Message from
Dean Michael McClure, FAAR, AIA
At APDesign//K-State, we know that Design Matters.
Architects, Planners, and Designers are essential to society. Our professions’ driving goals are to create and improve our physical environment. We are essentially involved in the world we live in; products, buildings, interiors, landscapes, and communities. We are the professions that make the world more beautiful, more meaningful, and more useful.
Our privilege is to work on solving problems and creating solutions for others. We lead teams, guide communities and synthesize expertise to identify and solve problems. We incorporate both the scientific method and the creative method. We celebrate both the practical and the poetic. We are optimistic and realistic. We are collaborative. We believe in a better future, and we are equipped to bring our visions into reality.
This is why Design and Planning are uniquely poised to be at the forefront of addressing the most pressing challenges facing society today. At APDesign//K-State we are committed to studying, developing, and employing solutions that embrace climatic sustainability and resiliency. We are committed to solutions that are inclusive and respectful of the diverse social and cultural histories and identities of the communities we serve. We make connections between the academy and the public to encourage engagement with the world and its problems. We rise to the challenges of climate change, social justice, community health, equitable access, and the other multitude of issues facing our world.
At APDesign//K-State we understand that the best Architecture, Planning, and Design work is the result of inclusive, critical, and collaborative design processes that seek to solve problems and provide solutions to the communities we serve. Our students, faculty, and staff are dedicated to teach, learn, create, as part of K-State’s goal to become the ‘next generation land grant university’. The university’s mission in our mission; to educate students while conducting research, scholarship, creative works and community outreach that will improve the lives of our communities.
We are dedicated to diversity and inclusion. Design is for everyone, and design education is for everyone. Because we want our professions to be more relevant to society and to offer more robust solutions, we are committed to creating professions that represent the communities we are serving. When we increase access to our professions and educational model, we create more pathways to overcome systemic inequalities. This in turn will bring more diverse, vibrant, and representative leaders into the professions.
APDesign//K-State is a college that houses all the disciplines in design and planning. Our wide array of degrees and certificates open diverse and multiple paths for people to find their ways into the creative design fields. This creates an environment of tremendous opportunity to leverage our expertise to work together to produce graduates that are nimble enough to operate across a vast array of issues while developing solutions specific enough to have value. Our professional design and planning programs embrace multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration. These learning environments model the collaborations our graduates will find in the professional world.
We treat our students like the professional leaders we are training them to be. The professional skills we develop are more than base competencies. We teach our students to strive for continuous learning, inclusiveness, critical inquiry, open dialogue, inquisitiveness, and dedication to craft. Our students now will become the design leaders of tomorrow. Practicing professionals are fully aware as evidenced by fact that 95% of our graduates find meaningful employment within six months of graduation.
Our facility models our approach. Housing all the disciplines, the newly renovated and expanded Seaton and Regnier Halls are designed to encourage interdisciplinary learning that is collaborative, hands-on, applied and engaged. It is a transformed historical structure that offers an extraordinary 21st century learning and teaching environment. Its studios, classrooms, fabrication facilities, and labs nurture the full range of teaching and learning techniques from traditional drawing and making to the most up to date and future focused fabrication and digital technologies.
At APDesign//K-State, we know that Design Matters.
We are making leaders and we are making a difference.
Michael A. McClure, FAAR, AIA
Dean and Professor