After nearly 40 years in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the Design Program in the Department of Environmental Design has officially moved into the College of Letters and Science's Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.

The green light was given Jan. 19 by Dan Simmons, chair of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate, after receiving recommendations for the move by a number of academic executive councils involved with the change.

The Design Program move is largely administrative: the faculty, staff and students are staying in Walker Hall and a number of temporary buildings until new accommodations can be constructed, according to program chair Pat Harrison. Even so, undergraduate majors will find a few differences changing from one college to the other, including new requirements for foreign language and upper-division composition.

However, continuing students in the major will complete their degrees with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences requirements. The portfolio requirement will be dropped for program entry starting in fall 2005.

In addition, because of the arrival of the California Lighting and Technology Center last year, the faculty has added a lighting emphasis for the program's 284 majors beginning next fall. Also, new faculty members in visual communication and textiles and fashion have generated changes in the curriculum. Of particular interest is a new textiles and fashion computer lab with state-of-the-art industrial hardware.

But the Landscape Design Program, which joined with Design to create the Department of Environmental Design in 1982, will remain in the agricultural and environmental sciences college.

Funding levels for the program's five graduate students will be retained with the move, which had been a particular concern from the Graduate Council, Simmons said.