Quite recently, campus announced a major gift for a new building to house a campus-wide Design Center. Much work has gone into this project over the course of the past year—with participation from the College of Education. Campus now is offering us an extraordinary window of opportunity to provide collective input on this new facility.

The new Design Center—which will break ground very soon—is particularly significant to the College of Education for a number of reasons.

• First, the iconic center itself will be built in our immediate neighborhood: right across 6th Street in the green field between Krannert Art Museum and the Business Instructional Facility.
• Second, the Design Center will serve as a hub for a close-by "Design Complex," which will include College of Education space.

• Third, the center will provide substantial and exciting opportunities to engage our undergraduate and graduate students, as well as our staff and faculty members, in design-based programs, learning, thinking, and problem solving.

The campus is moving at an accelerated rate toward beginning construction, so NOW is our opportunity to participate, vocally, in the design of the building and associated programs of study. We are inviting you to participate in a College of Education Town Meeting dedicated to soliciting and communicating your input to campus on the new Design Center. We strongly encourage you to attend!

We look forward to seeing and hearing from you.

Fouad Abd-El-Khalick
Associate Dean for Research
Member, Design Center Program Working Group