BFA Design and Technology at Parsons
At the end of Spring 2011, I volunteered to direct BFA Design & Technology in addition to BFA Communication Design, and was appointed in Fall 2011. I continued to direct both programs until Spring 2014. When my terms directing the BFA programs ended, I took on the role of Associate Director of Communication Design. At the time, the Design & Technology program graduated about twenty-five students a year, while the Communication Design program graduated about one hundred.
The introduction of a new 120-credit curriculum beginning in Fall 2013 across Parsons (and a new first year) opened up an opportunity to redesign the BFA Design and Technology program. The program promised proficiency in five different areas: physical computing, motion graphics, interaction design, game design, and computational art. But because each incoming class had fewer that 30 students, it wasn’t possible to even introduce these topics adequately in required courses.
The solution was to completely rethink the BFA Design & Technology curriculum, in consultation with the school dean, the school curriculum chair, and with input from structured meetings with students, faculty, and alumni. The program was reorganized into two tracks: Game Design and Creative Technologies. We recruited and supervised two faculty in writing the curriculum for the tracks, Kan Yang Li and Ryan Raffa. Kan Yang Li took on the leadership of the program in 2014–15.
Collaborators: Anne Gaines, Pascal Glissmann, Kan Yang Li, Ryan Raffa, and all of the faculty and students teaching and learning in the program in 2013.