Stop Fashion Next

- ANY curricular change at Columbia College Chicago must follow a process that is ethical and academically sound

Petition - OPPOSED TO FASHION NEXT CURRICULUM CHANGE
As faculty and students (We) at Columbia College Chicago, we believe that the “Fashion Next” curriculum should not be accepted as a legitimate curriculum as it was hastily assembled without required representation from the department curriculum committee or faculty, full and part-time, and with no research/data presented besides a story of the “magic bus”.

Also, We believe the proposed curriculum will not provide Columbia fashion design students with the education they need for viable employment in their chosen field. We have been given no evidence/data to show the courses that have been proposed, altered, removed or renamed will improve our students educational experience and make them more marketable in their respective fields, which is what “Fashion Next” intended purpose is. To the contrary our alumni and current graduating students have obtained career level jobs in the industry and have entered the field above the “entry level position” which is the underwhelming employment goal for Fashion Next.

This is of particular concern to faculty and students, given that a major curriculum change was already implemented within the last year and no statistical outcomes have even had a chance to be measured.

We are dismayed that Columbia College would choose to eliminate a nationally ranked BFA program in favor of a single BA program. Our Alumni and graduating students are justifiably concerned about what their Columbia College Chicago degree will actually be worth.

Since 2014 we have seen several unilateral decisions changing curriculum, merging departments and eliminating entire programs. The administration bypassed faculty and fundamental procedures. The administration merely apologized after the fact without withdrawing the action.

We are requesting the following:

1. A complete stop to the proposed curriculum changes, to include the dissolution of the BFA program

2. “Fashion Next”—or any such major curricular change--should be postponed until a full-time chair, chosen with the input of the fashion faculty, is hired by Columbia College

3. Access to all the physical research showing the merits and necessity of the proposed curriculum overhaul. All that has been presented is a trip on the “magic bus”

4. The opportunity for that research to be properly vetted by all faculty members, as well as a student liaison group

5. We demand that no further alternations to programs or curriculum occur without research, data, invested faculty input and a legitimate transparent process followed.