Guiding Pillars

The mission of the Design program has always been to graduate designers who can synthesize technology, aesthetics, and business factors in service of human need. Four interconnected pillars — Make, Care, Adapt, Spark — guide our academic program.

Kelly Schmutte
Director of Undergraduate Studies

“In design, we believe the unknown holds creative possibility and opportunity. Students in our program learn how to sit in the discomfort of ambiguity and leverage its possibilities in order to make solutions that shape the future.

Design is needed more urgently than ever in the world, and across a widening array of disciplines. We’ve evolved the degree to support our students to meet the needs of this moment.”

Make

The ability to prototype and make across all mediums, existing and emerging, with a particular fluency in a chosen area.

Care

The care and responsibility to be leading stewards of the planet, all people, and the data we generate.

Adapt

The flexibility of adaptive learning.

Spark

The quirky creativity that produces new to the world ideas.