ABSTRACT
The widespread adoption of design thinking, and its embrace within the public sphere, has served to create some confusion around the role of design academics in the contemporary university. This chapter argues that these three different domains – of design process, design practice and design thinking – serve as useful landmarks for navigating the confusing territory of being a design academic in the contemporary university. The mastery of each of these three areas of design process, practice and thinking, can be considered as a “landmark” that can be used by an academic for orientation. This unit (subject) was designed specifically to teach first-year undergraduate students about existing and emerging technology and how it applies to design. Design practice speaks to the individual disciplines and their proud and continuing traditions, whereby design academics come to have mastery within a specific domain of knowledge.
