According to "Education Revolution," a study released recently by international architecture firm RMJM, students at top U.S. design schools rated job prospects as the top benefit of integrating sustainable design into the school curriculum, but only 6 percent of design leaders believe recent graduates are very well prepared to address sustainable design. In contrast, 23 percent of students and 32 percent of faculty think they are very well prepared. A total of 88 percent of firm leaders believe that knowledge of sustainable design will significantly affect a young person's advancement. The survey also showed wide differences between graduates' aptitude on different areas of sustainable design as identified by LEED ratings. The study was released at the 2008 GreenBuild conference in Boston last month. The study compared the opinions of three different groups: students currently enrolled in graduate/undergraduate architecture programs in the U.S; faculty in the architecture programs of those same schools; and sustainable design leaders of large design firms that hire the graduates of those schools. Graduates' Preparation for Sustainable Design Careers The survey queried faculty, students and sustainable design leaders to assess how well-prepared graduates entering the workforce are to practice sustainable design. The higher percentage of students giving themselves lower scores on preparation suggests that they either have higher standards for sustainable design and/or that the schools are not providing them with an adequate level of knowledge. How Sustainable Design is Taught The survey asked both students and faculty about the approach to the teaching of sustainable design within their academic institution. While there was agreement on the approaches, students seemed less aware of the available options. "The debate within academic institutions as to whether it is better to integrate sustainable design within an existing program or to set up a separate program is perhaps the most central issue," said Phil Dordai, Principal at RMJM and expert on sustainable design. "It raises the issue of how best to implement change, incrementally or more radically? Sustainable design represents a new focus for design programs and it has emerged in a fairly short period of time. In many ways it poses a challenge to the teaching of traditional design studios and asks faculty to integrate that new material into the very basic principles of how they approach and teach design. We hope this survey will help point out trends over time and show how schools that follow different paths can provide better methods of teaching sustainable design to the next generation of designers."
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