This weekend I had the pleasure of reading a new book by Jessica Davis on the challenge of integrating arts into K-12 school curricula in a world that is increasingly “pro-innovation” yet steadfastly unsupportive of the arts. She lists the seven “common objections” to the arts playing a larger role in a learning menu: value, talent, time, measurement, expertise, money, and autonomy. All in all they are expressions of specific prejudices against the arts which can be debunked methodically with supporting data, however perceptions are difficult to change.

It is my hope that as a society we can move from the general misunderstanding of art education as developing just a collection of creative skills – to instead see a high quality arts education as the foundation for fostering extraordinary individuals’ unique creative visions of the future. I see our technology-led era of the last few decades coming to an important turn where mere “newness” of an idea is losing significance and instead the timeless question of “quality” has regained momentum. What are the qualities of quality in art and design? I would like to think that RISD has those answers, and questions, that we carry with importance into this new century.