Graphic Design program models

This entry will be quite short. Not because I’m tired of writing or have blanked out, but because this is an area that I really need to discover more. When I was designing the GD curriculum I was barely aware of different models used in graphic design programs. At that time I didn’t spend a lot of time on different models used around Europe or even North America.
Just from some readings in the past semester I have seem some northern European schools using Bauhaus as their “new” model. The Malmo University in Sweden is taking art and technology and making a new model of design education.

Ive done some reading on graphic design pedagogy in Basel, Switzerland and comparisons towards North American models. Rob Roy Kelly from then the Kansas City Art Institute described that Basel pedagogy is more rigid and abstract the what is found in American programs. The Basel process is to bring students through problems with little articulation of criteria and that the majority of the learning was through the definition of the problems and student self discovery. While this is just a speculation but from what I have heard in other fine art and design universities in Italy this was the adopted model. There seems to be a very strict system in the Basel graphic design program where students are carefully selected and the program was a very intense work schedule for the duration.
Kelly explains this model, while beneficial, did not seem to fit with the high enrollment, bureaucratic administration and retention of North American universities.

“American students tend to view assignments as doing what the teacher wants”

While teaching in the European school in Florence, I found that the students from Europe pushed themselves more creatively within the confines of the problem and they recognized the work they were doing for learning benefit and not necessarily for the teacher or grade. While the American students in the same course needed very strict criteria to the project and relied heavily on the acceptance of problem solving technique from the teacher.