Concept Models
Balance::Institution
Connections::Cooperation
Connections::Communication
Divisions::Pedagogy
Core::Depth
Partners::Interaction
Partners::Breadth
Support::Advising
Support::Institution
Project: Strategic Planning
Curricular Agility at RISD
Curricular Agility at RISD should not be simply about allowing students more freedom in their academic schedules. It is really about empowering students to take full advantage to utilize their complete education. Studio is a considerable part of the RISD experience but students who do not make the choice and engage in meaningful exploration beyond their particular discipline are, for the most part, not equipped to unlock their complete potential as artists and designers. A student’s ability to develop a balance in RISD’s academic life will lend inspiration to their work and introduce them to outcomes and collaborations they never would have imagined without a meaningful interaction with other fields and perspectives.
If RISD is serious about being the leading art and design institution in the 21st century, it is imperative that we embrace the demands and expectations of our world and formulate a distinctive model of creative education through collaborative, experimental, and discipline-based learning.
The Shape of RISD
An evolutionary study on the shape and interactions of RISD:
The cooperation of design, fine arts, and liberal arts.
On Interviewing Senior Faculty
By examining the process of forming new academic models in an institution with the history and tradition of RISD it is essential to approach the challenge like any other design problem. Just as if you were designing a brand identity or product for an organization or individual, it is essential to not just familiarize oneself with the history and practices of the organization but also of the people and the philosophies of the individuals who make the place what it is.
Goals and Objectives for Academic Agility at RISD
Definition of Domain
The Academic Permeability Working Group is identifying and considering how to remove impediments to interactive, collaborative, and self-directed teaching, learning, and research to address the increasingly complex demands of 21st-century artists, designers, and other creative professionals.
Working Process
Working primarily as a group, rather than individually, to define terms, distinguish personal experience from endemic problems and shared aspirations, consider past calls for greater inter-disciplinarity at RISD, craft goals and objectives, and identify areas for improvement and innovation, the Academic Permeability Working Group sought to model the desired culture of collaboration in its own methodology.
Goal
Support agility in relation to a philosophy of discipline-based, in-depth art and design education.
Objectives
- Make interaction among disciplines fundamental to the curriculum.
- Broaden research methodologies, practices, and opportunities.
- Align administrative structures with the goal.
Rationale
Current administrative structures and academic requirements limit educational opportunities and potential.
Agility
“Agility is the new Permeability”
Eames & India in 2010
In 1958 Charles & Ray Eames visited India for three months at the invitation of the Indian Government (with sponsorship by the Ford Foundation) to explore the problems of design and to make recommendations for a training program. What they created was the following document that became the founding manifesto of India’s National Institute of Design. It is amazing how their words still hold relevance fifty years later for a school on the other side of the planet, RISD. The comparisons and similarities are uncanny.
Permeability Core Question
“How can RISD best create and inspire an environment that fosters creative agents in a changing world?”
Academic Permeability Research
The following is a collection of objectives and observations to aid RISD in maximizing its potential in delivering a balanced academic experience for all students.
What are we seeking to address by making the academic programs more permeable/flexible?
- Provide more skill sets for our students to better adapt to a changing world.
- Prepare students experientially to engage worlds that differ from their own.
- Heighten awareness of the richness that all diversities can bring.
- Break down the over-identification with a medium or mode of making.
- Create more spaces for productive cross-fertilization from multiple disciplines.
- Create more opportunity for students to forge their own paths and take ownership of their education.
- Create more scheduling and enrollment option for courses, degree programs.
- Facilitate the access of non-traditional students (working adults) to RISD’s programs.
- Create more flexibility for working adults to earn certificates and degrees.
- Provide room to incorporate more distance learning and innovative courses into curricula.
- Break down the silo mentality and foster more open, collaborative teaching and learning.
- Make expensive resources more efficient by phasing out duplication and allowing for more access across departments.
- Provide faculty with more exciting options and diverse environments for teaching and learning.
- Encourage more creative thinking by faculty about what art and design education can be.