This week was a particularly saddening one upon hearing of my friend, Professor Randy Pausch’s departure from our world. Thank you, Randy. You’ve given all of education and academia great hope for remembering what teaching and mentoring is really all about.

I visited GM’s headquarters for design in Michigan where I saw one of the most ambitious projects out there — the Volt. In our current climate of high gas prices, any sign of possible relief is an important one … I recall a few years back coming close to buying a Toyota Prius to join the hybrid revolution. The Volt differs from the Prius in that it is not a hybrid gas-electric vehicle, but instead it is a purely electric vehicle with a gas-engine that can charge the battery when it’s supply goes low. You can also recharge the Volt by simply plugging it into the power outlet of your garage. So whereas in the Prius the electric engine runs at low speeds while the gas engine kicks in at higher speeds, the Volt runs purely on electrical energy for 40 miles and then the gas engine kicks in to recharge the battery as needed. Although the Volt (and Prius) are miracles of technology, they survive and thrive on their design and I was impressed with the design thinking that is going into the Volt and other projects ongoing at GM.

My takeaway was that even the most advanced technological companies today need new perspectives on our world that can benefit from the powerful conceptual framing power of an art and design education.

Dean Snyder, assistant professor and head of RISD’s Sculpture Department, was commissioned by the 2008 Olympic Committee to create an enlarged (2 m. diameter) version of his 2001 rawhide sculpture Boogle for exhibition in conjunction with the summer Olympics in Beijing. One of 130 works in the Beijing International City Sculpture Exhibition Beijing Olympic Art Dream, the carved marble piece is sited in the new Beijing Olympic Aquatic Center and is intended for permanent installation.

Last Friday, Professor Mitch Resnick of the MIT Media Lab invited me to speak about the challenges in crafting an intersection between technology and art+design together with Prof. Geetha Narayanan of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. The context was his new programming system called Scratch and the question I left with was how we might craft a new understanding of the possibilities afforded by Scratch in the context of core studies that can develop new thinking in art and design based upon fundamental/non-digital principles.

I was particularly struck by what Prof. Narayanan reiterated in her talk, “Seeing is not knowing.” To me it epitomized the challenge that is faced by the fact that the computer is an entirely non-visual medium, yet by the images we see on our computer screen we are fooled into believing that it’s just what we see. But it’s not. Her talk was deep, human, and filled with possibilities for the use of Scratch in changing children’s lives in India and the entire world. I was especially heartened when she mentioned one of my favorite writers, Italo Calvino.

From feedback by e-mail related to my own presentation, it is clear that some of the audience wondered if I was being critical of Scratch and its relevance to art and design. I think it was then that I realized that my tendency of sitting with creative people is to engage in critique as practiced at RISD — critique being the act of forming an open opinion subject to debate and discussion:

“A common misconception is that the chief point of a critique is to pass judgment on the work presented. There could be some value or fairness in acknowledging that someone put in a great deal of effort on an assignment or accomplished something very skillfully. The real point, however, is to dig deeper, to gain an understanding of why a drawing is powerful or moving in some way, or to suggest stronger emphasis of a given quality.”
— Prof. Fritz Drury / RISD Illustration Department

Artists and designers are first and foremost self-critical, so some of the time during my lecture was spent in my own head evaluating my own work within the same critical framework of questioning the way we do here at RISD. Also in general I tend to really wonder what the role of technology is in our evolving world. The questions continue to get more complex, and I continue to ask them out loud. All answers are welcome as part of the ongoing conversation.

So in short, I left the Scratch conference believing more than ever that Scratch is “powerful and moving” in important ways that will transform our future. That Geetha’s vision is one of empowerment, and that Scratch is a real enabler. Look out Adobe! Here comes Scratch!

Eleven members of RISD’s Class of 2008 — Philippe Previl (Painting; at left), James Ewart (Sculpture), Sam Gray (Graphic Design), Naushon Hale, Henrik Söderström, Da Sul Kim (all Furniture Design), Leo Livshetz (Industrial Design), Brian Briggs (Architecture), Winn Bauer (Ceramics), Colin Lynch (Glass) and Andy Cahill (FAV) — are featured as models in the August issue of Esquire, in “Intelligent Design,” the magazine’s preview of fall fashions for men. In May these not-quite-yet-alums took time from their busy end-of-semester schedules to be photographed (by Mischa Richter/ESP) in their studios and classrooms, with their artwork and around the RISD campus. In addition to wearing very expensive clothes very well, they offered their thoughts about the future of their particular disciplines and of art and design in general. Said furniture maker Hale: “Watch for an explosion in biomimicry, in which designers take patterns from nature — the beauty and simplicity of those systems that have been developing for millions of years — and apply them to new design concepts.”

I had an alum visitor suggested to me by Colonel Dean Esserman of the Providence Police. JR Songwe collaborated with the Providence Police department on an innovative approach to vehicle design that he developed while a student in Industrial Design. Here is a 15-minute excerpt of our conversation.

In an effort to continue my attempted journey to becoming an open president I have started Twittering as inspired by my hero Jason Kottke.

RISD’s 2008 undergraduate and graduate admissions catalogues, produced by RISD’s Communications + Design Division, have both won awards recently. Director of Admissions Ed Newhall BArch ‘74 and Gilbert Design, the Providence-based firm run by Joe Gilbert ‘74 GD and Melissa Gilbert ‘76 GD, jointly accepted the Mohawk Windpower Partnership Award for printing the undergrad book on FSC-certified Mohawk Options, which offsets 100% of the energy used to make it with Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from non-polluting windpower projects. Competing against 4,700 entries, the grad admissions catalogue designed by Isaac Gertman MFA ‘07 GD was selected by the American Institute of Graphic Arts as one of 255 “examples of outstanding design produced in 2007.” It will be included in 365: AIGA Annual Design Competitions 29, which will be presented as both a print annual and a traveling exhibition that opens at the AIGA National Design Center in NYC on December 10.

I’m currently attending “summer camp for new university/college presidents” which is a 5-day intense program to teach me everything I need to know to do this job. Much of the content is kind of like what would you see in an Exec Ed MBA seminar so it allows me to wax back to my days of joyously taking accounting and financial analysis as part of my MBA education. I’ve always enjoyed numbers, visuals, and people so I think I’m in my element here.

A common thread I see in presidents I have met here is an intense love for their new home institutions. I also found an interesting expression from the rector that “a president is the human logo for their university/college.” Which made me think maybe I need a RISD tattoo of some form … but figure the Board wouldn’t go for that (smile). And so my/our learning continues …

Trustee and RISD parent Dick Haining reports that there is an upcoming exhibition of work by alumni Bill Hall ‘70 IL and Kenn Speiser ‘68 SC at the Greenleaf Gallery in Duck, NC. The exhibition is on view August 1-31 and will feature watercolors and oils by Bill and a series of handmade prints by Kenn. So, if your summer travel plans include a trip to the Outer Banks, be sure to stop in!

Thanks, Dick, for keeping us informed!