sort of territorial behavior is deliberate; they might be right. Departments controlling academic content realize the inherent value of the portion that they control, but rather than taking the time to understand the holistic nature of what interaction design is capable of by validating its broader need within an increasingly global community and recruiting the intellectual talent to support it, for a variety of political and budgetary reasons departments often petulantly cling to their piece of the academic pie. The net effect is to minimize the true value of an integrated program of study with a philosophical value of its own. This dilutes the intellectual development of students, the structure of the discipline and the necessary self-reflective criticism that will make such a program not only viable but also essential to the understanding of technology and its humane and rational integration into our daily lives.

Beyond these subject-matter silos, the other challenge that goes into designing an educational program of study, especially a newer field like interaction design, lies in defining the discipline itself. This is never more difficult than when it has to be done in advance of, or in

the midst of, arguments about the validity of its anticipated need—or for that matter, in advance of changes to the status quo. Unfortunately, due to both internal and external pressures, the current model of curriculum and academic program development in higher education is one that has become highly standardized, requiring everyone to have advance confidence in the process and the outcomes. This so-called consensus model sounds good theoretically, and it is, for those vested in perpetuating it. However something is lost when institutions fail to be inventive because they are placed in defensive mode which allows academic programming to naturally gravitate toward that which satisfies only the minimum standards and won’t solve the problem. In fact, minimum standards are actually counterintuitive to the future-oriented discovery method that is central in moving interaction design (or any discipline) forward.

The politics of change are often revolutionary rather than evolutionary for good reason; those who financially and politically benefit from existing models are loath to embrace new models. Those guarding that status quo are often very threat-

ened by change and tend to feel that they have the most to lose from any influence a change agent may have. But here we are, not only at a collision of old versus new technology, but also old versus new thinking about the notions of finite resources, sustainability, and even social engineering and personal and community responsibility. Of course, this crossroads argument could be used to talk about revisions to many programs of study, not just interaction design. Indeed, the future of man is increasingly in need of more forward-looking curricula within all disciplines to begin to move our societies beyond current models. Given the potentially tectonic shifts that are coming, by failing to do anything new we are simply rearranging deck chairs on the ship when we should be looking toward the horizon to set a new course.

 

Interactions: Cultural, Social, and Environmental How do we move beyond this stasis point? The course we set should be directed away from the current dichotomy between what we want ( continued consumption) and what we need (continued survival). That dichotomy has never been greater. Because maintaining the