Welcome to a New Term

Message from the Office of the Dean
September 16, 2020

Fall Term 2020 is truly like no other.

The tragic wildfires that continue to unfold across our state have caused unimaginable losses and directly impact many in our own community. The weight of the events of the last week add to the sense of threat and uncertainty we have all felt for months.

What is unwavering is our sense of shared purpose in higher education—our commitment to our students’ education and to research. As the context grows more challenging, the imperative to prepare our students to contribute to a civil, compassionate, and productive society has never been more urgent. Across the College of Design research community, the necessity of our work—to help us respond to urgent threats like the wildfires and the pandemic, to plan and design for the long-term, and to make meaning of our experiences—has also never been clearer.

As we continue to teach in disrupted and novel ways this fall, our belief in the value of what we do will help us rise to the moment. In the spring, we rapidly scrambled to operate remotely. While none of our classes will be ‘normal’ this term, our options and adaptations have expanded considerably. Many of you are experimenting with varying levels of hybrid engagement. Many of our students will have access to studios, shops, computer labs, libraries, and other resources to facilitate their work. Faculty will be able to use campus infrastructure to better deliver their courses and to continue their research activities.

As we work now to the best of our abilities, this time also reaffirms why being on a university campus together is so important. While I have no doubt that we will retain some of our new strategies, physical presence and interaction are clearly invaluable—discussing ideas, making things in a studio, engaging with communities, exploring sites, examining objects, collaborating with peers.

I thank every one of you for your work, resourcefulness, and inventiveness as we embark on this new academic year.