A candidate for the new dean of the College of Design position said humanity is in the middle of a “seismic shift” in the evolution of human culture and that Iowa State’s design school will be near the forefront of the shift.

Kate Schwennsen, associate dean for the College of Design, shared her views Monday in the second of four open forums to find a new dean.

Schwennsen received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Iowa State, both in architecture. After working with two major architecture firms, she became president for The American Institute of Architects in 2006. She has been associate dean for the college since 2001.

“Kate now has almost 20 years of academic and real-world experience in the field of architecture,” said Michael Whiteford, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Science.

Schwennsen said the College of Design has been a leader in design and will continue to be as humanity and culture change.

“I have spent seven years as a design administrator at one of the largest, most successful design colleges in the nation – this one,” she said.

The main obstacle humanity will have to contend with, she said, is the changing way of human life and combating old ways of thinking.

“We can see, looking at the past, incredible changes in the rules of design and innovation,” she said. “If you can remember that far back, think about how your lives have changed since the invention of the personal computer in 1981. Now, the Internet almost makes geography irrelevant.”

Schwennsen cited the troubled economy as an example of why changes need to be made.

“The messy predicaments of this century cannot be solved with 19th- or 20th-century thinking,” she said. “We need to do more, better, with less, and we can do that through design.”

Schwennsen said if the university wants to achieve President Gregory Geoffroy’s goal of having a banner year in the year 2050, the college needs to adapt to the changing world.

“Between now and then 16,000 people will graduate from the College of Design,” she said. “We need to figure out what they need to learn to be better than we are now.”

One design student asked if Schwennsen would change the current studio system of learning.

“The studio system is important, and we’re not giving that up. There’s nothing like it in terms of engaged peer learning,” she said. “But it has more potential than we use. I think we expect you to spend far too much time locked in the studio. We need to optimize the culture that we have.”

One student asked how, if dean, she would help faculty with their research. Schwennsen said that some priorities would change.

“Over the last seven years of budget reductions, we’ve put all our resources into education,” she said. “We need to reallocate some resources and find a better way to do this efficiently.”

Erin French, international programs coordinator for the College of Design, said she thought Schwennsen would be a good choice because she has such a long history with the college and knows how things work.

“She will have the best understanding on the needs and vision of this school,” French said.

Remaining candidates

Two more open forums remain for the Design College dean search. Each forum starts at 3:45 p.m. in 101 Design.

Feb. 25: David Edelman, director of the School of Planning, University of Cincinnati, Ohio

March 2: Christine Theodoropoulos, head of the architecture department, University of Oregon-Eugene