This summer, Lane Community College welcomed 25 high school graphic design instructors from around the region for the second year of the Design Educators Summit, a four-day course built to help teachers bring new tools and fresh approaches back to their own classrooms.
The annual summit runs as a mix of morning and afternoon seminars, giving instructors hands-on time with the same kinds of tools and methods their students will eventually need, whether they're heading straight into the design field after high school or continuing on into a degree program. Beyond the seminars themselves, the course also walks teachers through the practical side of building strong CTE pathways: how to get qualified to teach articulated media arts courses through College Now, what's involved in Career Technical Education Pathway certification for media arts instructors, how to develop work-based learning projects with local industry partners, and where to find statewide resources that support all of it.
The event was created and led by Tom Madison, lead faculty for Lane's Graphic Design Program, a nationally recognized Art and Applied Science degree, alongside Kate Doyle, a graphic design instructor at the Center for Applied Learning and Community Impact (CALCI), a project-based learning center for high school students in the 4J School District.
The idea for the summit came from Madison’s experience on the Lane ESD Regional Advisory Committee for high school Media Arts CTE programs:
“I found a dearth of offerings for high school media arts instructors to get meaningful faculty professional development in their content area,” he explained. “I finally decided to create a vehicle of my own in which they could get robust, hands-on software training coupled with theory, practice, and work-based learning guidance.”
The summit also brought educational professionals together to expand their craft and share their pedagogy.
“Design teachers are so used to being siloed in their content area within their schools,” Doyle explains, “It is so nice to get together and share our love of design and best teaching practices.”
The Design Educators Summit is just one of the many ways Lane is investing in Career Technical Education and building real connections with the community it serves. Programs like this one create a direct line between high school classrooms and Lane's degree programs, giving students a smoother path forward and giving teachers the tools to help them get there.
Lane Community College educates over 17,000 students annually at six locations across Lane County and online. Students and alumni from all 50 states and 79 countries create more than an $816.2 million dollar impact on the local economy, helping to support more than 9,700 local jobs. Lane provides affordable, quality, professional technical and college transfer programs; business development and employee training; academic, language and life skills development; and lifelong personal development and enrichment courses