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Introducing MCAD's MA in Sustainable Design - Educating Global Change Agents

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Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is pushing the design envelope with their new Master of Arts in Sustainable Design—an interdisciplinary, studio design-oriented degree that is also offered completely online. The Designers Accord talks to Program Coordinator (and biomimicry education leader) Cindy Gilbert about the inspiration for the program and how MCAD plans to shape the next generation of global creative problem-solvers.

Designers Accord: MCAD has a long history of leadership in sustainable design. What prompted the creation of this program at this particular moment in time?

Cindy Gilbert: MCAD's Sustainable Design Online (SDO) program grew out of a public sustainable design lecture series and film series that continues today, both hosted by MCAD in 2000, long before it was hip to be green! Our new MA in Sustainable Design is a result of the natural evolution of a successful professional certificate program that has been offered at MCAD since 2004. It was also shaped by the Designers Accord Design Education Summit and the toolkit that the attendees co-authored.

When I came on board in 2010, I conducted candid interviews with every instructor, student, staff and alumni of the certificate program that I could reach to determine the program's greatest challenges and opportunities. A resounding outcome of the feedback was that a multidisciplinary, graduate-level degree was required to provide students with the appropriate credentials and experiential framework to become effective global change agents. The time is ripe for change and MCAD has the online learning tools to magnify the reach and sustainability expertise to continue to lead the charge.

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Designers Accord: You mentioned the Designers Accord Education Summit as helping to shape the new Masters program. At that event in October 2009, you participated as one of several facilitators of the group of 100 design educators from different institutions and countries talking about the future of design education. What insights in particular contributed to the creation of the program created at MCAD?

CG: The DA Education Summit was immediately influential to me and my work. I applied many of the comments that I heard from the group to the development of an educator's training program at The Biomimicry Institute (where I worked at the time) and I also met two founders of MCAD's SDO program at that event who would become my greatest supporters when I joined the MCAD team a year later.

We have used the DA Education Toolkit to guide the creation of MCAD's new MA in many ways and at different levels. 1) Course level: the "Creating a Common Language"—one of 8 topics in the toolkit—helped to frame our Introduction to Sustainable Design course curricula. 2) Program level: the topics "Designing a Sustainability Curriculum," "Updating Existing Design Programs," and "Measuring Success" were particularly helpful in bringing consciousness to respecting the work that has preceded us. My biggest task then, and today, is to listen. 3) Institutional level: "Creating a Common Language" has been an invaluable reference point for my work at the institutional level. Gaining traction for a novel and untraditional program has been the most challenging part about the process. Remembering that the program, like everything, is part of a system helps to foster sustainable relationships. Transparency and patience are critical factors for success.

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