the unofficial CCS page

From: "Richard Rogers"
To: "Nicki Kwee"
Subject: unofficial ccs website
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:22:50 -0400

Hi, Nicki. I hope your career is going well. I came across your unofficial CCS website about a year ago and just looked at it again. A lot has changed at CCS since you graduated, but your website has not changed much. It contains some erroneous information, which I would appreciate your correcting. It also gives a negative, and I think undeserved, impression of CCS. You are someone who had a good experience here, and I hope you would want to give at least as much attention to the positives as you do to the negatives. Here are my suggestions, pretty much in the order in which they appear in your site.

There is now an official "undeclared option." Students do not have to declare their major when they apply.

Interior design is no longer a part of the Industrial Design Department. It is a separate department. Its enrollment is increasing, and its students are winning awards.

It is true that CCS is expensive, compared to public institutions and some small liberal arts colleges. However, compared to other private colleges of art and design, CCS's tuition is in the mid-range. We also distribute a great deal of financial aid, nearly $3 million from CCS's own sources in the past year. 95% of CCS students receive some form of aid. You may have been the beneficiary of financial aid yourself. So to say that CCS costs nearly $20,000 and not talk about financial aid is misleading.

CCS is getting more interdisciplinary all the time. We have collaborations going that involve the industrial design, interior design, graphic communication, photography and crafts departments. The Foundation program is now highly interdisciplinary. We have a faculty committee working on ways of making it easier for students to take classes outside their major department.

Detroit is getting better all the time. The new baseball stadium is under construction, and work on the football stadium will start soon. A gigantic downtown redevelopment project is about to begin, and Compuware will be the anchor tenant. The new casinos will start opening this summer. The Orchestra Place project is making rapid progress. A tremendous amount of housing is being built. CCS itself is doing a major campus redevelopment. We have a 650-car parking structure under construction; the new 100,000 square foot classroom building will begin construction at the end of the summer; we are restoring two historic houses on Ferry Street. Detroit is making great strides forward, and CCS is making a significant contribution to the improvement. As far as hearing gun shots from the ACB, that may have happened. But the more important fact is that there has not been an instance of physical harm to a CCS student on or near the campus in many years. CCS is actually a very safe place. The comment about gun shots is very dramatic but also gives an incorrect impression.

Job placement has improved tremendously. We have a director of career counseling who is responsible for internships and post-graduate employment. She has organized a number of very successful career days on campus that have been attended by numerous prospective employers. This has been particularly useful for the product design students. She is in touch with more employers all the time.

Alumni relations are getting better too. We have appointed a director of alumni relations whose job it is to develop better communications with our alumni. We had not had such a position for a number of years.

Finally, there are your opening and closing comments, i.e. that CCS is like hell, only more expensive; and that most people are glad to leave CCS behind. There is no question that students have to work hard at CCS and that it is a difficult program for many students. But I think that most people who succeed here feel they received a very good education. The success of alumni like you suggests that a CCS education holds alumni in very good stead when they enter the working world. You were certainly one of the best transportation design students when you were here, and I always had the impression that you were pleased with your experience. If that is so, I hope you would reflect on whether some of the things you say about CCS on the website are justified and that you will consider changing them. I am sure you will understand that as CCS's president, I am concerned when negative things are said about the institution. Where criticism is valid, we accept it and try to address the problems. When inaccurate information is given, we try to correct it.

Again, I hope you are well and that your work is rewarding.