Teaching statement
I’m interested in the role the university plays in fostering discourse, individual growth, and community. My perspective aligns with traditional humanist principles in its belief that college is a place to open young minds, to learn about others’ perspectives, and to encourage humanity. I believe that association and open-minded discussion provide the infrastructure for a healthy democracy, and I’m particularly interested in UIC’s ability — as a diverse public research university — to teach at a level of excellence equal to that of our elite private peers, providing access to a superlative education for those that might not otherwise be able to afford it, and contributing to the democratization of our professions in the process.
When I became Director of Graduate Studies in Graphic Design in 2014, I convened faculty to understand what they thought was working and what should be changed within the graduate program. Together, we developed a program mission that balances critical thinking and disciplinary making, and that encourages a range of student and faculty perspectives, methodologies, and practices. I’ve led a shift of the program’s curriculum to allow a student’s first year to focus outwardly on theoretical and disciplinary exploration and research; and focus inwardly on individual practice in the second year through two semesters of thesis studio in which students produce a cogent body of work. In addition, I’ve initiated, managed, and sustained a graduate public seminar series since 2015 that brings local, national, and international speakers from a variety of perspectives to foster intellectual exchange in the program and fuel discourse about design.
In my classes I promote speculation, exploration, play, risk, failure, and (sometimes) success. I support the Buddhist concept of the beginner’s mind — I do not define outcomes or prescribe methodologies, but instead encourage students to explore unfamiliar tools, media, and processes in open-ended and self-directed ways. I ask students: what does it mean to design well? In so doing, I hope to demonstrate that there is no “right way” to design, only ways that are right for particular students. By exploring the changing methods, context, and function of visual communication, I hope to broaden students’ understanding of what constitutes design practice, both historically and in the contemporary moment. I’ve learned that there are times that this approach works better than others; it’s less successful in an 80+ person undergraduate colloquium class, for example, than it is in a small, individually focused graduate studio.
I believe this approach yields outstanding and diverse outcomes. External reviewers have commented that they were “blown away by the work” and that they “really appreciate that the program affords the students space and time to develop their practice in a variety of ways.” Over the past seven years, a number of student projects have won regional, national, and international publicity and acclaim, including a Best of Show award from the Society of Typographic Arts, which profiles the best in Chicago’s graphic design; publication in Brand New, the international leader of online journalism about identity and brand design; and inclusion in Dutch Design Week (DDW). The largest design event in Northern Europe, DDW presents projects that are original or experimental in both execution and idea to an audience of more than 355,000 visitors; three graduate students have shown their thesis projects at the event over the past three years.
This year COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have provided an opportunity to rethink the courses that I teach. During the pandemic, I’ve sought to maximize online platforms’ ability to provide additional structure, clarity, disciplinary depth, and community to anxious students. At a time of social unrest, I’ve revised course syllabi to pair canonical readings and assignments with a range of counternarratives that look closely at issues of racial and gender inequity in the profession, in an effort to promote understanding by engaging with hard questions and investigating avenues for change.
Going forward, I would like to strengthen the program and my classes by continuing to develop ways to apply the practices I’ve learned this year, while incorporating my research in syllabi, connecting coursework and design practice to civic engagement and larger ethical concerns. I hope to deepen the ways in which I bring faculty together to strengthen the curriculum, while simultaneously providing a forum that allows student voices to shape the program and address issues that impact their cohort. In so doing, I hope to help facilitate an education and a community that encourages students and faculty to open their minds, to teach us to see beyond the issues that divide us, so that we can begin to impact the world.
Cheryl Towler Weese