10 January 2001

Dundee design guru returns for lecture

photo of Prof Starszakowna "Just what is design ? And why does it matter?" are among the questions to be addressed by one of the UK's leaders in the field when she returns to Dundee to deliver the first of this year's Saturday Evening Public Lectures this weekend ( Saturday 13 Jan).

Professor Norma Starszakowna, formerly head of the school of textiles At Duncan of Jordanstone College and now director of research and Development at the London Institute and chair of the research assessment panel for art and design, will use the Dundee school as a case study in her lecture "Design Matters; a case study of design in education".

She said today: "I'm delighted to return to Dundee to give this Illustrated lecture which will highlight the development and future directions of design within education. Design is a complex discipline involving a multitude of different aspects. Through presenting the experiences of the school of textiles at Duncan of Jordanstone College from 1984 -1990 as a case study, I expect to show how, over five years, it came from being a small and unkown department to one which was cited as best in the UK. I will be illustrating the mechanisms and processes by which that took place."

The lecture will be chaired by Professor Ian Howard, dean of the Faculty of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee. The lectures, which are free and open to the public, are staged by the University's department of Continuing Education and take place at 7pm in the Tower Extension Lecture Theatre./ends