Designing Bridges is the d.school's effort to cultivate more inclusive environments for marginalized instructors and students.
Our focus has been building brave spaces where authentic community and belonging flourish. Milan Drake has led this journey for the d.school through storytelling, reflecting, and listening with others.
Designing brave spaces.
Authentic community-building requires courageous conversations with potential instructors and students who are interested in the d.school and 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 potential to work in design due to their life experience, gender, the color of their skin, college major, and/or geographical location.
Through these conversations, I knew something had to change about how I approached and defined community-building. In that moment of clarity, I went from "designing SAFE SPACES" to "designing BRAVE SPACES."
I asked students, faculty, my network, and anyone who would listen: What kind of community do you 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 valuable external and internal insight, along with being in tune with campus happenings 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 focus on our community's culture and how we might gain more empathy and understanding to dismantle 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 that students and practitioners hear us saying they belong, believe they belong, and become an active part of the community, which, in turn, designs more support and representation. Over the last year, these conversations have taken place in multiple ways. Here's a look at just a few projects and initiatives that were my way of building bridges at the d.school.
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 essential for incoming students and their families and current student participation.
Due to COVID-19, an in-person version of Admit Weekend has not been held on campus since April 2019. The Black Community Services Center (BCSC), or The Black House, has worked tirelessly to maintain community, even in a remote state.
However, in 2022, we collaborated and welcomed the admitted students to the d.school atrium for an in-person experience that briefly introduced Black 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 used in their daily problem-solving. At the same time, the community gave the speakers their metaphorical "roses" for their accomplishments and contributions to the community and the world abroad.
The design sprints for each session focused on supporting and challenging attendees to incorporate new frameworks into their daily problem-solving while encouraging participants to create and build their own products, apps, services, and general ideas through community and human-centered design work.
Black Panther Party Photo Exhibit with African, African-American Studies (AAAS)
The program in African and 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 and Art History, the Department of History, the Stanford Arts Institute, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA), the Black Community Services Center (BCSC), the 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 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 McMurtry Building for the Department of Art and Art History.
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These examples represent just some of the work that goes into Designing Bridges. It requires not just one bridge or one topic of discussion. It requires working with multiple communities, addressing numerous challenges, and sustaining construction on multiple bridges that bravely and safely allow 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.
Credits
Milan Drake