The Design, Housing, and Apparel (DHA) department—one of three departments in the College of Design—comprises the Apparel Design, Graphic Design, Interior Design, Product Design, and Retail Merchandising programs. Collectively, the department enrolls approximately 900 undergraduate majors. Working in both studio-based and traditional course genres, DHA's 30+ faculty members expand traditional notions of writing by emphasizing visual image presentation and by maintaining an active outreach program that involves direct communication with Minnesota citizens.
DHA joined the WEC program in 2007, and the Campus Writing Board approved the DHA third-edition Writing Plan in August 2013. Early editions of the Writing Plan emphasized in-depth curricular mapping, artifact collection, and faculty interviews in each program. More recently, as part of its effort to address the writing concerns of its linguistically diverse student population, the department hosted a faculty workshop focused on supporting multilingual writers. The session was jointly facilitated by a WEC team member and two language acquisition experts.
In 2019, the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel became a part of the WEC Legacy program in an effort to re-engage with the department and the changes and transformations it experienced as part of the College of Design. One result of this continuing effort was the creation of legacy writing plans for participating areas. Each area now has its own WEC website as shown below.
Undergraduate Major in Apparel Design
Undergraduate Major in Graphic Design