At MIT I had the fortune of working on the committee that met for over two years about how the undergrad curriculum could be best served in light of recent changes in the world. Coincidentally MIT is considering adding a new “Design” requirement to the core offerings as I observed in a recent presentation. I thought this particularly relevant to the RISD community.

My family participated in Earth Hour yesterday by turning off our lights between 8PM to 9PM. It was an idea that makes a great deal of sense in this era of contemplation about the future of our earth.

I spoke with a RISD undergrad the other day who expressed how intensely he worked compared to some of his peers. “Why aren’t they as hungry as me?” he said. In the back of my mind I could see he seeked validation that he was somehow better than his peers as a natural human tendency. But I could tell he also wished to explore his underlying feeling that somehow if everyone were working at his own perceived level that he would somehow be … happier.

My answer was that first of all it is the world at large (not an individual) that judges excellence of outcomes, and that often a significant outcome correlates to one’s extremely arduous, intensely constituted work. Working hard however is not a sufficient condition for success. Working hard with passion. Now that’s what takes you somewhere. Because without a significant goal or vision in my mind, hard work is well … just hard work. Passion is driven by vision, mission, and a titanium-clad “can do/must do” attitude. But happiness is something else — it’s a willingness to connect with the equation of daily life.

So I asked the undergrad to continue working hard and pursuing his passion, but to also develop a passion for normal daily life as a regular human being in a community of peers because the roses do exist to be smelled. Friends matter more than any inanimate object, public recognition, or any other artificial motivator in life. Because life exists to be shared.

Congratulations, again, to RISD’s very fine graduate programs, which, as president-elect Maeda has just written (see post below), have been awarded the the top position in US News and World Report’s just-released rankings of the best graduate schools for fine arts. The magazine collected data from more than 12,000 graduate programs to compile its findings. Here are RISD’s specific rankings, broken down by discipline:

Ceramics #3
Digital Media # 3
Glass #1
Graphic Design #1
Jewelry + Metalsmithing #2
Industrial Design #2
Interior Architecture #1
Painting #3
Photography#3
Printmaking #2
Sculpture #3
Textiles #5

Way to go, Graduate Studies!

I just learned that US News and World Report ranked RISD’s grad program as the top Fine Arts program in the nation for 2008. Congratulations RISD! As for where to go next, in Japanese there is my favorite saying, — which translates simply to “Above up, there is up.”

Isabella Rossellini (pictured center) appeared at the March 11 opening of the RISD apparel+textile collaboration with the Italian Trade Commission which was on display at Bergdorf Goodman in NYC the week of March 11, 2008. This collaboration was led by the Chair of the RISD Apparel Design Department, Prof. Donna Gustavsen, and Prof. Liz Collins of the RISD Textiles Department.

As I sat at an old wooden tabletop at RISD today, I noted a perfectly elliptical mark that was clearly manmade. The wood did not choose to be marked upon as such, yet it had no way to fight back. Nature lies at the mercy of us humans; and at the same time we live by the mercy of nature: hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and so forth. Balance lasts for a moment. And then strong, sudden imbalances break the harmony and the role of power may shift. Within one’s best ability it is important to treat each situation he or she faces with care. We must always care.

When I was a child growing up in Seattle, Washington I lived in the less-fortunate part of town where the public schools were always under hard times. As part of the 1978 move to desegregate schools in Seattle I was put on a school bus that went way across the city to neighborhoods with much better schools than we had nearby. I vividly recall the disparity between the resources we had available to us from a poorer school district; and at the same time remember how our bus brought increased racial diversity to a school that was historically not so. Greater understanding resulted from our collective of cultures, which led to a stronger student body and neighborhood community.

RISD has had ongoing efforts in various forms to catalyze multicultural interactions on campus as led by Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) and RISD alum Tony Johnson. Although there has been much progress in this area, I know there is much more that can be done. At MIT I have had the opportunity to lead MIT’s Committee on Race and Diversity where I have been able to get real insight into how issues of race and diversity affect the lives of students, faculty, and staff in significant ways. The experience of running the Committee has been a humbling experience as it has shown me my own weaknesses in understanding the complex issues of “being different,” and has helped me to grow in ways that have strengthened my resolve to face these challenges head on.

Diversity sensitivities can take many forms of racial, cultural, ethnic, gender, disability, and sexual orientation differences that in today’s increasingly diverse work force will matter heavily to students in their future careers. Preparing students’ ability to function in a world where everyone is wonderfully different from themselves is a challenge that can be addressed through the right kind of coursework and social interactions on campus. If you are a student at RISD, at the first chance you get I suggest you visit Tony and Deborah Kanston in the OMA to expand your ability to see the world through a multicultural perspective.

In an effort to help folks out there that are new to “RISD” begin to understand how to pronounce the abbreviation for the Rhode Island School of Design, I have enlisted the help of the Web to pronounce RIZ-dee for all to learn.

I was curious to see how Providence changes at night from a safety perspective, so I went on a late night ride-a-long with Lt. Antone Souza of RISD Public Safety to better assess things. On the night shift in their main office were (pictured from left) Sgt. Eric McLaughlin, Officer Kristine Pascucci, Dispatcher Raymond Moore, Lt. Antone Souza, and Officer Fritz Harryson. They reviewed for me the various processes that have been put in place by Chief Ken Bilodeau for doing a strict daily assessment of ongoing events in the Providence area combined with constant vigilance of activity across the campus.

RISD’s campus is spread across many buildings, and in my mind I wasn’t sure about how quickly a car could get from point to point in case of emergency. During my ride-a-long there was a need to get across campus fast to check on a matter (which turned out luckily to be a false-alarm) and I noted that the response time was very quick. There we encountered Officer Scott Suggs (not pictured) who had arrived on the scene first. All was well and I was impressed with the professionalism of the team.

That night before I went out with Public Safety, I had a chance to sit and chat in the Met (a cafeteria in what is called “the Quad”) with a few freshmen. I noted that they felt the atmosphere of the Quad was something special — it reminded me of Harvard where the freshmen all surround the Harvard courtyard. In the future I think I’ll catch breakfast at the Met once in a while to become better aware of what freshmen and maybe other undergrads are thinking about, and to also check on what my friends in Public Safety are thinking as well.