In the spirit of Bruno Latour's We Have Never Been Modern, his seminal rethinking of the founding distinctions of modernity, this conference puts forward for debate the ways in which disciplines operate within beginning design education: not only at the level of pedagogies and curricula but in the very constitution of beginning design education itself.

The presence and absence of disciplines within beginning design indexes unspoken or explicit assumptions and anxieties about disciplinary turfs and thresholds. That beginning design education is considered a distinct terrain compounds these anxieties further as its status as a discrete discipline and as a threshold into other disciplines is put into question.

The conference recasts these questions within a larger problematic: the uncertain relationship between beginnings and disciplinarity. The tension between the two sets up the thematic context for this conference. The conference will engage perspectives from both within the beginning design community as well as from a broad range of disciplines.

The conference organizers invite submissions from the traditional design disciplines (architecture, product, graphics, interiors, urban, landscape, city planning); from allied disciplines in the fine arts (art, music); from disciplines that undertake 'design' activity without necessarily naming it as such (engineering, software, new media, gaming, public policy, etc.); and from other disciplines, such as the cognitive and learning sciences, that have much to say about beginnings, disciplinarity, and beginning design.

The College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology is well positioned for sponsoring such a broad discussion. The academic and research programs within the college address the designed and built environment across a range of scales. Its Common First Year curriculum problematizes issues of disciplinarity and beginnings within the college. And its institutional context encourages interdisciplinary constellations that engage the sciences, engineering, and the humanities.

The conference is organized into four sections, with each section taking a different approach to the beginnings/disciplinarity problematic.

All abstracts will be blind peer-reviewed. Papers selected for publication in the proceedings will go through an additional review process. Information regarding the conference schedule, and information about registration, speakers, and lodging will be updated continually.

Abstracts of five hundred words should be submitted by December 15, 2007 to ncbds08@coa.gatech.edu. Please include name, affiliation, and contact information on a separate page in the document.

Proposed papers and panel sessions may be historical, theoretical, or critical in scope. All proposals should be submitted to one of the four sections described on the previous page.

Examples of some of the topics possible within each section are listed below.

Beginnings and Disciplinarity
- Beginning as a place, a moment, or action: in media res or as tabula rasa.
- How beginnings are conceived (as a matter of first principles, vocabulary, or skills); figured (as foundations, constructed ground or supporting armature); and named ('basic', 'pre-', 'intro', 'first').
- Serial beginnings, multiple thresholds: The relationship between beginning design, disciplinary tracks, internships, and professional programs.
- How beginnings add up (or not): The relationship of beginnings to ends.
- Disciplining: the idea of beginning as it is built into the notion of disciplines.
- How disciplinarity is conceived of and indexed in beginning design: as pre-, cross-, multi-or inter-disciplinary; as non-discipline specific; or as robustly disciplinary.
- Designing: how designing, understood as a particular kind of cognitive and applied activity, complicates and contributes to notions of beginnings and disciplinarity.

Open
- Topics that do not fit into the other three sections should be submitted to this section.

Beginning Design Programs and Curricula
- Curricular context: whether stand-alone, comprehensive, or multi-disciplinary; location within schools of art, design, or architecture.
- Administration: organizational structure, logistics, history.
- Students: socialization and studio culture; criteria for admission, selection, and advancement.
- Instructors: instructor profiles; recruiting, training, mentoring, and coordination.
- Spaces: spaces, situations, and events through which teaching and learning occurs.
- Goals: metrics and accountability for teaching and learning; the relationship to curricular goals beyond the beginning design program.
- Alternative models for beginning design curricula.

Beginnings across the Disciplines (and Professions)
- How the designed and built environment disciplines (industrial design, landscape, interiors, urban design) conceive of and enact beginnings.
- How beginnings are constituted and enacted in allied disciplines (art, music) as well as other disciplines that undertake design activity (graphics, web-design, new media, computer science, engineering).
- Beginnings in professional education curricula.
- Beginnings of professionalism and professional education.
- Beginnings and new models of practice (integrated, collaborative, cross-disciplinary).
- Beginnings and new technologies (Building Information Modeling etc.)
- Beginnings and different modes of learning (problem-based learning; research- and evidence-based; situated-learning, apprenticeships, etc.).