Welcome to the first issue of the College of Design's magazine, Emerging. We have, of course, already emerged as a college. As of July 1, 2006, we combined the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture with the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel in the former College of Human Ecology to become one of the most disciplinarily diverse design colleges in a major research university in the country, with seven degree programs -- architecture, clothing design, graphic design, housing studies, interior design, landscape architecture, and retail merchandising -- and one more, product design, on the way. And we have also "e-merged," with Web and e-mail helping connect our 1,432 students, 54 fulltime faculty, 100 + adjuncts, and 92 staff in four buildings on two campuses, three miles apart.

We chose to use the term Emerging this year because it best describes the process we have begun, aligning this college with the many opportunities for growth and change emerging all around us: from the business community's recognition of design as increasingly critical to companies' success in the global economy, to the education community's interest in design studio as a model for project-based learning in K-12 schools, to the public health community's pursuit of design as a way to combat the obesity epidemic. Rarely has design played such a central role in so many different areas of activity, and we intend, in our new college, to capitalize on this phenomena as much as possible.

For example, we have started to identify and support a range of "communities of interest" -- areas of common teaching, research, and service among our faculty and staff that cut across departmental and collegiate lines. Those "communities" not only provide a way in which colleagues with similar pursuits can get to know each other's work, but also offer opportunities for new hybrid forms of design to develop in response to the changing needs of clients, customers, and communities. Read more about communities of interest on page 6. We have also taken our public mission to heart, with faculty and students working on rebuilding the Gulf Coast, on housing immigrants in center cities and rural areas, on reducing our environmental impact, and on transforming design through a variety of digital tools.

The college has emerged, too, as a place to bring people together. We have started a new alumni and student board, gathering current and future practitioners around the table to share ideas and start initiatives. At the same time, I have begun "listening lunches" with colleagues and constituents to hear their concerns, field questions, and imagine collectively all that we might be. Open houses, lectures, exhibitions, receptions, and reunions have been other ways we have tried to help people connect and grow. Through all of this, we have learned one thing: that designing a college, like designing anything else, takes time and patience, so see this first issue as an introduction to and progress report on a college full of great promise and terrific people and facing a future in which design has never been so valued.

Thomas Fisher
Professor and Dean
College of Design