College for Creative Studies is Featured

Linkedin posted an interesting article by Jeff Selingo on February 10, 2018, "The pipeline from school to career is broken. An idea from Detroit might be one way to fix it."  Selingo focuses on Detroit's College for Creative Studies and their co-location in the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education with the Henry Ford Academy and Shinola, a firm specializing in watchmaking and leather-goods.

Selingo visited the site to interview students, along with representatives and the college and Shinola.  He concludes, "The experiment in Detroit also offers a potential solution to the “skills gap” that the U.S. and many other countries are facing as employers complain they can’t find workers with the right set of skills. With a company and a college located in the same building, college officials can quickly discover how to build on their strengths and alter programs to produce graduates with skills that better meet the needs of the workforce."

The College for Creative Studies traces its roots to the founding of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts in 1906.  A four-year art program began in 1926 and what was know as the Art School became the College of Art and Design in 1962.  The name was changed to the Center for Creative Studies-College of Art and Design in 1975 and the current name was adopted in 2001.

The college began redevelopment of the760,000 sq. ft. historic Argonaut Building, formerly General Motors’ firstresearch and design studio, in 2008.  Now known as the Taubman Center, it is located in Detroit’s New Center district.  The center is home to the college’s six undergraduate design departments, graduate degree programs in color and materials design, integrated design, interaction design and transportation design.  The Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies is an art and design charter school for middle and high school students.