The School of Design welcomes Barbara Sudick, a respected design teacher, practitioner, and advocate of design pedagogy, as the 2008-2009 Nierenberg Distinguished Professor of Design. (Learn more about the Nierenberg visiting professorship).


Barbara Sudick, 2008-2009 School of Design Nierenberg Distinguished Professor of Design

The goal in establishing the Nierenberg Chair is to enhance the vitality of the School of Design for students and faculty alike, by encouraging dialogue on important issues of the field, exploration of contemporary forms of design practice, and research that affects future practice and understanding.

Sudick is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Design at California State University, Chico. She teaches Typography, Publication Design, and the Senior Capstone class. She holds an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University and a BFA in Arts and Crafts from Kent State University. She also studied abroad at the Design Program in Brissago, Switzerland.

Nominees for the Nierenberg Chair are selected to meet the needs of the School at its current stage of development. In turn, it is important to the School that the individual selected for appointment also consider how his or her appointment may contribute to personal growth or to the advance of a personal vision of design and design practice.

Sudick’s personal vision includes the relation between print and digital media design, typography and theatre, and the role of context in creating meaning. She is currently exploring ways to embed responsible ethics of social, economic, and environmental sustainability in design practice and teaching.

Sudick’s more than 25 years of professional practice cross disciplinary boundaries and include a wide range of clients such as IBM Academic Information Systems, ITT Programming, United Technologies, New Haven Medical Software, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Addison Wesley Longman, Peachpit Press, Taunton Press, The New York Public Library, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Educational Center for the Arts, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, and the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and the Yale Repertory Theater.

She is a member of the national steering committee for AIGA’s Design Educator’s Community where she is leading an initiative to extend AIGA’s professional code of conduct and ethics to include the academic design community.

Previous Nierenberg Distinguished Professors of Design include Ben Fry, 2006-2007; Kees Overbeeke, 2005-2006; David Gresham, 2004-2005; Ron Kemnitzer, 2003-2004; Marc Rettig, 2002-2003; Patrick Jordan, 2001-2002; Ken Hiebert, 2001 (Spring); Ken Schory, 1998-1999; Shelley Evenson, 1997-1998; Dennis Doordan, 1997 (Spring); Patricia Moore, 1996-1997; Tony Golsby-Smith, 1995 (Fall); David Smith, 1993-1995; Richard Buchanan, 1991 (Fall).


Posted on May 1, 2008