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Portland State University links local business with its creative program

Four years ago, a degree in computer science seemed like the golden ticket to a profitable professional career.

By:
Heidi J Stout
The Business Journal of Portland

Now some people who studied computer science are having a hard time landing a job—any job—and they question whether that degree is worth the paper it’s printed on.

Corporations are gradually shifting the skills they seek in employees to reflect a more well-rounded, team-oriented creative thinker. A new program at Portland State University is connecting eight departments with a common curriculum called creative industries studies.

"We’re not reinventing the wheel; we’re reconnecting the spokes," said Mike Pippi, director of creative industries studies at Portland State University. "We’re using education as a cornerstone to develop ethical, creative leaders and to build businesses here and keep them here."

In many colleges and universities, students are confined within one department or discipline. But academia doesn’t match corporate culture, where employees are frequently asked to work on diverse projects with various departments.

"Occupations come and go, so we’re on a mission to allow our students to move as the economy moves," said PSU Vice Provost Terry Rhodes.

"Businesses really need people with liberal arts degrees," added Lynn Parsons, an independent marketing consultant who is working with Pippi to promote the program. "Those with pure science training might not have team learning or problem-solving skills."

Parsons has observed architecture students in need of marketing skills to land a client, and Pippi pointed out that graphic designers in advertising also need a healthy dose of business understanding.

The eight PSU departments collaborating in the Creative Industries Studies Initiative include art, music, theater, architecture, business, engineering, liberal arts and urban and public affairs. The cross-department course offerings include summer courses in animation and strategic design, minors in animation and advertising, majors in creative industries studies and eventually masters’ programs, such as the program based on a student-run public relations and advertising firm.

Pippi said creative firms such as Wieden + Kennedy contribute their expertise to the program, coaching students on work for nonprofit clients.

"The mission of this institution has always been to connect what we do to the rest of the region," Rhodes said. "This is something that we’re very excited about because it’s the way we think PSU students can draw from both the expertise in the university and link with the vibrant part of the creative industry economy in Portland."

Early plans for the curricula included advertising, broadcasting, web design and graphic design, but with input from local business leaders, another curriculum called strategic design emerged. Many Oregon businesses, such as Nike, Adidas, and Xerox, must recruit industrial and product design staff from out of state because Oregon does not offer a college program to train these designers.

Larry Eisenbach, program manager for advanced research and development in Nike’s footwear division, said 95 percent of Nike’s industrial and product design staff are recruited from out of state. Eisenbach graduated from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut with an industrial design degree, then made a beeline back to Oregon.

When Eisenbach approached Portland State University with the idea for creating a strategic design curriculum, incorporating the elements of product, industrial and sustainable design, he found it dovetailed with the creative services industries program Pippi was working with others to invent.

"Normally, when you do a curriculum, you do it internally," Pippi explained. "There is a marked change in how the university approached building this curriculum." It involved the participation of dozens of business leaders; a list of participants reads like a "who’s who" in Portland. Eisenbach’s input is exactly the kind of participation Pippi seeks from Oregon’s business community.

Eisenbach explained that strategic design, as opposed to traditional industrial design, includes the three E’s of sustainability: the economics of running a profitable business, the ethics of running a socially equitable firm and a commitment to protecting the environment and natural resources by designing the product from one incarnation to the next, rather than from the shelf to the landfill.

"This program is not to develop industrial designers per se, but to develop creative leaders who are steeped in industrial design," Eisenbach said. "Strategic design is a nod to the fact that everything in business is designed, whether it be a service or a product. What designers can bring to the table is this holistic notion; they perceive the world and absorb information in a holistic sense, and communicate it in very understandable, visual ways. "

Nike and other local companies will profit from the curriculum by educating their future work force. Eisenbach said it can take as long as three or four years to fully integrate an entry-level employee in a design team. Internships allow a company such as Nike to bring the employee up to speed more quickly, and supervise their educational development to ensure they have the right skills before they are hired.

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