The College of Design will implement changes in freshman and graduate programs next fall.

Mark Engelbrecht, dean of the college, said ideas for a new curriculum were generated by a focus group of faculty and students in September of 2001.

“The new program will require all freshman students to take common foundations, which will involve studio work, communications, English and science,” he said. “This will permit the freshmen to sample all that our department has to offer and apply for any program they choose at the end of their freshman year.”

Students will continue to be selected into the program they desire, but the new curriculum requirements will help students get a sense of which program is right for them, Engelbrecht said.

The College of Design will permit joint degrees within the graduate program for the first time as well. This will allow students to move into other disciplines, he said.

Kate Schwennsen, associate dean of the College of Design and chairwoman of the envisioning committee, said experiments are currently being conducted and will continue through the spring.

“We will have speakers coming in to show us how to revise curriculum and we will learn from their successes and failures,” she said.

“There will also be a lot of people from the industry coming to teach us more about the design profession. It’s a year of experience and change for the College of Design.”

Curriculum changes confirm that art and design are linked together by a high degree of collaboration between faculty and students, Engelbrecht said.

“Over the years, the two had increasingly separated themselves, and we wanted to change that and bring them back together,” he said.

Enrollment in the college will remain around 1,900 students, Engelbrecht said.

“[Currently] we only have 125 graduate students, but we would like 200, as well as the 1,700 undergraduates,” he said.

President Gregory Geoffroy met a request for seven new faculty members with resources for four so far, Engelbrecht said.

“The decision by President Geoffroy was very gratifying and we are in the process of searching for our new faculty members now,” he said. “To accommodate our new friends, we would like to have an addition to the building as well.”

Engelbrecht said the College of Design will celebrate its 25th Anniversary next year and is proud of its nationally ranked departments.

“There are not very many schools of design in public universities in this country, and ours is highly competitive,” he said. “We look forward to seeing the results of the changes.”