PALS - Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability

In September 2010, thirty-three academic leaders from 33 independent colleges of Art and Design came together to create a new vision for design education that responds to the complex nature of our world. Each PALS "Fellow" has been appointed by the president of their institution to participate in a collaborative effort to link the resources of independent art and design colleges around the critical environmental, social and human centered design issues that face us. Together we are responding the the question, "How do we ensure that our students are prepared to engage in the creation of a healthy, just and sustainable future?" This September 2011 the schools have returned to begin the implementation of their collaborative vision. The focus is on academic performance measures that will rate the success of our programs and the creation of a shared online platform that will be a catalyst for inter-institutional education. 

The purpose of the PALS  group and summit is to work collectively to build a strategic plan for sharing and leveraging our resources to better integrate sustainability into art and design programs. Each “Fellow” has been key to defining our strategic action plan. The PALS Cohort meets monthly online and comes back together annually in September to continue to develop and implement tools for collaboration. For more information contact Debera Johnson; Academic Director of Sustainability at debjohnson@pratt.edu

Participating schools 

• Art Center College of Design
• California College of Arts
• California Institute of the Art
• Cleveland Institute of the Arts
• Columbus College of Arts & Design
• Corcoran College of Art & Design
• Cornish College of the Arts
• Emily Carr University of Art & Design
• Kansas City Art Institute
• Laguna College of Art & Design
• Maryland Institute College of Art
• Massachusetts College of Art & Design
• Minneapolis College of Art and Design
• Pacific Northwest College of Art
• Pratt Institute
• Parsons New School of Design
• Otis College of Art and Design
• Ontario College of Art and Design
• Oregon College of Art & Craft
• Rhode Island School of Design
• Ringling College of Art and Design
• School of the Museum of Fine Arts
• School of Visual Arts