Marvin Malecha , the dean of the design school, has been trying to find creative ways to deal with the cuts in funding that have affected the college.
“All of my academic units have taken hits in one way or another,” Malecha said.
This year the cuts forced the design school to combine more sections and have fewer seminars. Malecha said class sizes would be a little larger but also said he does not believe students will be impacted in a negative way.
“Our goal is to minimize the impact that these cuts have on the student experience,” Malecha said.
The undergraduate landscape architecture program will be eliminated after this year due to a lack of funding as well as a lack of interest from incoming students, according to Malecha . This year will be the last freshmen class who will be able to participate in the major.
“The number of applicants was small,” Malecha said. “We just couldn’t sustain it from an efficiency point of view.”
There have also been some staff changes within the college of design, including the hiring of Sarah Queen as the assistant professor of architecture and Dana Raymond as an associate professor in art and design.
There are also less communications positions available. Rather than having people just in charge of one department, Malecha said they now have people who are teaching courses in addition to working on the branding of the school.
“We have been diverting some staff resources to teaching; that’s something we’re going to try to do more of,” Malecha said.
Another change on the horizon – within the next year – in the design school is a requirement for all students to complete a term of international study, according to Malecha .
Malecha says that this type of international experience is crucial to be successful in a design career.
“You really have to know how to be successful in an international arena in order to be successful in design,” Malecha said.
Despite all of the changes that have been happening to the design school, Malecha said he remains confident that students will have a good experience with the program and learn things that are valuable to a career in design.
“We have been working a lot harder to make sure that our students have the best experience possible. We have gotten some bad news, but we have worked hard to improve staff and interdisciplinary course work,” Malecha said.
Kirsten Southwell , a senior in graphic design, said she thinks the college will still do well despite all of the changes it has undergone. The new hires will be excellent staff members because of the outstanding reputation that the design school has, she said.
“In general we have a great reputation as a design school, so we pick from great applicants. I am confident that because of our reputation we will be able to get good people,” Southwell said.
Southwell also said she was pleased with how design school students were made aware of all the changes that were happening. Last semester students were also kept in the loop regarding some of the changes that would take place due to budget cuts, according to Southwell .
“The dean really tried to make an effort to inform students. Design students were told in a personal setting. I wasn’t personally upset at all about how things were handled,” Southwell said.
Ijeoma Onuh , a junior in graphic design, said she appreciated the way the design school utilized social media such as Facebook and Twitter to inform students about events and changes over the summer.
“I really liked that they used things like Twitter,” Onuh said. “Thinking about the way we use technology today, it’s almost hard to be informed without using it.”