More Higher Ed excitement in the world of fashion I’ve written before here about higher education fashion developments in London in the form of the Condé Nast college as reported in the Evening Standard a couple of years ago: MOVE over AC Grayling, there’s a new college in town. Magazine publisher Condé Nast is launching … Continued
Paul Greatrix is Registrar at The University of Nottingham, author and creator of Registrarism and a Contributing Editor of Wonkhe.
More Higher Ed excitement in the world of fashion
I’ve written before here about higher education fashion developments in London in the form of the Condé Nast college as reported in the Evening Standard a couple of years ago:
MOVE over AC Grayling, there’s a new college in town. Magazine publisher Condé Nast is launching a private college for fashion and design next year, which will be a potent rival to the London College of Fashion, Central St Martins and Chelsea, all part of the University of the Arts London.
Based in Central London, the Condé Nast College of Fashion & Design operates from the heart of one of the world’s most exciting fashion capitals. The Condé Nast College is an important starting point for those who want to be tomorrow’s stars of the fashion industry. With outstanding resources, leading-edge facilities and access to experts from the worlds of fashion, style and luxury, the College prepares its students to work in all areas of this exciting and innovative industry. We currently offer three courses, the four-week Vogue Intensive Summer Course, the ten-week Vogue Fashion Certificate and the year-long Vogue Fashion Foundation Diploma. We are now accepting applications and look forward to welcoming you to the Condé Nast family.
Under the project, Condé Nast publications will team up with universities to create a set of accredited certificate programs and eventually master’s-degree programs with the colleges and universities, not the magazines, as the “institution.” Condé Nast writers and editors will contribute subject matter expertise and the publisher will provide some financial backing to the partnerships.The institutions and new academic programs which will include both interactive online content and in-person elements have not yet been identified, but discussions with universities are under way with the goal of launching the first programs in fall 2015.
Waiting for accreditation
The aforementioned magazines are likely to be involved in the first programs to get off the ground, but other Condé Nast publications which include The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Allure and Golf Digest could also participate. The initiative is the latest backed by University Ventures, a New York-based fund that since 2012 has sought to drive innovation in traditional higher education not by “disrupting” it from the outside but by encouraging it from within.”We’re not the barbarians at the gate,” says Daniel Pianko, a managing director at University Ventures. “A lot of the pure disrupters out there don’t seem to understand the importance of 1,000 years of history. Our approach is, how do you work within the construct that has that history and immense consumer acceptance, and innovate within that.”
An interesting development. One can only imagine all the potential academic programme tie-ins with the impressive stable of publications. But, whilst the funders are protesting (perhaps a little too much?) that they’re not really like all the “pure disruptors”, they still don’t seem to have any university partners on board. It’s early days no doubt.
