Faculty Development Plan
Visual Arts
2004
Faculty Self Assessment: Strengths
- Passionate about design, art world in general
- Constantly looking for opportunities and examples to bring into the classroom
- Interesting in continual improvement and adaptation in the classroom
- Genuine respect and report with students
- Adept at constructive criticism and helping a student achieve a high level of quality in their work Good grasp of subject and its relevance in a larger context
Areas of Improvement:
- Grade Inflation: In an effort to befriend students, I tend to demand less from them.
- Can easy feel overwhelmed by the amount of time required for class preparation and mentoring. This is compounded by the fact that very few textbooks exist for the subjects I teach. Therefore I am required to pro-duce a significant amount of material in preparation.
- I have difficulty with rigid syllabi and deadlines especially if they seem to interfere with spontaneous learning situations that occur. As a very intuitive teacher, I sometimes deviate from syllabi and alter project param-eters. If the student is not flexible and intuitive, this occasional causes problems.
- Low tolerance for students who seem to be lazy, unmotivated, lack passion or curiosity for the subject, or have a sense of entitlement.
- Spoon Feeder: I have a tendency to package the course content into a neat, tidy little handout rather than finding a way for the student to be more involved in the discovery process. I need to find ways to engage them rather than taking notes and making a handout for them.
- I need more visual examples to use in class. I need to find a way to organize and keep them current for use in the classroom.
Professional Goals & Interests Aligned With Area Goals
The Designer as Writer
- The re-emergence of traditional book arts practice (the fore bearers of graphic design) have combined with a burgeoning interest in self-authorship. Dubbed "designer-auteurs", some designers increasingly function as writers and project creators in addition to being visual stylists. My interests lie in developing self-authored and collaborative projects that are combined with book arts, installation, film and other mediums of artistic expression.
- This interest corresponds to area and department goals in a number of ways. The book arts create a unique opportunity for cross discipline collaboration, an area of interest within the department.
- Current trends within the graphic design industry also point towards designers functioning as member of collaborative teams. Due to technological advances, the discipline is broadening to encompass many other areas of study. Graphic design is increasingly viewed as a starting point for visual communicators who go on to succeed in other areas of specialization such as film, media, fine art and other mediums.
- An area goal seeks to develop designers who can succeed in higher, more critical areas of communication design. These positions often require significant writing skills. An increased emphasis on analysis and verbal articulation among students is also a priority.
Graphic Design History
- As graphic design matures as a discipline, graphic design history is an area of academic study that is gain-ing importance within the industry. My current interests include studies in Western graphic design, typogra-phy and specifically The Deseret Alphabet. Another interest involves the development of alternate alphabet systems.
- A current area goal is to encourage strategic design solutions, in lieu of the more common derivative styling expressed in popular culture through the use of graphic design. Implicit in this process is an understanding of design history.
- A goal of the University is to teach academic subjects in the context of a gospel setting. My study of the Deseret Alphabet offers a unique opportunity to achieve this goal. It offers a glimpse of typographic history that is unique to the LDS church and early Utah. I use the study of the Deseret Alphabet in typography class-es to teach principles of type design and letter forms. While much has been written on the Deseret Alphabet from a general historical perspective, a definitive book on the Alphabet has never been undertaken. My goal is the publication of such as book.
- Since the department currently does not have an art historian dedicated to the design disciplines, design history is taught by part-time instructors and incorporated into all graphic design courses. Any concentrated study of design history at the University will benefit the program.
Corporate Identity, branding & professional practices
- My own professional practice relates to corporate identity and brand development within the technology, restaurant and the entertainment industry.
- I am currently teaching the only BFA design class geared exclusively towards branding and
- corporate identity. Corporate identity is also a major component of sophomore level design classes I teach such as VADES 245.
- Graphic design is primarily concerned with the practice of design as an aid to business communication. VADES 488 explores professional practices within the design industry and is an integral survey of the critical intersection between design and business.
Professional Evaluation
Evaluation of graphic design faculty is typically based on several criteria. The National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), the accrediting body for schools or art and design, provides the following information regarding peer review for graphic design.
Excerpt from a briefing paper: SELECTING & SUPPORTING GRAPHIC DESIGN FACULTY
- "Peer assessment of the teaching, research, and professional development of faculty determine who is retained and who is not. Graphic design. faculty too often find their work misunderstood or skewed by faculty and administrators who do not understand the graphic design discipline, but who sit in judgment of their work in terms of promotion and tenure. While elements of fine arts, science, humanities, and social science models may be applicable, no one model is adequate or appropriate for design faculty. This paper elaborates on appropriate forms of research and professional development in design. It describes practices that shape the teaching workforce in strong schools. It calls for faculty evaluation based on the nature of design itself."
CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION FACULTY RESEARCH, PROFESSIONAL, AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY
in evaluating the quality of faculty responsible for graphic design instruction, reviewers consider vitae con-taining descriptions of ongoing research, professional accomplishments, and creative activity. Until recently, the expectations for full-time, tenure track graphic design faculty have been limited to teaching, service, and sustained professional practice based on client commission. Evaluation on these terms remains valid. However, other possibilities are evident.
On occasion, faculty engage in the creation and production of design work that might more appropriately be classified as fine art, thus leaving the usual parameters of their primary discipline when the quantity or quality of client-initiated projects is not creatively satisfying. Under these conditions, graphic design faculty's creative studio accomplishments are judged against standards that include professional competitions, the number and stature of commissioned works for clients, and exhibition of work. Because design is rarely cre-ated for or shown in gallery settings, the traditional rubrics of invitational and one-person shows cannot be applied generally to all design faculty. Further, entry and hanging fees for design competitions and exhibitions can be hundreds of dollars for each piece, raising questions about the efficacy of broad-based submission to garner a few résumé entries.
With the development of graduate programs in graphic design, scholarship continues to grow and improve. What does this mean for faculty evaluation? In the past, the academic scholarship of design faculty was generally confined to technical and historical investigations within the limits of traditional design practice. The first comprehensive survey of graphic design history was not published until the 1980s and design periodicals usually restricted their content to captioned pictures of recent professional work, not scholarly dis-course. While this is changing, there are still only two refereed design journals in the United States and their content addresses an array of design disciplines, reducing the odds of publication of graphic design writing and challenging graphic design faculty with the difficult task of securing publication opportunities outside their discipline.
Within the last decade, however, many design faculty have entered theoretical and polemic discourse that has its roots in disciplines outside design and the fine arts. This work results from ambitious reading and research that positions design ideas in contexts other than practice and personal expression. It seeks to dis-cover and articulate the theoretical underpinnings of design as contributions to the body of knowledge about the discipline as well as the practice. Many efforts are self published or confined to a small but growing num-ber of publications devoted to such interests. Because the individuals engaged in this research are few and represent a new model for design faculty, internal and external reviewers may have limited experience evaluat-ing the content and quality of their scholarship. The hybrid nature of their work (often a combination of aca-demic scholarship, criticism, and making) falls outside the more well-defined research models of art historian or studio artist. The number of national and international opportunities for peer review are few The growth of graphic design scholarship and its inclusion as a goal of graduate programs in graphic design will create new priorities that affect faculty evaluation, particularly as specific institutions and graphic design programs adjust their missions and goals.
Each institution determines criteria for faculty evaluation. In the field of graphic design these criteria should reflect: 1) the roles of various faculty positions in fulfilling the published goals and objectives of the graphic design program; 2) the nature, meaning, patterns, and systems of evaluating professional work, schol-arly and creative output, and research in graphic design; and 3) the specific responsibilities of individual fac-ulty members and their accomplishments since leaving graduate school."
Resources
In order to allow sufficient time to conduct scholarly research and complete teaching and citizenship expectations, I propose teaching the following academic load:
Fall: 3 classes Winter: 2 classes Spring: 1 class
Since the tools of graphic design are primarily specialized computer systems and applications that fall out-side the standard University issue, on occasion, arrangements will need to be made to provide high-end computing, printing, proofing and rendering equipment. An industry standard computer set-up system for a graphic designer would include the following items:
Hardware:
G5 Macintosh System with dual processor. 21 inch display monitor
Flatbed Scanner
Epson printer capable of 12 x 18 color prints DVD-CD Burner
Portable drive such as a Flash drive, or I pod
Software:
Adobe Creative Suite:
including Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign Adobe Type Manager Adobe After Effects
Macromedia MX
Macromedia Dreamweaver