CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – David Weightman today was named the director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Weightman’s appointment, effective Dec. 16, was approved by the university’s board of trustees at its meeting in Urbana.
Weightman also will serve as a professor in the school, which is part of the College of Fine and Applied Arts. He succeeds interim director Ken Carls, who will return to teaching. Carls has been interim director for about two years.
Weightman most recently was the dean of the School of Art and Design at Staffordshire University, Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom. He began in that position in 1992.
He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in design at the Royal College of Art in London, in 1968 and 1970, respectively.
Under Weightman’s direction, the art and design school at Staffordshire University integrated all its courses into a unified program at the bachelor’s and master’s levels. The school has developed a number of pedagogic measures that have been adopted as good practice by the university, including outcomes definition, skills definition, student and staff handbooks, feedback forms, course and workshop advisory groups and electronic data presentation during exams.
The school also has broadened its international perspective by developing collaborative links for student and staff exchange with a number of institutions worldwide.
Weightman has served as a consultant on numerous design projects, including the exterior styling and construction of body work for buses, the design and construction of special effects model sets for television productions, and design studies for baggage trolleys for British Rail International, London.
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