Project Description
The Auburn University School of Architecture has a proven national record of design education leadership. This project seeks to leverage this expertise through the establishment of The Design Education Laboratory. DeLab has the long-term goal of establishing a robust program centered on the formal development and support of educators early in their career path as higher education teachers of design. This program will have connections to all of the on-campus design programs within the school as well as the Urban Studio (ACAUS) and Rural Studio units. Additional long-term goals include the establishment of a journal, press, on-line network and symposia/conferences for new and emerging design educators.

Immediate short-term goals of DELab:

1. The establishment of the DeLab Fellowship for a young professional (3 years experience minimum) to gain teaching experience prior to attending graduate school. (Spring Semester, 2006)
2. Secure funding for the mid-term continuation and expansion of the program (Fall Semester, 2006)
3. Mentoring support for the Rural Studio “Clerk of the Works” towards the development of their own pedagogical positions, strategies, techniques and procedures along with the establishment of a practice of research, peer-reviewed publication and presentation. (Fall Semester, 2005)
4. Develop formal ties to existing support infrastructures (the Biggio Center on campus, the POD Network nationally, and the emerging ACSA initiative “TTtT: Teaching Teachers to Teach.” (Immediate)

Project Purpose
The purpose of the establishment of The Design Education Laboratory is two-fold:

1. To expand the mission and exposure of The School of Architecture by leveraging the existing resource of faculty expertise related to design teaching. Employing an advanced research, scholarship and mentoring agenda, DeLab has as its goal to become the established and nationally recognized center of design education teaching and leadership.
2. Actively “teaching teachers to teach,” sending into the world of design education new teachers that are enthusiastic, compassionate, optimistic, respectful, firm and (perhaps most importantly) dynamic in their relationship to their future charges, colleagues and profession. This goal is in direct support of the first: by sending into the world these new educators, their methodologies, effectiveness and leadership will spread virally away from the Auburn University School of Architecture reflecting positively back on the School.