Design Studies director Susan Yelavich was recently interviewed by Insights, the magazine of the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons.

Here’s some of what she had to say about the new design studies program:

I can imagine students who will be issue-driven, students who are driven by attraction to a particular design discipline, and students who want to explore design in relation to other disciplines altogether. Those who are concerned about issues (which could range from sustainability to food systems to education) will want to explore the role that design plays within those realms. For example, they might study how cultural conceptions of nature over time have led to the precarious state of the environment and are still affecting efforts to design more sustainably today.

Keep reading for more from the interview.

Those students who come to the program from a specific field of design study or practice will want to explore how the disciplines that they know are expanding, how they are bleeding into other realms, and how they are fundamentally related to the ways we choose to live in the world. In this scenario, I can imagine projects that examine the role of professional design (i.e. communication design, urbanism) in a world where community- and self-initiated projects are rapidly growing.

I also look forward to working with students who want to explore the intellectual history of design. These students might investigate how design, as a form of tacit cultural knowledge, continues to be informed by mythology. They might consider the ways in which works of literature reveal how design affects human relationships. Or, they might examine how our conceptions of time and chronology have been changed by design from the advent of electric lighting to the digital 24/7. Design has operated under various names and with various understandings over time. So the possibilities for illuminating our knowledge of its dimensions are rich.

Head to Insights for the full interview, which includes more on the Design Studies program.

The priority deadline has passed, but applications are still being considered on a rolling basis.