Helping Designers Help Themselves: Coaching Designers in Dossier Preparation

As a faculty member and administrator, over the last 20 years I have been part of a wide variety of P&T campaigns. I have seen outstanding designers struggle to be promoted and lesser designers sail by easily. The best explanation I can offer is that it is often the quality of the writing in the dossier, rather than the quality of the visual design showcased in it, that makes or breaks a design promotion case. In this presentation I will share three traits of successful dossiers that I have learned from shepherding designers and other academic outliers through the promotion process. First, successful dossiers are “user-centered”: they present enough information about the significance of works, venues, clients, awards, and publications that even readers in academic fields remote from design can clearly grasp that the work is noteworthy, and why. Second, successful dossiers help educate readers about the norms and nuances of contemporary design practice by calling out how those norms and nuances shape the kinds of works that appear in the dossier. Third, and most important, successful dossiers have a narrative arc: they tell a clear, memorable story about their authors’ trajectory within, and lasting contributions to, their field. To support design faculty in achieving promotion, at the University of Georgia, we've incorporated these principles in our P&T documents and instructions, and require faculty from their first year on the tenure track onward to frame their accomplishments in terms that reviewers in other fields will be able to readily grasp.