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The properly educated, disciplined design intelligence is, increasingly, the matrix that binds our world, and it works as effectively for the sciences as it does the arts. Mark C. Engelbrecht, FAIA, Dean

The studio is perhaps the original "learning community." These families of learners, students and critics will always form the foundation of our academic life, indeed, the fundamental expression of our creative lives and we need to do all that we can to nurture this amazingly powerful vehicle for "becoming."

A serious student of design learns by engaging the world. Consequently, we prize projects that incorporate "real" challenges, look to be of active service to our surrounding society, and encourage organized travel to study important places both at home and away. So it will come as no surprise that the College of Design has always been a leader with its study-abroad programming. Art and design, after all, speak an international language.

Learning within the College of Design takes many forms, and one of the most important is an active association with the vitality emerging from a community of creative people and events. This is why I think our Forum, the central place, should become our most meaningful "classroom."

We want our technologies to be second to none, because our traditional ways of working cannot properly evolve without them. No student should leave the programs of our college without a firm grasp on the possibilities and utility of these emerging information technologies, and making good on this pledge is perhaps our greatest challenge.

I believe that the years immediately ahead will become known for an increasing awareness of the quality necessary to our environment, including the artifacts that we use to express ourselves and maneuver through life. The visual nature of our world, and the power of seeing as a way of knowing will, I think, become the focus of ever-expanding interest and study in the near future. Design and the visual arts arrive at a momentous and fortunate intersection with this new age, and, I believe students of art and design will enjoy a great demand for their talents because of it.

Our college possesses good facilities and an excellent staff, but the essential "players" here are the students and faculty, and the interplay among these two groups forms our principal academic enterprise. I believe our faculty are well prepared and determined to make a success of each student, and, of course, they are also very smart, creative, productive and interesting people.

Updated 08/09/07-09:23 PID:42