The desire to collect all of the University’s studio-based programs into a “gathering point” for design within Cornell is an ambitious but concise goal. The College of Art, Architecture and Planning Task Force Report explores the potential to become a new and entirely unique type of design college — a school of Architecture, Art and Design — and provided numerous examples of how to achieve such a transformation. The administration can start with an imaginative use of the building it fought for over a decade to construct, Milstein Hall.

While the report suggests the financial benefits of absorbing and cooperating with fringe design programs across the University, a more basic invitation to host lectures and display exhibitions across these departments can create immediate interdisciplinary relationships, as well as provide a foundation for cooperation down the road.

The new exhibition spaces within Milstein Hall will allow it to become a literal platform for unprecedented cross-disciplinary activity between design, engineering, philosophy and everything in between. The report’s proposal to create a design institute — something akin to Society for the Humanities — can evolve out of this initial activity, and would lay the stepping stones for further and deeper interdisciplinary work.

The report expands into somewhat dubious territory, however, by noting potential expansions for the college. For example, the Department of Landscape Architecture, which is administratively located within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is a program that the report recommends could immediately become integrated into the new AAD. Yet many details of such an integration — including the physical space or location for the program and state vs. private tuition for the programs — remain obvious hurdles. In the interim, the idea of a design-build program between Landscape Architecture and Architecture could be a productive start.

While the report fails to adequately address its intentions regarding smaller design programs like Design and Environmental Analysis and Fiber Science and Apparel Design, it suggests the creation of a number of vaguely titled new graduate degree programs. Sure, new graduate programs could generate future revenue for AAD, and they certainly merit further exploration, but the creation of such programs appears superfluous next to the uncertain futures of existing design departments at the undergraduate level, many of which could be absorbed by AAD.

The proposed formation of a new “Media Studies” department within AAD is equally excessive. The goals of such a department could be more prudently met by utilizing the resources of Milstein Hall and encouraging interdepartmental collaboration.

Despite many positive ideas, the report hardly addresses a glaring issue faced by the school even before this “era of reduced resources.” The broad separation between the college’s departments has for years been a pressing issue, and the construction of Milstein was often viewed — both optimistically and naively — as a simple solution.

Before looking outward, AAP must first settle internal issues, such as the fate of City and Regional Planning, a department that, according to the report, is strong in policy but “lacks depth in physical planning and urban/infrastructure design.” Overall, the AAP task force report is among the most radical and imaginative of the bunch. Before the school can absorb new programs, create new departments or initiate extensive cross-disciplinary work, it must prove that it can facilitate cooperation within itself.