How to Be a Design Academic

From Learning to Leading

Alethea Blackler, Evonne Miller, Alethea Blackler, Evonne Miller

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000360004
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

This book is about how to be a design academic. In another words, how to manage the various challenges, requirements, and processes that come with both the everyday and extra-ordinary parts of an academic role in design fields (from architecture, urban design, interior design and landscape architecture, to fashion, industrial, interaction and graphic design).

The book is organised in two parts – Part 1, Starting out and Part 2, Becoming a Leader. It includes real-life experiences of actual academics and offers a wide range of experiences of authors from early career researchers to full professors and heads of schools. It contains all aspects of academic life, including the highs and lows of teaching, research, leadership, and managing your working life and your career.

This book is perfect for academics, aspiring academics, and research students in a wide range of design fields.

1 Being a Design Academic

From Beginning to Winning

Alethea Blackler and Evonne Miller

Contents

1.1 Why Do You Need This Book?

1.2 How to Read This Book

1.2.1 Part 1. How to Be a Design Academic: Starting Out

Section 1: Crafting Your Unique Career Path

Section 2: Becoming a Successful Design Researcher

Section 3: Becoming a Successful Design Educator

1.2.2 Part 2. How to Be a Design Academic: Becoming a Leader

Section 4: Leading Yourself

Section 5: Leading Others

Section 6: Leading a Group or School

1.3 Conclusion

References

1.1 Why Do You Need This Book?

This edited book offers an in-depth look into how design academics, from early career academics to full professors, navigate the changing and often turbulent waters of academia with confidence and impact. Being an academic, we believe, is one of the greatest jobs there is: as well as educating, influencing and mentoring undergraduate and postgraduate students through our teaching, we get to conduct innovative research that may have a positive impact on the world. Unfortunately, all too often, academics feel overburdened, tired, isolated and excessively busy, struggling to meet escalating performance metrics and be good teachers, productive researchers and efficient administrators (Clark and Sousa, 2018). There is often very little time to discuss, share and reflect on the strategies, ideas and initiatives that might enhance work productivity, reduce the likelihood of burnout and foster work–life balance, with only the lucky few having wise mentors to advise them.

Our vision for this book is that it fills this void, playing the role of a generous mentor and lifting back the veil to show, in detail, the day-to-day work lives, choices, challenges and achievements of design academics. By openly sharing their unique career paths, both conventional and unconventional, each chapter author provides unprecedented insight into their personal and professional experiences in academia. To date, despite the growing number of books exploring different aspects of academia, from how to complete a PhD (Mewburn, 2013), be a productive and “happy academic” (Clark and Sousa, 2018), thrive as a female professor (Murray and Mifsud, 2019) or negotiate the transition to retirement (Burge, 2015), to our knowledge, there are no books targeted specifically at design academics.

Design academics have a unique experience of academia for several reasons. Firstly, unlike most other disciplines, until very recently, it was rare for a design academic to hold a doctorate. A vocational field where professional practice is highly valued, design had a “history of a limited research culture, professional practice rather than research and few staff who are qualified at the doctoral level” (Durling, 2002, p. 80). Even in our own School of Design, where research is highly prized, approximately a third do not currently hold PhDs (ten years ago, that figure would have been 50%), and are completing their PhD while working as an academic. This is a uniquely challenging experience that Williams and Satherley explore in Chapter 5.

Secondly, by nature, design is a very experiential and practical discipline. Seen by practitioners as a process and seen by society as the result of or creations from that process, the word “design” has many different meanings. Design, Redström (2017) stated, is first of all a process, with Don Norman defining it as the “deliberate shaping of the environment in ways that satisfy individual and societal needs” (2009, p. 171). Design embraces a broad range of disciplines, including, but not limited to: architecture, industrial design, interior design, fashion design, interaction design, design management, design education, digital and visual communication and landscape architecture. What unifies these diverse disciplines is how they think and their approach to problem-solving: regardless of their specialist disciplinary training, designers share an iterative design process that privileges a unique way of problem-setting and problem-solving, often through visualisation and realisation (that is, making). While many of these skills are transferable to academia, as Swann and Rezayan document in their chapter on the new academic’s mindset, all too often, other skills (such as writing and conforming to traditional norms in academia) are harder for some to master.

And, like all academics, design academics must also learn how to navigate and negotiate the culture of academia – how to be great teachers and researchers, manage their own workloads, stay resilient, learn and evolve from early career academics into leadership roles. All universities have their own unique culture and ways of doing things, but typically, academics are expected to be independent and manage their own workload. Some design academics may be able to benefit from a supportive culture and colleagues and/or an engaged, hands-on line-manager, who provide advice, mentoring and clear direction. However, all too often, academia is a “sink-or-swim” culture, with very little tangible guidance for staff. This book is purposely written – in an accessible, conversational and informal style – to fill this gap and guide the reader through the challenging but highly rewarding career of being a design academic.

1.2 How to Read This Book

The book is organised into two parts, with six specific sections. While you can read the book from start to end, you can also focus on a specific issue and read that chapter as a stand-alone narrative. Each chapter in this book covers an important issue, and the relevance will vary depending on your unique career trajectory. If you are seeking your first job or have just secured your first academic position, then Part 1. How to Be a Design Academic: Starting Out (Sections 1–3) will be especially pertinent, while mid-career and senior academics will be inspired by the chapters on leadership in Part 2. How to Be a Design Academic: Becoming a Leader. In the overview that follows, we describe the purpose of each section and briefly summarise the main contributions of each chapter.

1.2.1 Part 1. How to Be a Design Academic: Starting Out

Part 1 (containing Sections 1, 2 and 3) is most useful for new- and mid-career design academics, providing rare insight into their day-to-day experiences, challenges and learnings. Elsewhere, there is relatively little written about how to navigate the first few years and develop the teaching, research and administrative skills needed to survive and thrive in academia, especially as a design academic. Part 1 addresses all three of these, with a focus on the teaching and research skills most likely needed at this stage. Early and mid-career design academics share their unique career paths, and outline how they have navigated the challenges and opportunities of academia.

Part 1 explores a range of relevant issues covering professional identity, teaching and research, including: crafting your unique career path as a design academic and becoming a successful design researcher and educator.

Section 1: Crafting Your Unique Career Path

This section contains three chapters documenting how different design academics have approached their careers in very individualised ways, based on their diverse backgrounds.

We start with a thought-provoking chapter by Evans, Kelly and Kerr, who discuss the various identities that a design academic may assume, depending on their background and career priorities. This chapter proposes that the three constructs of design process, design practice and design thinking are useful for navigation within the profession, distinguishing between academics who have expertise in a design discipline or design cognition/science/method and those who do not (non-designers). This chapter is useful for understanding the priorities and points of view of the various academics who may teach within a design school, or teach some aspects of design from outside a design school. As well as helping readers to frame their own identity as academics and/or designers, it can also help them to understand and value colleagues who may have different backgrounds and priorities – as discussed in the next two chapters.

Lindgren explores the concept of the “pracademic” – an industry professional who has decided to enter academia, as a “practitioner-academic.” Using examples of how he has embedded practice into his teaching, he exemplifies why universities often seek to employ those with industry experience, especially in teaching roles. A fashion pracademic, Lindgren outlines how his extensive industry experience with the design, making and marketing of fashion has informed and enhanced his teaching practice, as he has translated his creative practice into a teaching tool.

Changing tack, Miller outlines how she has found her place in a design school – where she has worked for more than a decade, even though she was not trained as a designer. Her chapter describes the pros and cons of this type of scenario, giving insight into how this approach can enrich the culture, research and teaching of the school. She gives advice on how an academic who finds themselves in a workplace that may not naturally seem to be their “home” can nevertheless carve out a niche for themselves and make a valuable contribution.

Section 2: Becoming a Successful Design Researcher

Section 2 focuses on design research, from the PhD experience to the early career researcher stage. Williams and Satherley used semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of those who complete a PhD whilst working as academics. This is a scenario that is relatively common in design as many people entered teaching after a stint in industry, and, while they were often recruited based on their industry experience (Lindgren highlights why this is important, especially in design), they found themselves in need of a PhD in order to progress their academic careers. Their findings include issues with identity as a staff member who is also a student, problems with work–life balance, mental health and supervisor relationships. Some of these issues are common to all PhD cohorts, but are exacerbated by the experience of being a part-time student and working full-time in a demanding role. Williams and Satherley offer recommendations to help academics in this situation to navigate this period and have a more successful and rewarding PhD experience.

Swann and Rezayan explore the mindset of “always learning,” which they have found beneficial as early career researchers in the post-PhD stage. This entails developing new skills as well as actively seeking to transfer existing skills into academic work contexts, and adopting an attitude conducive to identifying and making the most of opportunities that are presented. Using a combination of self-reflection and semi-structured interviews conducted with eight early career academics, they provide insights into the experiences of new design academics, and their perspectives on skill development and transfer, and offer skills maps to provide cues to spark potential opportunities.

Section 3: Becoming a Successful Design Educator

This section explores the common issues design academics might face in teaching design courses and designing a curriculum, and documents some innovative approaches to engaging students, both in person and online. At our institution, most students take two semesters per year, and a full-time load within each semester is four “units.” A unit is a self-contained course of study (although it will often have prerequisite units required to have been previously completed depending on level, skill and knowledge required) – sometimes called a course, subject or a module at other institutions. Each standard unit is worth 12 credit points, with some capstone units (such as final year projects) being double or even triple credit points. Ninety-six credit points (equivalent to eight standard units) per year for three years is required for a Bachelor’s degree. The academic staff member who creates, leads and teaches a unit is called the “unit coordinator” – sometimes called “course convener” at other institutions.

Scott and Thomson start this section with a detailed description of an innovative teaching practice: running design intensives “outside the studio.” For almost four decades, first-year design students at our institution started their design education with an overnight camping excursion intentionally designed to foster team collaboration and the creation of peer support networks – many students form lasting friendships “on camp,” which endure throughout their studies and beyond into professional practice, and foster students’...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Editors
• List of Contributors
• Chapter 1 Being a Design Academic: From Beginning to Winning
• PART 1 Starting Out
• SECTION 1 Crafting Your Unique Career Path
• SECTION 2 Being an Effective Design Researcher
• SECTION 3 Being an Effective Design Educator
• PART 2 Becoming a Leader
• SECTION 4 Leading Yourself
• SECTION 5 Leading Others
• SECTION 6 Leading a Group or School
• Index