Designing Bridges: Building Belonging and Community at the d.school

By: Milan Drake

Designing Bridges is the d.school’s effort to cultivate more inclusive environments for marginalized instructors and students. Our focus has been on building brave spaces where authentic community and belonging can flourish. It has been my honor to lead this journey for the d.school through storytelling, reflecting, and listening with others. Authentic community-building requires that we have courageous conversations with both potential instructors and the students who are interested in the d.school and who feel encouraged to be included in the community.  

When I made it a goal to have more honest and transparent conversations about community, design, race, racism, mental health, and more with the broader Stanford community (faculty and students on campus, those familiar with the d.school, and those outside of the d.school/design community) a recurring theme emerged. Students overwhelmingly conveyed a sense of not belonging in the world of design; of not feeling  welcome to learn what design is or what designers do; and of diminishing their own potential to work in design due to their life experience, gender, color of their skin, college major, and/or geographical location. 

It was through these conversations that I knew something had to change about how I was approaching and defining community building. In that moment of clarity I went from “designing SAFE SPACES to designing BRAVE SPACES.”

I asked students, I asked faculty, I asked my network, I asked anyone who would listen: “What kind of community do you actually want?” “What truly matters to you?” “What is community to you?” 

Then I asked myself, “Am I interested in gathering a bunch of people into a bunch of rooms who do not respect each other and or are not empathetic to how each person arrived in the room, or am I about designing deep connections that will require looking and listening to people’s stories and looking in the mirror at our own stories?”

This very valuable, external and internal insight–along with being in tune with happenings on campus and the world around us–was the glue to every thought and action applied to building community throughout this academic year.

The idea and process of Designing Bridges focuses on our community’s culture and how we might gain more empathy and understanding toward dismantling systemic and oppressive barriers around us and instead create a sustainable pathway toward equity for all who come to learn with us.

These conversations and initiatives are our compass toward building and sustaining the dynamics of campus inclusion to the extent to which students and practitioners HEAR us saying they belong, BELIEVE they belong, and BECOME an active part of the community that in turn designs more support and representation. Over the last year, these conversations have taken place in multiple facets. Here’s a look at the projects and initiatives that were my way to build bridges at the d.school.

Community Office Hours 

Community Office Hours started off as “just Office Hours.” A moment where I would spend 30 minutes catching up with d.school teaching teams, current students, and the mildly interested group with a desire to be a part of the d.school community. 

My Community Office Hours were public, fun, and extremely accessible. Questions and ideas started flooding my email and ranging from “How might I design a campus clothing brand that considers the Black student population?” “I am a Black engineer, how can I find my community within the d.school?” to “I am a freshman, I am interested in taking a d.school course – am I allowed to do that?” 

The connection to people outside the d.school has been great and it continues to blossom as an accessible pathway to join our community in person and remotely. 

Student Led Design Sprints 

Community Office hours connected me with students who wanted to use design thinking frameworks as tools to either prototype or teach a concept in their field of interest (e.g. majors, research, post-doc teachings, etc).   

For Journey Washington we co-designed three design sprint events that focused on her community as a student and future scientist. Journey is the Social Co-Chair and Social Media Co-Chair of the Society of Black Scientists and Engineers (SBSE). Her student-led workshops accomplished two things: (a) provided a student-informed perspective on what it means to have a career in engineering and how to be aware of like-minded people and communities in your profession on campus and following graduation; and (b) created a platform of Afrofuturism (with the help of Ahmed Best, Dr. Lonny Brooks, and the Afrorithms)  that helped educate students on how to balance future career aspirations and with being mindful of one’s societal impact as a Black engineer/scientist.

Then there’s Nyah Ware (a freshman from Chicago) and Imgard Bonheur (a freshman from Miami and a d.school student) who had a question about “designing for access,” specifically for access to Black hair care products through a vending machine and bringing access to the Stanford campus. Together they designed a pitch and prototype of what a vending machine could look like and where it would be located. The power team landed a meeting and contract with PopCom/PopShop Local (a robotic retail storefront) and are working on bringing students access to the products next fall!

Student Led Workshops

Community Office Hours also gave me the pleasure of meeting and working with the late, great, Katie Meyer. A senior here at Stanford studying International Relations and History, Katie had recently participated in Democracy Day at the d.school and she left there wondering… “How could I help to construct and instruct a pop-out class at the d.school?”

What made Katie stand out was her passion about designing for others. She wasn’t interested in money, boosting her CV, publishing an article, increasing her popularity on her social media platform,she was excited about sharing her love for learning with her peers. Design thinking was just a vehicle to organize all the passion in her heart. 

The work Katie and I worked on was amazing and I cannot wait to share it with the world!

Rest In Power, Katie. 

Student Led Art Exhibition

Sarah Kim was a 2022 d.school Extreme course participant whom I met while leading a workshop session with Manasa Yeturu. She was a senior studying product design and art practice. 

After being inspired by the Black Panther Party Photography Exhibition, that was co-sponsored by and partially housed in the d.school atrium (see below), Sarah reached out about the possibility of designing an installation of her own artwork at the d.school. 

The Black Panther Party Exhibit showed Sarah the potential for the d.school as a place for art, design, and community to converge and be immersive at the d.school. And that’s exactly what Sarah did. Her show, “Homage to the Pixel,” is a series of quilts that examine the pixel, the smallest unit of information to convey a digital image. Each quilt brings together design and art to recontextualize artifacts of technology and understand our hybridized digital and physical realities through a new lens, one pixel at a time.

The Black Community Services Center (BCSC) Admit Weekend + Black Community Welcome 

Stanford’s Black student population is just shy of 8 percent. That’s why Admit Weekend for The Black Community is important to the incoming students and families and for current student participation as well.  

An in-person version of Admit Weekend has not happened on campus since April of 2019 due to COVID-19. The Black Community Services Center (BCSC), also known as The Black House, have worked endlessly to maintain community even in a remote state. 

However, in 2022, we were able to collaborate and welcome the admitted students to the d.school atrium for an in-person experience that provided a brief introduction to Black and staff/faculty, Black student organizations and academic resources, and the d.school. 

(in)VISIBLE Designers Series 

The (in)VISIBLE Designers is a series created to build community between Black and Brown leaders of organizations that represent and serve marginalized communities and whose  work/service deserves to be made VISIBLE.    

Season One consisted of two sessions, with leaders disrupting traditional forms of education, technology creation, art/fashion, and the digital divide. 

In collaboration with George Hofstetter, Founder and CEO of GH Tech, we had the opportunity to sit with Akinatunde Ahmad,a writer, podcaster, and filmmaker, and the legendary, Dr. Angela Davis, educator, community activist,and former Black Panther Party member

The community heard the speakers reflect on a series of questions posed by George and me at the beginning of each session. The questions incorporated reflections on life experiences and applied community and human centered frameworks that each speaker has applied in their daily problem-solving while also giving the speakers their metaphorical “roses” for their accomplishments and contributions to the community and world abroad. 

The design sprints for each session focused on supporting and challenging attendees to incorporate new frameworks into their daily problem-solving while also encouraging participants to create and build their own products, apps, services, and general ideas through community + human centered design work. 

Workshop Designs

My entire life and career, I have either worked in service against, or been impacted by, oppression and the implications of systems of oppression. It is an unfortunate and undeniable reality of many students, families, and those who work with/for students living in America. 

The community bridging and community curriculum I have been developing since my arrival at the d.school has only proven to be relevant and more timely than ever due to the heinous offenses, racial targeting, and murders we continue to see in our daily news. 

I prototyped and taught three workshops throughout this academic year:

Designing Your Ten Point Plan 

This workshop focuses around the “10-Point Plan” of the Black Panther Party, which is based on a set of rules that any person, group of individuals, organizations, and so on, can ascribe to and live by. The platform is broken into three sections. Participants explore “how might we develop a 10-Point Plan through research, interviews, multimedia, and manifestos that responds to social injustice and/or is based on inclusion, belonging, and equity?”  The design sections of the course include each participant answering the following through a design lens:  1. What do you want? 2. What do you need? 3. What do you believe?

Five Freestyles of Design

Participants engage with music, self-reflection, peer reflection, team reflection, and community reflection in this workshop. The theme or workshop topics were centered around “community and design” for this academic year. The world around us was ripping communities apart in multiple directions. Asking participants to assess how what they are seeing, feeling, and experiencing and how those things have positively and or negatively impacted their design work was the cornerstone of our time together.  

The Designer In You 

The workshop centers each participant in design and design in each participant. Design must not be ideologically neutral; rather, it must ardently pursue the preparation for engaged citizenship in an ostensibly democratic society. This session is about going beyond when diversity asks, “Who’s in the room?” and asking a deeper question, “When others are trying to get in the room but can't. What side of the door are you on?”

Participants of these workshops focused on: 

Designing for Inclusivity – Frameworks for designing for community engagement, problem solving, and creating inclusive and equitable outcomes.

Designing for Difficult Conversations – Leaning into “controversy with civility,” where varying opinions are accepted. 

Designing for Accountability – Owning intentions and impacts, in which students acknowledge and discuss instances where a dialogue has affected their emotional well-being and the well-being of others.

Black Panther Party Photo Exhibit with African, African-American Studies (AAAS)

The program in African & African American Studies (AAAS) presented the “We Want A Free Planet” Black Panther Party Photo Exhibition which was displayed in various spaces on Stanford’s campus in collaboration with community partners, including the Department of Art & Art History, Department of History, Stanford Arts Institute, Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA), Black Community Services Center (BCSC), Black Studies Collective (BSC), the d.School and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE). 

The photo exhibition coincided with the 55th-anniversary celebration of the Party's founding. AAAS-PostDoc, Dr. Kimberly McNair curated the photo exhibit with Mr. Billy X Jennings, a Panther veteran and historian, former personal bodyguard to Huey P. Newton, and the chair of this year's BPP Anniversary committee.

I co-curated the show with Charlotte Burgess-Auburn and Amanda Tiet. Together we printed the photos and displayed them in the d.school atrium. The Black Panther Party Photo Exhibition Opening Photo Reception happened at the McMurty Building for the Department of Art & Art History. 

Afrofuturism Workshop 

With the insight and instructions from Ahmed Best and Dr. Lonny Brooks, and with their Afrorithms game in hand, the intent of this workshop is to guide participants through a mixture of guided investigations, self-explorations, and learning systems of Afrofuturism in hopes of creating lasting values and inspirations to those hoping to design for liberation, dignity of human freedom, and justice for this generation and generations to come. to the next in our common effort to.

At the end of the workshop, participants could reflect on how they might:

Think differently using the language and tools for designing Afrofuturism;

Do differently by identify systems and experiences of Afrofuturism; and

Apply their knowledge using an example they can speak to, even if it’s not complete.

All of this represents just some of the work that goes into “Designing Bridges.” But not just one bridge and not just one topic of discussion – working with multiple communities, addressing multiple challenges, and sustaining construction on the multiple  bridges that bravely and safely make space for the community to engage with the world of design thinking and most importantly ensure all feel welcome to contribute to design for generations to come.

The Beginning (not the end).

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