The Master of Design degree program in Design for Health, with its framework of interdisciplinary health perspectives, health context, and design methodologies, will develop a scholarly research and problem-based approach to design within the health sector. The objective of the program is the development of design professionals who can engage and lead multidisciplinary teams within the design of environments, devices, services, communications and policies related to health and health innovation.  The program is intended for students with a strong disciplinary expertise in an area of design as demonstrated by an undergraduate degree and ideally several years of relevant design work experience or health administration, services, or technology with demonstrated propensity or experience in design innovation.

The 48-credit five semester Design for Health program’s degree objectives address four main themes:

·         The Health Context
·         Research Knowledge and Application
·         Design and Innovation
·         Proficiency and Leadership within Interdisciplinary Collaborations

The program proposes to integrate a relevant academic, theoretical and research informed context and structure within design education, theory, and practice, enhancing opportunities for interdisciplinary research for students and faculty within OCAD University and across research partners in other academic and health service institutions and industry. The program combines seminars with in-situ experiential learning engagements with health-oriented industry partners in each academic semester (excluding summer) to address tangible and critical problems within healthcare and community settings.

Description to follow

The proposed BFA in Creative Writing will be a literary arts program steeped in critical reflection, culture, creativity, craft, and imagination. Informed by its downtown setting in a culturally diverse city, OCAD University’s Creative Writing BFA will develop an active/pro-active writing culture that will locate the OCAD U writing community within local, regional, national and international writing contexts. The BFA is a studio-based approach to the exploration of writing that incorporates the study and appreciation of literature as artistic creation. It will include the study of literary culture and literary art practices and production, and will emphasize the practice, writing craft, and production of spoken, visual and verbal texts, and experimental language forms. With an emphasis on writing as a creative practice embedded in collective culture, the program will draw upon a unique methodology that has evolved over twenty-plus years of creative writing instruction in OCAD University’s art and design context, as well as promising practices in the field. It will emphasize a disciplined approach to the writing craft and encourage writing that explores language, text, sound, visuals, and materials as well as social and digital media and language at the pioneering edge of new media and transmedia literatures.

The BFA program in Aboriginal Visual Culture combines contemporary and traditional Aboriginal aesthetic and social studies with a comprehensive studio‐based art education. The program prepares students to engage in complex and evolving global discourses around Aboriginal history, art history and contemporary art practice across a range of expressions, materials and media. Combining practice‐specific and interdisciplinary studio courses in the Faculty of Art and the Faculty of Design with the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences concentrations in the visual, cultural, social and political history of Aboriginal peoples, the curriculum is designed to develop students’ critical and aesthetic responses and practical expertise in Aboriginal cultural and artistic practices.

The program combines new and existing studio and lecture courses that reflect the expertise and skills of both Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal faculty currently engaged in research and practice in the field. This interdisciplinary approach introduces students to a dynamic and creative environment and a growing community of Aboriginal artists, critics and scholars.