University of Otago design students have obtained, through an Official Information Act request, documents detailing the possible future, or lack of, for design at Otago.
The first document is a review of the Department of Applied Sciences conducted in late 2014. The second is a proposal to get rid of the department and create a Centre of Fibre Science and Technology and Materials.
Ben Alder, a Design for Technology major, says the proposal cuts design once and for all.
Early this month, the Division of Sciences sent a letter to students outlining a proposal to remove Clothing and Textiles and Design for Technology as major subjects. If the proposal passes, the subjects will be phased out over the next two years.
The letter said one part of the proposal was to “phase out the major subject Design for Technology” and to “strengthen the emphasis in the Clothing and Textile Sciences”. These changes would mean that from 2016, “some papers that are currently offered may change or cease”. This includes papers that are currently part of planned degrees.
The document says the Division of Sciences is facing “financial challenges … attributed to a reduction in equivalent full-time students (EFTS)”. For this reason, “the Division of Sciences needs to take steps to position itself to meet future demands of its operations”.
Michael Findlay, a professional practice fellow in the department, wrote an opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times blaming actions by the department in 2010 for the decreasing enrolments.
In 2010 the Department of Design Studies was closed and the Department of Applied Sciences created in its place. Findlay says the move “left senior management in the science division with the belief that design had no place in the institution … School careers advisors and fellow academics were convinced the course was closed.”
Despite this, Findlay says, first-year enrolments have “risen by 20 percent” from their low point in 2011. This is “despite the continued running down of staff numbers, equipment budgets and promotion”.
In an interview last week, Division of Sciences Pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor Keith Hunter, would not comment on potential job losses. “While consultation is underway, it would not be appropriate to discuss these details. Once the process is completed, we will be in a position to discuss this.”
However, the proposal obtained by students outlines numerous job losses in the department. It proposes “all general staff positions in the Department of Applied Sciences [be] disestablished”. Only one new position, which “staff would be able to apply for”, will be created in the new department.
The proposal says academic positions in the Clothing and Textile Sciences, Biomaterials and Bioengineering groups from the current department will be transferred to the new centre. However, “other academic positions in the Department of Applied Sciences” will disappear. This includes Design for Technology staff.
Josie Brough, who completed a Bachelor of Consumer and Applied Sciences with Honours in 2011, has sent a letter to Hunter speaking against the proposal.
Brough, who now works as a user experience architect at Fairfax Media, signed the letter along with 66 other graduates of Design Studies and Design for Technology. In the letter, Brough said design courses at Otago “focus heavily on design thinking, strategy, and methods”. These skills, according to Brough, are “the foundations of innovation”.
Brough said while there are other design degrees around New Zealand, “there are none that offer the interdisciplinary and strategic nature of the Otago course … We were not just taught ‘how’ to ‘do’ ... we were taught to question ‘what’, ‘for whom’, and ‘why,’” wrote Brough.
“Design is more than just drawing pictures and making things. Design is about understanding the intersection between people, business needs, and industry patterns, then using this knowledge to solve problems, and create new and better things and processes.”
Andrew Jacombs, who now works as a senior designer for the New Zealand Law Society, was in his final year of a Bachelor of Consumer and Applied Sciences when the design department closed.
“The proposal now, to me, seems like they’re finishing what they started in 2010,” said Jacombs. “I don’t know if I’m so cynical to say that’s what they were planning all along, I’d like to be optimistic and say that they did want things to work out, but it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.”
Many submissions have been made against the decision, and a decision is due at the end of August.
