left, “When was the last time someone was tenured in this line?” These questions show how serious you are. If the line was empty for a long period of time, ask for the reason: “Can you identify reason(s)?”.

If you have applied at a public institution, then the budget is public; you can go to the library and ask for the budget and check the salaries. It might not include the names, but it will include the titles.  If you were offered the job, you will know how much they are offering for salary and compare that with what other people are making. If you were offered the position, and they offered you a number, tell them you’ll think about it. Call the next day and ask for three to five thousands dollar more. All they can say is no. You can send them back once for reconsideration; however, you cannot send them back twice.  And sometimes, they might have offered you more than what other people make, which might result in other people getting mad at you.

Other questions that you might want to ask are: “Are there startup funds? And what can it be used for? Are there any moving expense reimbursements? What about the benefits? Is there an HR package that you could show? What about retirement plan?”

Some of these questions can be asked during a lunch while you are on campus; it doesn’t have to be all asked at the interview. Another thing you can ask is, “How is it living in this city?” If you have children, you might want to ask some questions about the schools. It is worth mentioning that the interviewee cannot ask about your marriage status or whether or not you have children, but as an applicant, you can bring it up. Once you mention it, they can ask further questions. If you want your spouse to have a job, you may want to ask whether or not they have spousal hires. And if they do, they might ask about some details regarding your spouse’s area of scholarship.

Other advices about this journey

One of the faculty shared her story of moving to different states for different positions and said that it is very important to know yourself—find out how far you want to go, who you want to be, and know what you want. She also mentioned “geography really matters.” And if there is a part of the country that is important to you and for your recreation, think about staying in those parts.  She continued, “Don’t be afraid to fail.” Don’t keep your mind busy with the negative thoughts. And finally, make a balance between your work load and your personal life; make some priorities in your personal life.

Another faculty who is international had a few advices for international graduate students, which I thought were very appropriate, since I am an international student. If you are married and you are the only person in the family who speaks the local language, then you will have to spend more time with your family than ever, because they will need you more than ever. And during tenure tracking, it becomes difficult to manage your time. Spending more time on your private life while you need to perform your tasks with the best quality you can offer can make life a little complicated. He also mentioned that this job is all about collaboration with people and relationship between people; you will help them and they will help you. And don’t forget, you must keep smiling.

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Some of the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Tenured Position

Tenure Track and Tenured Faculty

A faculty member who is in a Tenure Track (TT) appointment seeks Tenure and holds an assistant professor title. The TT faculty must go through six to seven years of probation, during which they must actively teach, publish research (based on what the applicant was hired to teach), and participate in the departmental service.  This scope might change based on the university, but it is the case for most research universities.

 “Tenured, universally across the United States, means that you are guaranteed a teaching position for the rest of your academic career with some exceptions. You have to obviously continue to perform. You have to do your job, do the best of your ability. You have to continue to do scholarly work. You have to meet your classes, work with your students, and continue to be a good university citizen.”[1] The candidate will get the title of Associate Professor or Professor once the Tenure contract is signed.

There are also ways that one can lose a tenured position, such as breaking the law, or if your program is eliminated from the university, your position can be eliminated as well. But in the case of program elimination, the university administration will try to find a teaching position for the candidate. 

Advantages and Benefits

Freedom Tenured position supports the ability of faculty to speak freely without any fear of losing their position. The position completely supports your academic freedom and your freedom within the context of what your curriculum calls for you to teach, as long as you follow the content requirements. Freedom in research, teaching, publication, and learning are all indispensable to the main objectives of university.[2]

Sense of ownership Tenured faculty are considered as intellectual leaders of the university, as they are able to offer expertise, stability, and direction to the curriculum. Tenured faculty are motivated by a pride in their profession, a sense of responsibility, and recognition that they are the real "owners" of the college.[3] Although, this could result as a disadvantage which I will talk about it later.

Job safety One of the most important advantages of this contract is the stability of employment. The assurance of career continuity can influence the faculty’s commitment to teach, conduct research, and provide high quality service.

Other advantages If you compare tenured position to a position at a corporation, we can say tenured faculty have more flexible time which adds to their freedom. Seeing students, other faculty, and staff while walking around the campus is an opportunity that faculty experience while they are at work. It is worth mentioning that usually summer offers a break for the tenured faculty, which allows them to continue with their research.

Changing the University

If a tenured faculty wants, after some time, to change the school in which he or she teaches, he or she can maintain as a tenured faculty in the new school. But this is not the case for those on the tenure track: Their case will depend on the new school, but commonly, they must start from the beginning.

Disadvantages

The harsh process

The first thing I would like to address here is the process of getting tenured, or the TT position. As the TT faculty go through six to seven years of probationary work, their process will be reviewed annually by two different groups: those who are experts in the field and the reviewers who are not familiar with the field.  Upon completion of the review, at the end of each year, you will receive further instructions of whether or not you, as a TT, should continue what you are doing. It has been pointed out several times by the people who have been through this that it is a vague process, very stressful, and chaotic. The scope of work for a tenure tracker is the same:

Teaching

It depends on many factors how many classes you will teach, especially if you are still a tenure tracker. Teaching typically includes the following: preparing syllabi for your course(s) that follows the curriculum, preparing the course material, meeting the classes, preparing the examination, grading, and office hours. Depending on the course that you are teaching, the number of your students, and the program, an instructor might get a teaching assistant.  

    Research

In the context of research, you have to figure out what kind of journals would be the best for you to publish your work, which conferences are the best to participate, and how much of publication and participation would be enough.

  Departmental services

You will have limited amount of service work, 10 percent for instance. Departmental services include participation in various faculty committees, students advising, etc.

 It would be very difficult to manage your time so that you have enough to perform all the expected tasks. And let us not forget about personal life, especially if you are married and have children.[4]

  Other concerns

A faculty might rely on summer to perform his/her research, especially during tenure tracking. Summer time is the vacation that faculties get, and it is commonly unpaid. Therefore, you will end up working for free. And sometimes for TTs, it could affect their annual performance evaluation to their disadvantage.[5]

The Chronicle of Higher Education, on July 4, 2010, published an article about elimination of tenure position. I have selected a direct quote from this article that you can find below:

“Cathy Trower, a senior research associate at Harvard University who has studied tenure for about a dozen years at the institution's Graduate School of Education, says tenure's harsh up-or-out system—and the escalating demands for research and publication at the nation's top universities—is actually driving away talented young people. ‘More and more men and women are saying, I don't want to be on that fast track,’ says Ms. Trower, who has studied 11,000 tenure-track professors at the nation's research universities. ‘Many are saying, this system is broken, I don't want it.’

Only 70 percent of the tenure-track professors Ms. Trower studied at research institutions said they would choose to work at their universities if they had it to do over again. Another study, this one of Ph.D. students at the University of California that was published last year, showed that the proportion of men who said they were interested in faculty jobs at research institutions dropped from 45 percent when they first enrolled in graduate school to 39 percent later in their graduate-school careers. The proportion of women dropped from 36 percent to 27 percent.”[6]

[1] Interview with the Chair of interior design department.

[2] http://www.cc.gatech.edu/grads/p/Jon.Preston/3020/proj-advdis.html

[3] Cotter, W. R. (1996). Why tenure works. Academe, 26-29.

[4] From an interview with a newly tenured faculty.

[5] From an interview with a tenured faculty

[6] From http://chronicle.com/article/Tenure-RIP/66114/

[designcareers]

The Education of an Educator

This post is part 2 of 2. If you’re interested in reading about design research in the corporate sector, check out my post, Design Research and the Corporate Sector.

  Many of the folks who enter our grad program are MFA candidates with their sites set on a tenure-track faculty position. Fortunately, we have a great pedagogy sequence that prepares students for that journey. We also have access to a strong faculty that complements the pedagogy material with a diverse range of experience. Eric Ligon, a 20-year teaching veteran, and associate dean for academic and student affairs in UNT’s college of art and design is one of those people.

I’ve known Eric for years and he’s always offered sound and insightful advice. Some of the advice he’s offered since I’ve been in grad school has helped to shape my trajectory through the program. I’d like to share some key thoughts that I think would be helpful to anyone considering a teaching career.

  Keep your head down

As with any job, politics abound in academia. As a new assistant professor, it’s wise to be mindful of your position—you have much to prove. It’s likely that you won’t be in a position to make any significant changes to the program you’re teaching in, so watch and learn from your peers who have tenure, and focus on your research.

  Volunteer

University service is a component that’s required for tenure, so it’s probably a good idea to volunteer for things as they arise. In Eric’s case, he volunteered for everything, which led to a position as communication design program coordinator, and eventually his current position as associate dean for academic and student affairs. I’ll finish this off with two words. Work ethic.

  Join a strong team

When applying for, or deciding on a tenure position, consider the backgrounds, philosophies, affiliations, and talent of the faculty you’ll be working with. Taking a tenure track position is sort of like marrying into a family, so think long and hard about your choice. The quality of the faculty you choose to work alongside of can drastically influence the level of student work that goes into your teaching portfolio—something to consider if there’s ever a chance that you’ll change jobs.

Finally, remember that teaching isn’t a job that just anyone can do. Being able to teach is a gift, and it comes with incredible responsibility.

Resources

Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year

The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination

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Design Research and the Corporate Sector

This post is part 1 of 2. If you’re interested in reading about a career in academia, check out my post, The Education of an Educator.

  My decision to go to grad school spurred from my desire to make a difference in people’s lives. Naturally, that translated into teaching—partly because I enjoyed it, but also because I had no knowledge of human-centered or participatory approaches to design or what that even meant before beginning the applied design research program at UNT. Design research opened a whole new world of possibilities and a different way of thinking about how I could make a difference in people’s lives. I had already been familiar with firms like Frog and IDEO that utilize design research for their clients, but I was amazed at the number of corporations employing design research in house.

  To gain a better perspective on how design research is applied in the corporate sector, I interviewed Jan Moorman and Jon Kolko. Jan is an experienced UX design researcher who has most recently worked for Projekt202 in Austin and is now running her own consulting business in San Francisco. Jon, has taught at SCAD, has served as creative director at Frog, and now teaches design research at his privately run school, Austin Center for Design, in Austin, TX. I asked Jan and Jon a series of questions regarding design research as it pertains to their fields in the corporate sector. Their insights to those questions are provided below.

  What was the educational and professional trajectory that led you to the point of your career that you’re at now?

Jan: Began in fine art doing technical illustration by way of pre med. She shifted her focus away from pre med to technical illustration because of her desire to explain to people rather than do to them—a desire of empathy and connecting and communicating with people that would be the central focus of her career. From there she moved into the field of data visualization, and then into the software industry where she has been since 2000 working as a solutions architect for business analysis and then design researcher.

  Jon: Studied industrial design and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He’s taught interaction and industrial design at SCAD, has held leadership roles at Frog, and currently holds dual roles as vice president of design at MyEdu and founder of AC4D.

      How do you see design research evolving?

Jan: Time did not permit Jan to answer this question

Jon: Not entirely sure it is changing. Traditional education has been calling for change for a while, while programs like those at CMU, Cincinnatti, and IIT have been teaching a research-driven process from the very beginning. So what does that mean? Only a fraction of the students who are graduating every year can operate design in the way that companies like Frog and IDEO, or creative directors like Kolko are looking for. The others know how to make beautiful brochures, or potato peelers. There’s a massive gulf between the two programs and graduating classes. “What’s becoming more evident is that there are 2 groups, and so they’re splitting”.

  What advice do you have for someone entering the field of design research? Generalist vs. specialist

Jan: If you plan to go into an agency, them it may be best to generalize, but it’s probably better to specialize if you’re going to contract your services. Typically, contract work is a good option for inexperienced design researchers such as recent grads.

  Jon: Make sure you have the skills to do what you want/need to do to improve the world around you. If you don’t know what you want to do then there’s a problem because you now have a process (design research) that will allow you to do anything. Decide what you want to do and what your place in the world should be, then find the job that will let you do that. There’s never going to be a company that is going to offer that perfect job. You have to follow the paths you need to take in order to live and work the life you want. In terms of generalist vs. specialist, Jon sums up his thoughts well…

I know what I’m teaching and I know what I hire, and it’s someone who has a cohesive end-to-end process that I can fill in anywhere in the story. I can have you do design research, I can have you do evaluative user testing, stand in front of the client and present, whatever the case is, you can do it.”

Jon’s article on the Conflicting Rhetoric of Design Education speaks to the generalist/specialist split as it applies to academia. 

To conclude

One of the big takeaways for me is that both Jan and Jon both suggest that it’s an interesting time to work in-house for corporations that employ design researchers. According to Jon, the companies that hire the work out are those with a lot of money but no competencies to do the work themselves. Savvy companies like Nike and Apple, for example, are taking the work in-house. Whether you plan to go in-house or work at a design firm, you will obviously want to do your homework on the type of work you’ll be doing. Some design firms are abstract-based firms—meaning that the sexy, pie in the sky work you see on their websites typically do not ever see the light of day. Some firms take a more pragmatic approach. In terms of in-house, think about the sector of business the corporation is in and where you would be the most happy doing the same work day in and day out—medical, finance, technology, education, etc…

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Searching for the Round Peg

As I reflect on the last 10 years of my life and examine the trajectory that my professional career has taken, I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. 10 years ago, however, I would have questioned my current position—an MFA candidate in applied design research, residing in the gray area between a career in academia and one in the corporate sector. And I’m OK with that. But that hasn’t always been the case. I’m sharing my story here for those who are considering the grad program in design research, or for those in the program who may be wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into.

In 2004 I earned a BFA in communication design, and began my career in advertising shortly thereafter. My first official advertising job out of college was for a small agency that focused on B-to-B advertising. At first, it was as exciting as I had imagined, but it soon became just like any other job, and after two and a half short years I found myself laid off and broke—the agency simultaneously lost a large existing client along with a rather important pitch for new business; both of which I had nothing to do with. I didn’t know it at the time, but my eventual distaste for the industry stemmed from this first experience.

I spent the next few years in search of the perfect job at the perfect agency, thinking the next one would be better than its predecessor. In the end, every job had one thing in common—they all sucked. For years I thought that I just had not found the right fit in an agency, but one day I realized that I was trying to force a square peg into a round hole. The problem wasn’t the agencies, it was me. I wasn’t a good fit for them but they were getting blamed for it. That realization initiated some serious soul searching. While working at what was then my last agency job, I began to accept more freelance work. Freelancing for my own clients made me realize two things: I loved my craft, but I hated working in an agency. I realized that, in an agency, I was wasting my time doing empty work that lacked substance and meaning. I wanted more. But most importantly, I wanted out. But where would I go?

In 2010 I took an adjunct position at a local community college and fell in love with teaching. After teaching for a year, I knew what I had to do. In 2011 I enrolled in the applied design research MFA program at UNT—it was a means to an end. Teaching would provide the meaning I had been searching for. Or would it? After discovering design research, I was hooked. So now what? I enjoy teaching, but I also enjoy design research. Sure, I can do research in a tenure track position, but companies like IDEO and Frog make corporate sector look very appealing.

This semester, in University Citizenship, I had an opportunity to investigate and compare academia to private sector by interviewing Eric Ligon, a 20-year educator at UNT, as well as Jon Kolko and Jan Moorman—who have both held design research roles in the private sector. The perspectives gained through the interviews—which are referenced XX and XX—have led me to the conclusion that I would be happy in either a teaching or research role and that I need to remain open to options within each field.

My experience in grad school has taught me that life has a way of taking you where you need to go whether you’re aware of it or not, so I’ve learned to just enjoy the discoveries I make along the way. Most of all, I feel as though I am finally doing something with my life that actually has meaning. I guess it would be safe to say that I’ve found that elusive round peg within these lessons.

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Blurred Lines between Design Research and Design Education

He also spoke about the importance of teaching the ‘designerly way of thinking’ in higher education, he states, “The designerly ways of thinking through a processes […] the design research curriculum toolset and skills have not caught up with in the curriculum to help industrial, graphic design and architectural studios. When they move into a corporate setting that weakness comes to light and they are dismissed because of the quantitative chops to win arguments.” This was a common theme that ran through my interviews with Meredith Davis and Mr. Rhea.

Meredith Davis states, “Schools have to work with practice, not just to meet the employment qualifications for entry-level designers but to decide where to move the profession. This is a new relationship between schools and industry and we have to learn how to manage that relationship.”

“It was contentious the idea that we would include the users perspective in design, it was repulsive by those who taught design,” Darrel Rhea mentions he has many clients who own design studios that call him and ask who can we hire that has this experience. The clients are asking for design researchers and the industry needs to be able to hire people with the skills sets to deliver.

Because of the changes in the field of design education I had asked Meredith Davis, When you are looking at an applicant to hire as a design faculty member, How does their research affect your hiring decision? She said, “My practice […] has always been to hire the smartest, most interesting person in the applicant pool, rather than someone who represents a pre-determined skill set or teaches a specific course. There is no guarantee that the field will sustain interest in the skill or that the course will continue. We've always been able to invent ways to cover immediate needs. But if you build a group of faculty who are very intelligent and open-minded, who really understand design inquiry and have insight about a rapidly changing context in practice and education, you can do good things together.”

As Darrel Rhea said, “An architect can stand and say ‘I designed that building’ but wouldn’t it be better to have them say ‘I helped design that building for the people that live in it.”’

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To PhD or Not to PhD, That is My Question

While continuing this work into my second semester I started to think about getting my Ph.D. I spoke with my graduate advisor, Professor Gibson, about the possibilities of exploring a Ph.D. for design research. He mentioned some schools such as Carnegie Mellon School of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan. I started to read about the different programs in the United States, however I was wondering, why should I get my Ph.D? I needed to do more research.

When I was asked to interview some people in our industry as a class assignment, Meredith Davis was one of the first people I added to my list. She is the Director of Graduate Programs in Graphic Design at North Carolina State University, a research number one university. I was curious to hear her perspective on getting a Ph.D. and how she get to the point where she is in her career? She said, “I've gotten to where I am today, wherever that is, by doing the work and by following through in articulating outcomes in publications and presentations. There is an arc to any research project, teaching, and professional engagement. If you don't complete that arc, the work won't have lasting impact. Parts of that arc aren't fun or showy, but if you skip those parts you'll never really understand the problem. I'm willing to plow through the rough stuff in the face of other shiny objects in the room. That is a long-term strategy and if you want to sustain work in this field you have to be willing to do that.”

I was curious, what her advice would be for someone like me entering her field? She states, “I think people entering academic careers today are smart to consider doctoral degrees. […] My biggest concern for beginning researchers is to take on things worth doing. Too many things I see in graduate work (master's and doctoral) are self-indulgent projects about personal perspectives on inconsequential issues or about counting and measuring things for the sake of counting and measuring. Design research is young, and unlike some established fields, there is no shortfall of important issues about which to build knowledge. So when graduate students waste their time on things that don't matter in the larger picture or don't do their homework to find that a problem has already been addressed by someone else, it is a tragic loss of opportunity.”

I know I want to work on my Ph.D. and hearing this feedback from Mrs. Davis and from other interviews within our class has helped me decide that route, however it cannot be a waste of time.

[designcareers]

The First Day Flu

I had been nervous and a bit anxious about the idea of teaching. I was not only nervous about meeting the expectations I had set for myself, but that of my advisors and students. When I would share this with the fellow graduate students they were kind in offering their advice and I often heard, ‘make sure you set the tone on the first day.’ I was ready, I had prepared my lectures for the first three weeks and, with my nerves in tow, I was ready to get started.

The week before classes started the youngest of my three children got the flu and slowly but surely all five of us were sick. I knew I would not be able to teach on the first day of class. I felt awful telling my advising professor, however I wanted to make sure they had enough time to plan if the class needed to be canceled or if someone would need to cover the class. I was so happy to hear someone was able to help, however I felt really bad when I heard it was the head of the design department, as if he weren’t busy enough!

I was determined to be at the second class and set the tone for the semester. When I walked in on the second day of class I saw many nervous faces, however I proceeded to introduce myself and talk about the class, what they should expect to learn and introduced some of the projects we will be working on.  When the class was close to being over I asked a simple question, “How did the first day go?” It was like a waterspout had been turned on and there was no turning it off.

As professor Lang mentions in his book, I should have kept a log of the things I learned and how those things shaped how I taught future lessons from this semester, however I know they will carry forward with me into my other classes. Professor Lang, was very forthright in his book about the two different first day of class experiences he had from the Fall to Spring semesters. He was able to create a more relaxing environment rather than the stressful first day he had in the Fall. He states in his book, “I also just feel more comfortable in the classroom, slightly less anxious about the possibility that things will go horribly wrong. That comfort level allows me to relax in the classroom, to joke around a little bit, and to banter more easily with the students.” (page 101)

I relaxed as the semester went on and started to really enjoy the experience of teaching. It was rewarding to see a student excel at a project they had been unsure of at first and exceed what they thought they could accomplish. I'm sure I'll have nerves walking into the first day of the class I teach next semester, however I know I’m not the only one.

Lisa Mercer

[designcareers]

Design Lifestyle

and have inspired me to be a similar example. When thinking of who to ask about the “evolving landscape of design education, research, and practice,” talking to an old professor was at the top of my list.

I was able to set up an interview with Jason Otero, the Principle of Art + Anthropology based out of New York. He has been working in private practice since 1994 and started teaching in 2003. My first interaction with Jason was in a Visual Language class that was basically an introduction course to Graphic Design. Within the first month, he gave several talks about the importance of the design field and that it’s not just a job choice or career path but a lifestyle. He instilled a passion to not just do design but to be design. So it came as no surprise that most of his comments and feedback from the interview were in the same vein.

When I asked him about his journey of how his past got him to where he is now, he was quick to say, “The first years as a designer are the most critical. Like when you are a baby, they help develop who you become as a designer and give you a foundation.” His experience was with two small businesses, which exposed him to how resourceful a small business can be and ultimately needs to be. His experience includes working for several small firms, large firms, and then eventually starting his own company. But he made it clear that those first years really set you up for what you will do down the road.

When asked about any advice he had for someone like me who is almost done with their MFA, he said, “Harness what you’re curious about, then go on your journey and see how design channels through that.” He explained that design is an extension of who he is and is a vehicle for what he does. “I design because it’s the channel by which I educate.” His comments made me realize how important it is to not lose yourself to design, but to challenge it, explore it, and wrestle with it. It’s not something that overthrows you, but something that enables you to express your true self.

His response to how the he thinks the design field is evolving instantly addressed how much design is changing. He said, “The world has changed since I graduated in 1975. We’re not just designing for a website; we’re designing for a site that lives on a certain device, that is accessed in a different environment. We’re designing for the context.” This response put a lot of things into perspective and made me think about the accountability aspect of design that I discussed in my previous post (found here). In a world where software and hardware are changing the field of design so rapidly, the role a designer plays is ever-evolving. We are held responsible for keeping up with the changes and innovations, but how do you keep up? The interview came full circle with his response about always staying true to yourself and the role design plays for you, not the role you play for design.

These interviews provided a direct insight to the professional world and gave me great examples of the different paths I could take. When design is approached as a lifestyle and not merely a means to an end, it catapults you into situations and opportunities unimaginable, all the while maintaining who you are as an educator, designer, and researcher.

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Design Accountability

returning to private practice. So I took advantage of the opportunity to interview my advisor from my undergraduate alma mater with hopes of getting to know her story and learning from her experiences.

Lisa Abendroth is a tenured Professor and Coordinator of the Communication Design program at the Metropolitan State University of Denver where her research embodies community-centered, public interest design that is focused on issues of social equity towards marginalized audiences. When I was in her Community-Based Design class, we were presented with the challenge of discovering a community-based need that was relative to our own community and explore how design could help improve the situation. I believe this to be my first exposure to design research (even if I didn’t know it at the time) and where a spark for making connections with others through design was ignited. Lisa has always been extremely supportive of my graduate studies pursuit and it was only fitting to interview her for this project.

The interview consisted of three basic questions: How did your professional and educational background bring you to this point in your career? What advice do you have for someone like me entering your field? And, how do you see your field evolving? Lisa’s experiences were pretty standard in terms of obtaining a BFA and then moving onto to graduate school. However, the idea of teaching was something that fell into her lap towards the end of her graduate experience. She mentioned that her goal for design has always been to make an impact and create change in society, which directly informed her answer to how she sees the field evolving.

“I’m actually more concerned with how the field is de-evolving,” she said in response. She further explained how designers are not being held responsible for the things they are creating: “We have no infrastructure in our field that requires accountability.” She went on to say that she hopes that the field will start creating and looking into metrics and systems of measuring responsibility, effectiveness, and sustainability.

Her thoughts on this took me a bit by surprise: In the midst of new technology, streamlined communication, and constant “progression,” the idea of how things are not developing isn’t always talked about. Although it may not be common, I do feel it’s imperative. Being able to look at a given situation, field, or scenario and be reflexive and critical about what is really going on is what breaks boundaries and really moves things forward in a responsible way. So often designers can get caught up in the aesthetic appeal and final outcome and miss out on the opportunity to truly change behavior and improve social situations. But even those scenarios need to be carefully examined and accounted for.

Being able to have such a casual and open conversation with someone who has been in the field and pushing boundaries for over twenty years was infectious and exciting. It helped me see that, even though my graduate experience is winding down with my final year coming up, this is really just the beginning of my design career. It made me want to explore the value and capabilities that design has to offer and keep the conversation of accountability moving forward. 

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Preparing to be a University Citizen

opportunities. You hit the ground running and don’t really have a chance to stop and actually consider—let alone prepare—for the actual goal of finding that ideal tenure-track academic job. Surviving graduate school and managing to be proud of your work tend to take precedence rather than being able to capture and articulate all of your experiences in a two-page teaching philosophy essay. However, I am lucky enough to be a part of a program that places great value not only on teaching us and guiding us through new principles and knowledge but also on preparing us to embark on the academic job search.

Being able to take this course called University Citizenship during my fourth semester in graduate school allowed me to slow down and really consider why I enrolled in graduate school in the first place: to teach communication design at the collegiate level. Our instructor, Clinton Carlson, began the semester by saying in the past the class was focused on figuring out where you wanted to be as an instructor, but he wanted to focus on who we wanted to be. This shift in agenda really opened my eyes to what I was working toward. It’s not just about getting the grade or scholarship. It’s about being able to take every experience (as exciting, hard, or terrifying as they may be) and learning from them, applying them, and taking them with you as you move through the program and onto the job search.

The class provided an open, candid, and honest environment for us all to express our fears, frustrations, uncertainties, and excitements. We were able to ask questions freely and come together as a group that was headed in the same direction. The peer interactions were a huge benefit to the class but, most importantly, were the readings that were assigned. We read parts or all of Life on the Tenure Track by James M. Lang, What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain, The Call of Stories by Robert Coles, High Impact Learning by Jim Knight, and The Education of a Graphic Designer by Mike Kuniavsky.  Each of these books provided a slightly different perspective on what to expect from the academic world, personal struggles and victories, and helpful methods and tools to take with us on our journey.

Not only was the course highly reflexive, we also went through a logical progression of projects and lessons. We started with exploring tenure-track jobs, then on to teaching, then research, service, and finally, design education. The course was broken into each component of what a tenure-track position would entail and gave us a good sense of what can be expected from life after graduation.

Although it may sound cheesy, I truly feel lucky to have been able to go through this course at the time I did. I still have one year left in graduate school where I’ll finish my thesis, continue to student teach, and throw myself into the pool of fire that is the academic job search. I feel as if I’ve been given a leg up on the competition. Not that this class will make me any better than any other candidate, but it will make me more confident, self-assured, and excited to take on the task. This is all because I’m just slightly more aware of what to expect than I was before I took the class. Instead of being nervous, anxious and insecure about putting myself out there, I feel excited and ready to fine-tune all of my materials so that they really capture my voice, accomplishments, and desires. This class has freed me up to just be me and eventually be a university citizen. 

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Gunnar Swanson on Design in Academia

Clinton Carlson and I met Gunnar Swanson in a favorite restaurant from my childhood, Parker’s Barbecue in Greenville, NC, for lunch and interviews for this project.

How did Gunnar get to where he is?

I was actually very interested in how he ended up at a smaller college in eastern NC because I have personally had a strange path that led me to design and design research. In college, he took classes that interested him instead of following a degree plan. This led him first to photography and finally to an art history degree. Once he graduated and realized he would be doing other people’s work, he went back to photography. Without much of a portfolio he hustled whatever he could. Repeatedly running into people who wanted him to shoot an ad but who didn’t know what the ad would look like, he offered to shoot and design the ads. When they didn’t know what it would say, he wrote it for him. Eventually he realized he was doing everything an ad agency would be doing other than making money, so he declared himself an agency.

After about a decade of being on his own or working for corporations doing design and advertising he decided to go back to school to get his MFA in design, partly because he had already been doing some teaching and partly because he just wanted to do something else. He taught in and around Los Angeles for a while after graduating with his MFA, then moved to Duluth, MN, where he ran their graphic design program. He moved back to California and taught there for a few years as well as worked professionally. Eventually, he found an offer at ECU that seemed to fit his personality and he and his wife moved to North Carolina.

What is Design Research for Gunnar?

They do teach design research in the graphic design program at ECU. In Gunnar’s words:  There are things you need to know, and when you discover you need to know things you need to find out! That is design research. He personally identifies more with the humanities than with physical or social science research methods and he feels that the humanities are more comfortable with his writing and research styles. He enjoys and produces analytical writings, but admits he doesn’t do much in the realm of what those fields would probably call “research”. He does not do the qualitative vs. quantitative research methods per se, because he is much more likely to simply observe the world and analyze those observations in his writings, working from his own perspectives and his own intuitions about those observed situations. He writes about these things, he says, to figure out what he thinks about them. It is the mechanism by which he lays out and understands the nuances of his own thoughts about different aspects of design and academia.

On research in general:

Find something that interests you. Study it. Find out what is actually interesting and uninteresting about it. Figure out what may be unresolved about the interesting parts. If you keep doing that, after a while you find yourself with a research question or agenda. He also offers that Design Research is often finding a way of method and not following a train of thought, using the tools available to you and that are comfortable to you – but he admits that in doing that you can accidentally avoid important information because it doesn’t fit in your method or work with the tools you have. While he does not think you should align with one idea or method to the detriment of others, it can also be just as silly to not take a side sometimes. You must be open-minded but still have opinions that you know, understand and voice.

Gunnar’s s advice to undergraduates and graduates in general:

Don’t know what you want to do when your 17. Go to school, take whatever you’re interested in – I took welding, physics and ballet one semester! If he discovered he wasn’t going to “get it” in two weeks, he quit the class. If he got what he wanted out of it in 8 weeks and wasn’t going to get any more, he quit the class.

He also says that any advice he gives to students is hopefully the advice that is needed and is based on his experience and intuition about that student, just like his research methods.

Be interested in everything.

He wishes this was something he could teach as a class to every student in design. He wishes he knew how to teach people to see that the entire world is really fascinating.

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Whitney Quesenbery, Participatory Design Professional

Whitney Quesenbery: Presentation at the 4th Annual Symposium on Communication Complex Information at East Carolina University.

  In order to create those robust and complicated, technologically-based systems, a researcher must attempt to meet the needs of as many different types of users as possible. To do that user personas with greater depth than demographic data points are needed. Personas are archetypal users – they occupy certain positions in the design process and must change, develop and adjust as the design process moves and grows forward.

  From a broad range of persona and user testing experiences, Quesenbery came to nine concepts that outline needed principles in accessible user interaction designs for technology based systems:

People first

Clear purpose

Solid structure

Easy interaction

Helpful wayfinding

Clean presentation

Plain language

Accessible media

Universal usability

  For this presentation on her work within voting accessibility and technology, Quesenbery utilized Stewart Brand’s pace layering visualization to discuss how deeper societal issues are affected by the accessibility of technology based solutions to different problems. Brand’s layers, from slowest to quickest reactivity to change, are: nature, culture, governance, infrastructure, commerce, and fashion.

   Brand’s Layers

  Quesenbery’s layers relate more to how we as societies react to change and are labeled as: nature, standards/regulations/laws, attitudes/cultures, teams/work, habits, and technology. In order to affect deeper layers of society, technology must be usable, accessible, flexible, secure, auditable, affordable, and robust.

   Quesenbery’s Layers

    All those layers combine to create technological systems in which people can place confidence and then incorporate into their lives, jobs, and systems of governance – like new voting procedures.  It allows for the buffering layers of technology and habits to lessen the disruption to attitudes and standards.

  Personas with deep background that reference not just their basic information but also include information based deeper in the layers help to navigate complicated systems through the eyes of a user before testing and allow for functional examples to be offered to subjects when “real user” testing is finally appropriate. If the intended users of an artifact have attitudes and function with a system of regulations, so should the personas. It prevents future complications of unexpected needs or preferences and provides more usable artifacts for participatory design sessions, which have a greater likelihood of resulting in final artifact results that are real solutions to the initial problem or questions proposed by the researcher.

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Keys to Success in Academic Related Design Careers

Advice on how to achieve Success in Academic Related Design Careers:

After polling various experts in the field of academia for this assignment, I discovered that the advice my pattern drafting teacher shared with me as I struggled through my undergraduate experience still applies. Her advice to me was, “Focus on what you are good at, and what you are interested in. There are many opportunities in the field of design, and as long as you apply yourself, you will find them.”

 Her message echoed similar insights shared with me by my fashion illustration teacher, Bina Abling, who urged all her students to “Focus on what you are passionate about”, although she warned, “Not matter what, your work may one day become a chore. Therefore, be sure that you are working in what you love, so that no matter what happens, you can always return to that passion, your center.”

Reiterating this idea, Concordia University faculty member Valerie Lamontagne suggested that one should seek out information, and learn about adjacent fields.

“Know your personality and what drives your.” In other words, hone your specializations, maximize those things you are passionate about.

“Build upon your own skills and interests.” It is not necessary to be the top expert, but never stop developing and refining your skillset.

With regards to positioning oneself, or perhaps key to finding the right fit within academia, Marian O’Rourke Kaplan, Associate Professor of Fashion Design at UNT, suggested:

“Capitalize on your industry experience, it will make you more marketable, and more relevant to students.”Compare your “personality” to that of the program to which you are applying, and ask yourself, “Would I be a good fit?”

These comments suggest that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution, but that it becomes important to know oneself, and commit to personal growth.

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Research vs. Teaching vs. Professional Practice: Evaluating Benefits and Responsibilities

This article was written in response to the debate over whether to pursue academia post graduate school (either with a teaching focus or research focus), or to return to professional practice, utilizing feedback from academic professionals and experts in the fields of fashion design, design research, and wearable technology.

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Next steps: To PhD or not to PhD: Evaluating the value of further studies

This article is geared toward other students who, like myself, may be pondering their next steps, and trying to determine what skills may be required to be competitive for those positions.

Some of the feedback that I gathered while interviewing academic professionals on the topic of a PhD suggested:

“Don’t go into debt for a PhD. Instead, leverage your skills and pursue a program where you can get fully funded.”

According to Marian O’Rourke-Kaplan, Associate Professor of Fashion Design at the University of North Texas, PhD requirements may be influenced by the quality of the talent pool applying for those positions, stating that, “It often ends up becoming a game of numbers.”

Perhaps, there may be an opportunity to leverage one’s MFA in the pursuit of a position within a tier one university. O’Rourke Kaplan shared a story about a former UNT MFA graduate was accepted into a tenure track position at N.C. State. Despite their original call for a PhD candidate, this candidate was able to utilize her MFA as the equivalent to a terminal degree.