Taught By:
Emily Staugaitis
Lecturer 1
Stamps School of Art and Design
University of Michigan
Read profile here.
Motivation to Teach Social Action:
My personal life and studio practice are deeply engaged in social and direct community action. I'd like to learn more about how to incorporate/embed it into the curriculum that I am teaching through UofM to empower students to become changemakers.
Course Description:
(note- I did not write this description, it is an existing class that I will be teaching)
Work together to create social impact through design & entrepreneurship. Together with community partners, students emphasize problem identification to prototype ideas, build objects, develop innovations and processes, and refine these through field work, validation, and testing. These are real-world challenges that students tackle together as they acknowledge that the WHY and the HOW are just as important as WHAT we create. As collaborative teams, we will put our problem-solving skills to work on some of the biggest global issues, and to design for creativity, innovation, health, poverty, homelessness, education, and more. We turn theory into action by designing and carrying out a project rooted in community connection. We will use emergent strategy, design thinking and action-based research to explore possible ways for artists and designers to leverage our talents to create social change. Depending on our cohort and partnerships, our design work could be physical objects, digital design, interactive events, and anything in between! This work demands skilled hands, big hearts, bigger business sense, and the courage to strive towards non-normative work that can inspire, challenge, and respond with vision, curiosity, and sensitivity. Multi-disciplinary student teams work hands-on through rough and final prototypes. Designing, drawing and development of concepts, logos, and branding strategies; learn a theoretical framework for social entrepreneurship and design thinking; and explore the individual skills and will be necessary to respond to complex social needs, both local and global, while connecting across age, race, and class.
