Brain A New Idea

SPECIAL REPORT This series of articles on PGSF and Graphic Communications Education features special reports and interviews by:

Joe Webb - Do We Really Need Graphic Communications Education? Patrick Henry - In Brooklyn, There’s a Beacon for Print Industry Education Voices from the Academy

Cary Sherburne - How To Meet the Obligation “To Do Right by the Industry” The Value of PGSF Scholarships in Building the Talent Pool

Frank Romano - Future of Graphic Arts Education = Future of the Graphic Arts

PGSF: Building the Future of Our Industry WhatTheyThink featured this series of articles on the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF) to raise awareness about the important work this organization does in attracting new talent to our industry. PGSF is a not-for-profit, private, industrydirected organization, housed under the same roof as PIA/GATF, that dispenses undergraduate college scholarships and graduate fellowship assistance to talented men and women interested in graphic communications careers. The mission of PGSF is “To strengthen the print and graphics industry by providing scholarship assistance.” PGSF has coordinated the printing industry’s largest scholarship program since its inception in 1956. We hope our readers will consider supporting the work PGSF does to attract the best and brightest to our industry. Our future depends on it!

Do We Really Need Graphic Communications Education? by Dr. Joe Webb

One of the key challenges for businesses today—especially graphic communications businesses—is the ability to source and retain qualified personnel in an increasingly complex and digital business environment. A particular challenge for the graphic com-

munications industry is educating young people to work in a constantly changing business, encouraging many of them to be entrepreneurs, savvy in multiple media, with the capabilities to take the risk of creating independent businesses. Some continue to believe that one of the problems with graphic communications is the fact that it is a hidden industry, and that is the reason why “no one” has any interests in working in our industry. This is quite untrue. We wake up to music, we play music in our cars, we listen to music on treadmills and in gyms, music plays while we shop, eat, and relax; it’s in commercials, in movies, and TV shows. Why is not everyone in Julliard or Berklee? Why is not everyone doing something in the music industry? It’s just as “hidden” as graphic communications is. We eat food three times a day and snack and drink in between. Why is not everyone in agricultural college? It’s a meaningless, fruitless lament, which I reviewed in a recent article. Young people are often called “digital natives.” They use rich media on a daily basis, surrounded by computer graphics in games and in movies, immersed in digital photography in cell phones and new cameras. They are handing in school projects as digital files or as PowerPoint presentations. This “excuse” that no one “knows” about our industry is wrongheaded. It might be better described that we know little about them. Graphic communications is not hidden; it is all around us, just like food and music are. © 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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No better indication of the lack of congruence of market needs and education can be found than in a very interesting story in the Wall Street Journal about the rapid increase in salaries for workers in new media. Some jobs have increased their pay ranges by more than 50% just in the past year due to the lack of supply of qualified workers. Many educational programs have changed their names from “graphic arts” or “printing” to “graphic communications.” If we really believe that the name changes mattered, then we believe that new media are part of “graphic communications” just as much as printing is. Among the challenges that graphic communications programs face is keeping their offerings in tune with the current and emerging needs of graphic communications professionals. Sometimes, however, those skills are being taught in other schools or departments in those same colleges and universities, such as art departments, or communication arts departments, and computer departments. Sometimes there are academic turf wars where there is competition for the affections and aspirations of the same exact students. Is the concern about attracting students to graphic communications departments more about this competition than it is other factors? Whether or not this is the issue, never has there been a more vibrant, technologically diverse, and dynamic graphic communications marketplace. What is taught in most of today’s graphic communication programs

will be outmoded in years, and not decades. Academic turf wars aside, there are some foundation elements that ensure that the right talents are cultivated for the student’s best future interests. The role of theoretical versus practical knowledge. There is a creative tension in many fields of study between practical and theoretical issues. Paradoxically, the greater the amount of change, the greater need to emphasize theory, and the less need to emphasize practical knowledge. It may seem backwards, but although there is always an effort to graduate students with marketable skills, marketable thinking ability is the best long-term skill. Students are immersed in a technological revolution, unaware of a world without an Internet. Technology touches student life in ways previously unseen by their teachers. This gives them a deeper personal understanding of technological change. My generation was insulated from much of it, since it was common that new technologies would first be adopted by high-level researchers, such as in labs and the defense department, and then big business, and then small businesses and consumers. We were more likely to experience something technologically new outside the home than in it. Today, consumers often have technologies, even as simple as instant messaging, that corporations fear to implement for security reasons. An example of how backwards this has become is found in a recent story about companies buying iPods for corporate training.

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Taking a Systems Approach What tools do we give students to understand this kind of world? A major goal of education is to instill a desire for lifelong learning in students, and then equip them with the skills to do so. This requires a firm foundation that teaches students to think clearly and logically, leading to the capability to evaluate and approach complex problems confidently. It is not lost on me, with an MBA in management information systems, that the VistaPrint business was designed by people with systems analysis in their background. Nowhere in graphic communications programs have I found emphasis on systems analysis. Therefore, no graphic arts executive would be likely to invent a VistaPrint. The recent interest in workflow systems is actually a sign that our systems are changing, and that an understanding of systems analysis is lacking in industry management. All this requires some kind of mental discipline, often developed by studying science and mathematics. Appreciation of experimentation and the scientific method builds capability for rational decision-making. Mathematics stresses thinking abilities, and often creates skills that allow students to grasp far more than the obvious. Not everyone is up to that. Some people are naturally rational thinkers, others are emotional thinkers, the typical left-brain versus right-brain simplification of the world. This is why we educate ourselves and students, so that we can at least operate in either world with some reasonable © 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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functionality. Not that we lose our left- or right-brainedness, but that we enhance our natural talents and fill in what is not. These kinds of things change over time. I actually avoided heavy math until I had that one teacher in graduate school who somehow got it to make sense: two years later I was teaching quantitative analysis. I always thought that was strange, but that’s the power that education has. It took an attitude adjustment. Systems analysis is usually taught only in computer classes, but is actually related to economics (and also related to concepts taught in calculus). The whole concept of workflow is based on an understanding of microeconomics and that a system has a goal with has an optimal cost. I see very little economics content in graphic communications programs. Some programs will have economics as it relates to production. One college requires a course in political economy, so one has to hope that a student would find his or her way to microeconomics as a liberal arts elective, which would be a much better choice. It’s not likely. Microeconomics is more important than macroeconomics, because you delve into topics such as division of labor, marginal costs and comparative advantage, essential for understanding technology adoption and implementation. Now that skills are no longer in discrete tasks but in how those tasks interrelate, this is more important than ever. Driving Creativity Through Education One philosophy course that should be included in a good curriculum is the study of logic. Sometime in the future, students will have to make careful decisions. In an interconnected world

where technology changes the nature of the connections and the participants, workers are constantly faced with decisions. Classes in psychology, both for understanding how one works with others, but also applied to the nature of communications, and how graphics affect the understanding of information are important. Together, with sociology, for example, it lays the foundation for understanding why personalization technologies can or can’t work.

someone knowledgeable in the various media we now have, and the media to come. We are far better at warehousing data than we are at displaying and deploying it. There is no doubt that the delivery of information is becoming more graphically intense, enhanced by embedded video and audio. The technologies, the standards, and the applications are all moving targets. That’s why it’s so interesting to be involved in it.

Entrepreneurship study should be part of the program. Because so many graphic communications students will one day run small businesses, or be executives, or be freelancers, it’s hard to imagine being successful without this study of applied creativity.

This is why it’s so essential that students learn the theoretical means of getting messages to audiences in efficient and effective ways, because the graphic communications professional can understand the subtle, interrelated steps that those who are not professional practitioners cannot easily see.

Creating Order Out of Chaos

Looking Toward the Future

Why does one need a graphic communications degree? It’s hard to justify since so many executives and workers found their way to the industry from elsewhere. My undergraduate work was in marketing and managerial science. One consultant I know was a biochemistry major, and his work is all the better for it. There are so many ways to get to this industry and be successful. There is a reason why people with degrees in non-graphic disciplines work in our industry and do well: we need their specific skills.

The need for a skilled practitioner to make sure the message gets where it needs to be and is understood will not disappear. We need people who can think, and are well-grounded in basic concepts, have skills in implementation in media that don’t really exist yet. This means that there will be new professions in graphic media that will emerge amidst the constant change.

But now we need new graphic communications professionals for a growing need: information chaos. Graphic communications programs can teach people how to create order out of such chaos. There is so much information being created, that the management of it, the organization and display of it, and storage of it, has to be crafted by

This is a great time to be a graphic communications major. Things are changing so quickly in graphic communications that we should not envy the educators, but should certainly envy the students. They’ve got a whole new media world to play in, and the rules are being written as they go along. They’re the ones who will play key roles in taming the media chaos. Let’s all do our part to encourage a growing talent pool and increasingly

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relevant content in our graphic communications programs. One way we can do that it to support the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation in their efforts to provide financial support for students who are interested in careers in the graphic communications industry.

full-time member of the college’s graphic arts teaching staff since 1979. As a part of this week’s focus on industry education, WhatTheyThink asked him to describe the department, its curricula, its students, and the role that it plays in the graphic communications industry in the New York City metropolitan area.

In Brooklyn, There’s a Beacon for Print Industry Education: An Interview with Joel Mason, NYC College of Technology by Patrick Henry

WTT: Please tell us about the history and the present status of the Department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts at NYCCT.

With nearly half of its 13,370 students born outside the U.S., it has a campus population representing 134 countries. More than 60 percent of its students report that a language other than English is spoken at home. There’s no surprise in learning that New York City College of Technology (NYCCT), a unit of the City University of New York (CUNY), probably is the nation’s most ethnically diversified institution of higher learning. What may come as a revelation is that the college, located in downtown Brooklyn near the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, also is home to one of the country’s most substantial college-level education programs for graphic communications. Last month, an article in Advertising Age noted NYCCT’s importance as an incubator of design talent for New York City’s advertising industry. In fact, the college’s department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts has an even broader educational mission, offering two- and four-year degrees in graphic arts production management as well as in art and design for advertising. Leading the mission is the department’s chair, Joel Mason, who has held the post since 1988. Trained as a graphic designer himself, Mason has been a

JM: Ours was one of four founding departments when the College opened in 1946. Today, with an enrollment of 1,127 students, we’re the largest academic department at NYCCT. Last year, we graduated 149 students from our four degree programs. The faculty consists of 19 full-time members and 64 part-time adjuncts. Our adjunct instructors come from many areas of the graphic communications industry, and they include artists, photographers, graphic designers, production specialists, journalists, and consultants. WTT: Has the department expanded or upgraded its facilities and teaching resources recently? JM: We’ll be moving about half of our facilities into a 17,000-sq.-ft space in a new building that will begin construction across the street in about six months. We’ll also renovate another 6,000 sq. ft. to accommodate our binding/finishing and computer labs. Our pressroom currently has three Heidelberg singlecolor presses, four small Chief presses, a Xerox DocuColor 2060 digital color press, and three HP wide-format inkjet printers. All of this equipment was donated by vendors and printers that support the department and the work we do. WTT: What makes the department different from other graphics studies pro-

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grams in the NYC-metro area? JM: I think that what makes us exceptional is the opportunity we provide for students of design and students of production to work together. The degree programs are structured so that design students can interact with the production workflow at all three stages of prepress, press, and postpress. It’s clear to us from all of our conversations with people in the industry that design students must have a better understanding of how the things they create will be produced. So, for example, in the Print Production for Design course, the students start with a finished piece and “reverse engineer” its development from finished production to the creative stage. In another class, a design team works with a production team on projects for not-for-profit organizations. The design team does the creative work, and the production team does the estimating—all within the school. WTT: In general, what kinds of skills and knowledge do the degree programs aim to provide? JM: At the associate-degree level, the objective is to give students a fundamental understanding of design subjects including drawing, typography, desktop publishing, digital photography, and vector-based art. It’s important to point out that we are not teaching applications in these courses—we are teaching concepts. At the two-year mark, all candidates for associate degrees must pass an academic proficiency exam required by CUNY. They then are eligible for a “2 + 2” program that enables them to take 60 more credits for a bachelor’s degree, including one of four 15-credit specialization tracks in advertising design, graphic design, Web design, and digital multimedia. Everyone takes the design team

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class, completes an internship, and creates a portfolio for his or her senior project. Our production studies program also is unique in the New York City area because of all of the things we teach our production students to do. They learn estimating, digital asset management, platemaking, print on demand, ink mixing, quality assurance, and many other subjects that make them well prepared to enter the industry after graduation. Our approach to teaching these subjects is not just “chalk and talk”—when students complete these courses, they really understand how to operate a press or a folder. We’re also preparing to increase the number of electives with classes that will introduce students to workflow analysis, systems management, and project management. WTT: What attracts students to the department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts at NYCCT? How do they find out about it? JM: Many hear about us in high school from their guidance counselors or by word-of-mouth from family and friends. Some transfer in from other colleges including other branches of CUNY, and sometimes they come from other departments of NYCCT. The Internet is quite an effective recruiting tool for us— when students find our Web site, they contact us for information. The college also invites CUNY applicants to attend the department’s open-house recruiting events in the spring and fall. WTT: What kinds of careers do your graduates go on to pursue? JM: Our design students become art directors, creative directors, graphic designers, Web designers, and comic book illustrators. It can be hard to keep track of them after graduation because they move around constantly—they

can be found in advertising agencies, design studios, media firms, and design departments of corporations. Some start their own design businesses. On the production side, NYCCT graduates are working for companies such as The New York Times, Newsweek, Time Inc., and Hachette Filipacchi. One of our former students is the director of production operations at Hachette; the director of digital development at Time Inc. is another of our graduates. We also have department alumni in seniorlevel design and production positions at Information Builders, Marriott, and Sony Music. Some of the people in these top positions were my own students, I’m proud to say. WTT: What is the job market like for your graduates at the moment? JM: The market is pretty strong—the industry is looking for talent, and there are a lot of jobs out there. We frequently receive calls from companies offering internships that later become full-time jobs. The employment picture definitely is stronger than it was three years ago. The shrinkage in the number of industry firms and positions because of increased efficiency is a fact, but it’s also a fact that for many companies, revenues and volumes are going up. That creates job opportunities for our students. WTT: What kinds of support is the department receiving from the industry in the NYC-metro area? JM: The department has the guidance of an advisory commission made up of industry professionals on both the design and the production sides. We also have very good relationships with some of the major equipment vendors, and they have been very generous—one of them, for example, recently donated a $60,000 folder for our binding

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and finishing lab. One of the ways that printers help is by sending us their overstocks of paper. Thanks to our friends in the metro area, the department’s internship program has been very active. We’re able to arrange about 100 internships at corporations, not-for-profit organizations, and public agencies every year with sponsors that have included The New York Times, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Daily News, Interior Design magazine, Avon, the American Federation for Age Research, and the CUNY Graduate Center. We’ve even placed a student in an internship at the office of the Brooklyn District Attorney, where the assignment was to create courtroom graphics for felony cases. Internship students earn three credits for working eight to 10 hours per week, or 120 hours in all for the semester. The internships also require them to meet weekly with faculty advisers, keep journals, and make presentations about what they have learned. WTT: What are the critical skills that students must now acquire in order to prepare for careers in the industry? JM: The fundamental communications skills of reading, writing, critical thinking, and problem solving will always be essential. In general, though, our educational mantra is “learn, unlearn, relearn.” It means helping students to understand that because the industry constantly changes, the purpose of education is to prepare them to accept and cope with change throughout their careers. WTT: How do you keep your curricula up to date with all of the rapid changes in industry technology? JM: It’s vital that we interact with industry organizations as much as possible, and we do that by maintaining © 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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regular contact with associations like the Partnership in Print Production (P3) here in the metro area. We also meet with employers and attend various industry events. Beyond that, it’s a matter of doing your homework and reading the literature, always keeping your finger in the wind so that you can know which way it’s blowing. WTT: Do you believe that the industry seriously committed to educating its next generation of employees, or is there more that printers and others could be doing to support programs like yours? JM: It’s a hard question to answer, but when we meet with the technology vendors to discuss the role that they can play, they often get very interested in partnering with us. Sometimes they do it partly for reasons of self-interest, seeing it as an opportunity to brand the students with their products. But they also recognize that NYCCT and other schools are the sources of future talent for the industry, so their desire to help us is genuine. WTT: Are your students aware of the assistance that’s available to them from the Print & Graphics Scholarship Foundation? JM: At NYCCT, 80% of incoming freshmen receive needs-based aid, as do 65% of continuing students. PGSF definitely is one of the sources of assistance that we try to acquaint our students with. WTT: What’s the outlook for education in graphic communications at NYCCT? JM: I’m very optimistic. When our facilities are fully expanded and upgraded, the Department of Advertising Design and Graphic Arts will be a destination for any student seeking a first-rate education in the field. We’re planning to expand our partnerships with industry, and we’re also looking forward to working more closely with our alumni. We

have a lot of success stories out there now, and they are really starting to help us.

Voices from the Academy: Graphics Educators Speak Out About the Place, Pace, and Progress of Degree Programs by Patrick Henry

While an elite printing college in California turns away most of its applicants, a school in Missouri can’t attract enough new printing students to fill the strong local demand for its graduates. In New York City, the director of a postgraduate degree program for graphic communications recruits CEOs as adjunct professors. Meanwhile, in Grand Forks, ND, an educator wonders where the extra teaching help will come from if interest in her department’s new degree in graphic design technology takes off. At a publicly funded college in Lancaster County, PA, they’re still trying to figure out how much a 15% school-wide budget cut is going to cost the institution’s printing program. The head of that department thinks that an industry fund from check-offs on sales of ink and equipment would help schools like his overcome some of the obstacles they’re facing. As these anecdotes suggest, respondents to WhatTheyThink’s online survey of graphic arts educators shared a wide range of experiences when asked to expand upon their answers in follow-up interviews. The survey, conducted as part of this week’s editorial focus on the Printing and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF) and other educational subjects, invited responses from colleges and universities listed in PGSF’s 2005-2006 Directory of Schools.

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Invitations also were sent to a list of subscribers in education maintained by WhatTheyThink. As of this writing, the survey has drawn responses from 37 educators representing approximately the same number of schools offering degrees in print production, graphic design, and related fields. Twenty respondents offered additional comments online, and we conducted follow-up telephone interviews with seven of these sources. We present the findings not as a scientific or a crosssectional poll but as a real-time window onto what printing educators are thinking about and contending with as the nature of their discipline changes as rapidly as the industry from which the discipline arises. Solid and Stable If the numbers can be said to hint at general trends in higher education for printing, the institutional ground underneath these schools appears to be solid. Better than half (57%) of WhatTheyThink’s respondents teach in graphic communications programs that enroll more than 100 students. The stability of the enrollment is noteworthy, with 87% reporting that their class lists have either increased (41%) or stayed the same (46%) compared with last year. By and large, the respondents have a sanguine outlook about the place of printing studies in academia. Fewer than half (43%) rated “justifying the continuation of our program at this college or university,” a concern, while the remainder said they were “confident in this area.” All told, these programs—staffed by a total of 544 full- and part-time faculty members—have awarded more than 2,000 two-year, four-year, and advanced degrees in 2006. Nearly eight in 10 (78%) offer bachelor’s degrees; associate degrees and certificates are © 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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available from more than half (53%). Master’s degrees can be pursued at 15 of the schools represented.

still considerable percentage (45%) said that classes in MIS for printing can be found in their course catalogs.

Three of the institutions offer doctoral studies programs.

The central place of student internships in graphic communications degree programs is seen in the fact that 86% of respondents say that their programs offer and in many cases require internships for credit. An equal percentage say that their graduating students can take advantage of employment referral programs that frequently land them jobs at the same companies where they did their internships.

As for the kinds of subjects students that students tackle in pursuit of these graphic communications degrees, it’s necessary to point out that “graphic communications” includes programs that have a strong, multi-unit printing component and others in which the study of printing might be limited to a single course. Some programs are heavily oriented toward graphic design, while others emphasize print business management over print manufacturing. In the middle are more traditional programs that make production technologies their focal points. Equivalents of the Three Rs That said, the breakdown of responses by type of course offered shows that all of the schools stress the kinds of practical skills that employers expect holders of graphics degrees to possess. For instance, nearly all (94%) respondents said that their programs teach desktop publishing. Tied for second place in popularity are prepress and offset lithography, cited by 89% as course offerings. Training in multimedia/integrated media is a close third, with 82% of respondents saying their programs teach it. The broad availability of digital printing (75%) and wide format inkjet printing (64%) reflects the growth of those technologies. The coursework doesn’t stop with putting ink and toner on paper: nearly three-quarters (72%) of the respondents said their schools also teach binding and postpress. Business management for printing was cited as a course topic by about two-thirds (62%); a smaller but

Such are the numbers. Personal responses to survey’s open-ended questions shed more light on the challenges of teaching graphic communications in a university setting. We wanted to know why, if present enrollment appeared stable, more than two-thirds (68%) of respondents said that continuing to attract students was something they were “somewhat concerned” or “very concerned” about. The explanations touch upon issues that should be of as much concern to the industry as they are to the educators. According to Dennis Dougherty, one of two full-time instructors in the graphic communications and printing technology program at Thaddeus Stevens College (Lancaster, PA), some of the difficulty stems from a general shift in thinking about the need to teach subjects like printing. “When we turned away from the industrial arts, we lost the feeder programs that many of our students once came from,” he says. The same point is made by Dr. Mark L. Rankin, professor of graphic arts technology management at the University of Central Missouri (Warrensburg, MO). “The high school programs that used to send us students no longer exist.”

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Dennis Smith, chair of the department of printing and imaging technology management at Ferris State University (Big Rapids, MI), thinks that federal “No Child Left Behind” requirements and other back-to-educational-basics initiatives will only increase the pressure to cut “extracurricular” high school programs in areas like music, art, and, unfortunately, printing. Glitz, Glamour, and a Dime a Dozen Smith also notes that some kinds of college-level graphic communications programs do better than others in terms of attracting applicants, but not necessarily for the right reasons. “If you include graphic design, our enrollment is very healthy,” he says. “On the printing and imaging side, though, we face challenges.” According to Smith, students who treat computerized graphic design as the “fun part of the business” tend to pursue study tracks that promise “glitz and glamour” gratification without requiring too much attention to the matter of how the work will be produced. Dougherty, the immediate past president of the International Graphic Arts Education Association (IGAEA), claims that this educational fallacy has bad consequences for the industry’s talent pool. “Graphic designers are like bank vice presidents today: a dime a dozen,” he says. “I’ve spoken with many printers who’ve told me that they’ll never hire another graphic designer because they’re constantly designing things that are difficult if not impossible to print.” Dr. Lynda Kenney is determined to keep this schism out of the degree program in graphic design technology that she administers at the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND). “It’s very important that designers know printers,” she says. “I tell all of my students, ‘Go

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find a printer, and make him your best friend.’ Not enough designers know the print world.” Printing’s unfair but enduring ink-underthe-fingernails reputation is something else that can work against enrollment. Philip Ruggles, who taught estimating and other subjects for 34 years in the graphic communications department at California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo, CA), says that “the word ‘printing’ doesn’t seem to drive much interest” among students looking for stimulating career paths. Rankin, who says he can’t graduate as many students as printers in the Kansas City and St. Louis areas want to hire, likewise blames “the public perception of the industry as not an attractive alternative for college students.” Nevertheless, some campuses are doing a brisk business in sign-ups for their graphics studies programs. Kenney is happy to report that hers is “busting at the seams” despite the fact that the offering is only a year old. Bonnie Blake, acting director of the M.A. program at the Center for Graphic Communications Management and Technology, New York University (New York, NY), says that curriculum revisions and the close involvement of a high-level industry advisory board have helped the program to achieve a “sharp increase” in registrations. And, negative perceptions about printing don’t seem to have done much damage at Cal Poly, which Dr. Harvey Levenson, the head of its graphic communications department, calls “an almost impossible university to get into.” He says that keeping to the department’s 300-student quota obliges him to reject three-quarters of the qualified applicants who come looking for places.

Relation of Location to Vocation The survey identified “finding qualified instructors” as the second most frequently cited concern, with 71% of respondents saying they were somewhat or very concerned about keeping up both the numbers and the quality of their teaching staff. Here, geography clearly is a factor. Blake notes that the good fortune of being located in a global media center enables NYU to engage adjunct professors “who are at the top of their game” in terms of professional achievement. She says that for students in her degree programs, “there’s a good chance that the instructor is a CEO who happens to be a very good teacher as well.” Smith, on the other hand, acknowledges that because his program is not based in a major metropolitan area, it does not have the option of building a large staff of adjuncts. The problem, he says, lies not so much in maintaining adequate numbers as in making sure that faculty members stay current with the technologies they are teaching, given their day-to-day class loads. This is a challenge well understood by Kenney, who says that “higher education is notorious for lack of funding” in areas like professional development. “We don’t have any funding unless I go out and find it.” That can be hard on her pocketbook: she says that of the six industry conferences she has attended this year, only one of the trips was reimbursed, leaving her to pay her own way on the other five. Some programs require all instructors to have postgraduate degrees, a stipulation that keeps otherwise qualified industry professionals out of classrooms. Professional educators may be deterred by the prospect of

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spending years at relatively low pay on the programs’ tenure tracks. That difficulty is compounded when the school is situated in an upscale locale like Cal Poly’s. The cost of living in and around San Luis Obispo, admits Levenson, makes some candidates “balk” when they discover how high it is. Donations Walk a Two-Way Street The number one area of concern, cited by 76% of respondents, was “obtaining graphics equipment and supplies for teaching purposes.” As a follow-up, we asked whether local printers and technology vendors were assisting the schools with adequate donations of these essentials. All of our sources said they were grateful for the level of support they were receiving, but some made pointed observations about what it takes to keep the material assistance flowing. According to Ruggles, it’s all about relationships: school-donor partnerships that have to be cultivated and maintained by the recipient in a methodical way. Schools that want donations of equipment, he says, “must do more than shake hands at Graph Expo.” Above all, they must recognize the quid pro quo nature of industry support: “The vendors have to feel they’re going to get something back for it. They don’t ask for special favors, and they’re not trying to get a leg up on hiring your graduates, but they do want to be recognized.” Installation ceremonies and similar gestures that generate favorable p.r. have helped Cal Poly build “long term friendships” with the vendors and can do the same for other schools, Ruggles says. At the University of Central Missouri, says Rankin, the partnership goes © 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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beyond publicity in a reciprocal arrangement that repays the donor’s generosity in kind. He explains that the school’s printing technology management program acquired a flexographic press with the help of an ink manufacturer that supplied most of the funding. The press is a teaching platform, but it’s also used for material testing, employee training, and R&D on behalf of the ink maker: “a winwin for both parties,” says Rankin. Dougherty, who says that Thaddeus Stevens College lost many thousands of dollars worth of funding after a friendly state legislator was voted out, maintains that industry support is crucial to keeping college-level printing programs intact. What ought to be in place, he says, is a covenant for “a flowback of a percentage of each sale for self-support.” Money raised in this way could fund grants for the equipment that schools need. Dougherty says it could also pay for promotional efforts aimed at marketing the industry: say, 0.1% of revenue from ink sales earmarked for a “Got Ink?” campaign along the lines of “Got Milk?”. Degrees of Respectability Our final query was prompted by an anonymous comment: “Commercial printers need to recognize the value of a degree, regardless of type, when offering a position to a new hire or recent college graduate. Local companies often offer a graduate of an associate degree program the same starting salary of someone walking in off the street. If they want to hire educated young men and women, they need to communicate that to the graduates and the schools they come from with meaningful starting salaries.” The question was, do printing companies, as prospective employers, truly respect the value of degrees in graphic communications?

Ruggles says it’s conceivable that a printer seeking an entry-level employee who can hit the ground running might prefer someone with a year of experience and no degree to an applicant with a two-year degree and no related job history. Other than in cases like that, he and our other six sources believe that printers do esteem academic training— but only to the extent that the schools align their graduates’ skills with the actual requirements of the industry. Blake says that NYU preserves the alignment by closely monitoring the progress of its students, “being attentive to their goals, watching where the industry is going, and matching its needs to their goals through careful individual advisement.” She adds that with the guidance of its advisory board, the NYU program continuously revises its curriculum to incorporate training in whatever new technology management skills will make its graduates more desirable to hire. The need to retool the graphic communications coursework is also recognized at Ferris State University, which established a bachelor of science degree in new media printing and publishing four years ago. Smith says that the program combines elements of the school’s data management curriculum—programming, database design, software systems, and networking—with conventional and digital printing subjects. The structure of the degree probably would find favor with Levenson, who says that printing employers want to hire “management and service people” well versed not just in production technologies but also in the workflows that maximize their efficiency. “In a university program,” says Ruggles, “curriculum is the house you live in.” Students who leave the house for the plants and offices of the industry need to be “educated, knowledgeable, and artic-

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ulate individuals who aren’t afraid to look people in the eye” to work out problems and get things done.” Five years ago, in a curriculum planning survey he undertook for Cal Poly, Ruggles discovered that the area of study rated most important by industry professionals was “interpersonal communications skills.” Nothing in the responses to WhatTheyThink’s survey suggests that employers or educators place any less value on that fundamental skill set today.

How To Meet the Obligation “To Do Right by the Industry”: A Conversation with John Berthelsen, Chairman of PGSF by Cary Sherburne

As part of our series on the work of PGSF, WhatTheyThink spoke with John Berthelsen, president, Suttle-Straus, Inc., Waunakee, WI, and chairman of PGSF, to learn more about PGSF strategic initiatives and how graphic communications professionals can get involved. WTT: John, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. How did you initially get involved with PGSF? JB: I had some familiarity with some of the people on the PGSF board, and I was becoming increasingly aware of the need in the industry for helping some of the younger folks with scholarships to help them get through school. As an industry, we are challenged with attracting new talent to our businesses. I felt the work PGSF was doing was an important element in making it possible for young people to get the education they need to contribute to the future of our industry. Additionally, PGSF works to build awareness about the exciting © 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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careers the graphic communications industry offers these days. Attracting students to graphic communications programs is also challenging. By being actively involved with PGSF, I felt I could contribute on all these fronts. WTT: How many scholarships have been granted over the years and how many are generally granted annually? JB: Over 8,000 scholarships have been awarded since 1956. The average annual number of scholarships awarded is 250. WTT: You are just beginning the second year of a two-year term as chairman. What are some of the key initiatives you have planned for the coming year? JB: We are continuing to build the trust fund through fundraising to be able to fund as many scholarships as possible. Our typical scholarship is $1,250, but with the cost of education increasing, it is difficult for a $1,250 scholarship to be meaningful. With that in mind, we have established a new level of scholarship at $5,000, called the Gutenberg Scholarship. That means that we will be granting fewer—but more meaningful—scholarships within the context of this new program. Initially, four or five of our endowments will be granting scholarships at this higher level. As time goes on, we hope we will have more donors who will be interested in endowing that level of scholarship. WTT: What are we talking about in order for an endowment to be able to support a Gutenberg Scholarship? JB: It requires about $100,000 endowment level to fund a Gutenberg Scholarship. WTT: Are these typically individuals or companies that donate at this level? JB: It is a combination. Some are

individuals, typically a legacy from an estate. Suttle-Straus created an endowment a couple of years ago that we are converting to a Gutenberg Scholarship. We had been doing four scholarships annually at the lower level and now will be granting a single larger one. WTT: What types of programs are eligible for these scholarships? JB: When people think about scholarships, they typically think about fouryear colleges and universities. And there are lots of great programs in those institutions. But scholarships can also be designated for vocational/technical schools and many of our scholarships are so designed. These programs are often overlooked, and there are a lot of students who need help getting through those types of programs. It is valuable for them to have scholarships, and these students have a role to play in our future as well. WTT: What is the Foundation doing relative to outreach, to educate students and their parents about career opportunities in graphic communications? JB: High school students may not even think of our industry when they are considering their career options, and that continues to be a problem. So we are doing everything we can do to put our industry in front of guidance counselors and others in the high school environment to make them aware there are scholarship and funding opportunities as well as lots of exciting career opportunities for those that are interested. To further this aim, the Foundation has produced a booklet that is available on a CD in PDF files that local printing companies can reproduce and distribute to schools either as a PDF or a printed booklet, however they choose to distribute it. We have found it to be effective

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and valuable, and it has gotten quite a wide distribution over the last year and a half. Over 800 CDs have now been distributed. Based on production commitments from those that have printed the booklet, there are probably 250,000 in circulation. In the case of SuttleStraus, we have put our own information on the back page, and we distribute it when we conduct plant tours as well as give it to local schools. We use it as an effective recruiting tool. WTT: What is the booklet called and how can people access it? JB: It is called Careers in Graphic Communications: A Student’s Guide, and you can place an order online or call or email Bernie Eckert, (412) 2591740. The brochure can be provided on a CD or be downloaded electronically. It is readily adaptable for production on a digital or offset press, and is a simple 12-page, 5.5” x 8.5” full color booklet that can be easily customized and reproduced. WTT: In addition to using the booklet, what else do you recommend to graphic communications service providers in terms of attracting talented people? JB: It is always a challenge finding people, and you have to use a lot of different vehicles to recruit and to stay visible. Some of those vehicles include plant tours, keeping your name visible in local media and in trade magazines, and working with local schools. We do all of that at Suttle-Straus. Offering internships is another avenue companies could consider. WTT: John, thanks for sharing information about PGSF with us. Is there anything else you would like to add before we close? JB: I would like to encourage both companies and individuals to consider getting involved with PGSF—sponsor© 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

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ing a scholarship, distributing the booklet, and working to raise awareness about the career opportunities the graphic communications industry offers. I consider it an industry obligation. If you stick your head in the sand, you are not fulfilling your obligation to do right by the industry. It is a large and diverse industry, and we all have to do our part. You can’t expect other people to carry all the water. If we all do our part, it benefits everyone. To get more information, your readers should feel free to contact any of the officers of the PGSF board, or Ted Ringman, who is our point man on development.

The Value of PGSF Scholarships in Building the Talent Pool: What Recipients Say about the Difference It Made to Them by Cary Sherburne

As part of our coverage of the great work that the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF) is doing to encourage students to pursue careers in graphic communications, WhatTheyThink contacted several scholarship recipients, asking them how the scholarships helped them and what their advice to today’s students would be. Here are their responses. Anne Hibl, Process Improvement Engineer, Banta Corp., Menasha, WI WTT: What year were you a scholarship recipient? AH: 2000. WTT: How did the scholarship help you pursue your educational aims? AH: The scholarship allowed me to

focus my efforts on my studies by lightening the financial burden of my education. WTT: How much influence did the scholarship ultimately have on your ability or desire to work in our industry? AH: By demonstrating the industry’s commitment to supporting the education of its future members, the scholarship reinforced my desire to be a part of the industry. WTT: What is your advice to today’s high school students, their parents and advisors, relative to career opportunities in the graphic communications industry and what should they be considering in their educational endeavors? AH: Like many industries today, graphic communications has been affected by many factors including technological advances and increasing global competition. These pressures have increased the demand for employees with not only industry knowledge but also with strong business skills and the desire to lead through times of change. The graphic communications industry is attractive because of the multiple career paths available, such as sales, management, customer service or research and development in a variety of different fields. For any student with an interest, I would highly recommend starting with high school graphic arts courses in addition to taking advantage of any opportunity for a youth-apprenticeship program that partners with local industry. After high school, a four-year degree focusing on graphic com-

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munications, such as the Graphic Communications Management degree offered at University of Wisconsin Stout, will provide the benefits of a business degree with additional focus on areas unique to our business. Doug Yeager, Assistant Chairman/ COO, Alcom, Harleysville, PA WTT: What year were you a scholarship recipient? DY: 1977. WTT: How did the scholarship help you pursue your educational aims? DY: The scholarship basically helped me put myself through college. With scholarships like PGSF, students are allowed to pursue a career at possibly a private university versus maybe going to a two-year school or not being able to attend a university at all. My educational aims were to get a degree from the best possible university. I was able to achieve that goal with the help of PGSF as well as other scholarships. While higher education is not a goal for every high school student, the need for scholarships like PGSF is growing every year as the costs of higher education continue to increase. WTT: How much influence did the scholarship ultimately have on your ability or desire to work in our industry? DY: I don’t think the scholarship ultimately influenced my desire to be part of the graphic arts industry. I knew from junior high school that I wanted to be a part of the printing and publishing industry. I would have somehow found a way to make that happen.

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I think PGSF certainly had an influence on my being able to finish four years of higher education. WTT: What is your advice to today’s high school students, their parents and advisors, relative to career opportunities in the graphic communications industry and what should they be considering in their educational endeavors? DY: My advice to students would be to explore the graphic communications industry as a career choice and to not listen to anyone who might comment that it is a dying industry and that all jobs in the industry require you to get your hands dirty, or that job opportunities in the industry are low paying. The graphic communications industry is in desperate need of a younger workforce. Computer technology continues to be a bigger part of our industry each and every day. We are going to need to rely on the talents of young adults to run our businesses and take our companies into the future. Our industry needs to work smarter, not harder. You just need to believe that higher education is a possibility if you have the desire, no matter what you are being told about the cost or anything else. There are many, many opportunities for college funding in the way of scholarships such as PGSF. You just need to be diligent and work hard, and you can make your dream of a college degree a reality. My advice to parents would be to encourage your child to explore the possibility of a career in the graphic communications industry. Remember that, no matter where you go, or what you handle or do in any given day, you are being touched by the graphic communications industry. Think about it. Billboards, packaging of any kind, currency, M&M’s: just a very few examples of how our industry touches everyone on a daily basis. We are not a dying industry. We offer careers

that afford many individuals fulfilling and satisfying jobs. My advice to advisors would be very similar to my advice to parents. Do not discourage students from pursuing careers in the graphic communications industry. Do some research, get some tools that promote our industry. There are schools and universities that cover the United States and offer degrees in our industry. WTT: Is there anything else you would like to add about PGSF and its work? DY: PGSF is the foremost scholarship foundation in our industry. It is supported by companies and individuals alike who either are or have been somehow involved in our wonderful industry. The goals of the foundation are to continually promote our industry and to offer as many high school and college students the opportunity for higher education as possible. They have the support of our industry not only from a funding point of view, but from an involvement and support point of view. They try to remain in contact with as many of the graduates as possible and value the students that graduate and become a part of the graphic communications industry. Bryan Yeager, Student, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) (Editor’s note: Bryan is Doug Yeager’s son and is an example of the multigenerational impact PGSF has had on our industry.) WTT: You are currently a student at RIT. Is your scholarship for the 2006/2007 school year? BY: I’ve been a student at RIT in the School of Print Media since 2004. Once I got accepted to RIT in December of 2003, I started looking for scholarships with resources on the Internet, as well as resources from my high school. When I found the Print and Graphics Scholarship

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Foundation, the thing that attracted me to it was its close relationship to the field I was entering. Also enticing was the fact that applying for the scholarship was a one-time deal. When you apply to PGSF, you only have to apply once, and your scholarship renews each year, as long as you keep your GPA above a 3.0. The only thing you have to do is each quarter (or semester, depending on the school) is send your grades and a letter updating PGSF and your donor on how you are doing and what you are learning. Therefore, this scholarship has been recurring for me every year at RIT, including this academic year. WTT: How is the scholarship helping you pursue your educational aims? BY: By requiring me to keep a GPA of 3.0 in order to keep my scholarship, PGSF gives me an extra incentive for maintaining good grades, which is always helpful. Also, by having to send an update at the end of every quarter, it gives me a good chance to reflect on how well I did, what classes were good, what classes weren¹t so good, and a general overview of how I’m doing. Sometimes you don¹t realize how well your classes went until you sit back and write about them. When I found the scholarship online, my dad pushed me to apply for it, but I don’t think it really hit me at the time how cool it was that it was generational. I went to RIT not knowing exactly what to expect, but once I got into the groove of taking classes and finding out exactly what the subject matter was, I embraced it. When I started writing my letters at the end of every quarter, that’s when it really hit me about how important the scholarship was to my education, and also about how cool it was that I was following in my dad’s footsteps in more ways than one. Aside from the scholarship, I’d say an even bigger factor in pursuing my edu© 2006 What They Think.com. All rights reserved.

SPECIAL REPORT cation to its fullest is my dad, because it’s great to be able to come home and have that whole extra realm that we can both relate to. We went to Print 05 together, and we were both at Graph Expo this year. It’s just been an awesome experience to have that extra something. I like to try to impress my dad, and he’s definitely a driving factor. WTT: How much influence do you think the scholarship will ultimately have on your ability or desire to work in our industry? BY: PGSF, along with its parent organization of PIA/GATF and other organizations that promote education such as the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts (TAGA), have all been a strong influence in expanding my desire to learn, as well as to contribute to the printing industry. I have always been interested in the education field myself, and organizations like these help make it possible to expand minds and educate, whether it involves funding students like PGSF does, or holding seminars, conferences, and pushing research to move our industry forward. WTT: What is your advice to today’s high school students, their parents and advisors, relative to career opportunities in the graphic communications industry and what should they be considering in their educational endeavors? BY: People not involved with the graphic arts have a misconception about what the industry is really like. There is a lot more involved these days in the process of putting ink on paper. The printing industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the United States, as well as the world, and even as technology evolves, that technology is integrated with the industry. There are a lot more positions for young, educated minds in the industry today, ranging from customer service and sales on the

business side to workflow, digital asset management, and database publishing jobs on the premedia side. There’s a job for everyone, from the business-oriented student to the technical-oriented student like myself. WTT: Is there anything else you would like to add about PGSF and its work?

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saw enrollment growth. When asked, high schoolers rated printing just above farming and just below fast food. Today, there are fewer than 5,000 students enrolled in graphic arts two- and fouryear degree programs--and over 40,000 students enrolled in graphic design programs.

College programs exist because there are students—no students, no program. Four-year college printing programs face a dilemma: the need for graduates is high, but interest in attending is low. Traditionalists said that promotion should emphasize printing. This was met with a giant yawn by high schoolers. Parents would ask, “Why should I pay tuition for my kid to be a press operator?” I once answered that their child Future of Graphic would probably never run a press but Arts Education would manage a plant filled with them. I = Future of the added parenthetically that press operaGraphic Arts tors were paid more than me. by Frank Romano Over the years, curriculum changed to reflect technology and industry changes. In the 1940s, letterpress dominated. Schools moved into litho teaching in the 1950s. Some were still teaching Every industry needs an educated hot metal type as late as 1994. They all workforce to advance into the workplace changed curriculum to meet the needs of the future. This is a challenge for of the industry, some sooner and many industry and education alike. In 1980, later. Do we wait until CtP and PDF U.S. graphic arts colleges had about workflows are entrenched? Do we delay 20,000 students enrolled, most of whom teaching digital printing until everyone is had taken graphic arts in high school or using it? Look at the changes in technolhad family members in the industry. In ogy that have occurred in the last five the late eighties, high schools started to years alone. phase graphic arts programs to desktop publishing. Laser printers and PCs Fresh Out of Freshmen were cheaper than printing presses and Our industry needs graduating seniors graphic arts equipment. Kids spent more and we can’t attract incoming freshmen. time designing than printing. We asked industry suppliers, printing You can plot the decline in graphic arts and related companies, association college enrollment from that time, as managers, and others. The problem more high schoolers decided to pursue was marketing. We could teach the core graphic design rather than printing eduskills that a graduate needed to get a cations. Colleges saw printing school great job but we had to get them first. It enrollment decline as design schools came down to what excites high

BY: PGSF is a wonderful foundation to help foster and support education in the Graphic Arts. It’s now fueling a new generation of bright young minds in the printing industry who will hopefully feel compelled to give back just like PGSF has. Watch out for more good things to come in the next five years.

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schoolers. They all have their own computers and they are into the Internet. They are an MTV and YouTube generation and, let’s be honest, the word “printing” is a turn-off. Most four-year graphic arts programs are being renamed “graphic communication” (sometimes with the ‘s’). Some include cross-media content: XML, PDF workflow, e-publishing, and more. One is called graphic media, others add the word publishing, not only to attract students but to reflect the fact that this was not your father’s (or mother’s) printing industry any more. One critic claims there will not be printing managers because the programs are not called printing management and the curriculum does not look like the one from 1980. The industry does not look like the one from 1980. In some of my courses, students must create a 100-page book. The content must be text and images with pagination and covers. It is output from a laser printer and tape bound. At first there is grumbling about the project. But when their books exit the printer, their eyes light up, and at that moment, I own their soul (in a manner of speaking). They see that they can create something tangible, and their friends and families will see and touch it for decades. Show me that Web site project 20 years from now. Graphic arts education must be ahead of the curve so graduates can help their employers get ahead as well. The printing company of the future will be an information factory and print will be only one output. But most schools cannot afford the equipment and software to teach with—and suppliers can only support so many schools. We need to promote print as a viable career opportunity and what we do is so amateurish as to be ridiculous. Perhaps we need to educate our associations and suppliers before we can educate students. It is incumbent on all of us to get involved, as John Berthelsen, chairman of the Printing and Graphics Scholarship Foundation, pointed out in his interview earlier this week. Our future depends on it.

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