HASTAC 2023 Conference

This panel brings together design educators from diverse backgrounds to discuss their critical making, research, and teaching practices. The panelists share ethically-centered methods, processes, and projects from their design pedagogies and scholarship. From socially-engaged extended reality experiences to feminist pedagogy and impactful activist posters, the panelists examine and discuss their socially-embedded projects that challenge sociopolitical status quos. Panelists seek to constantly acknowledge their positionality throughout the process of engaging in socially-impactful and community-based design work.

Through a variety of methodologies, panelists encourage students to develop their voice as citizen designers, collaborators, and leaders who practice inclusive design to contribute to more equitable futures. How can we collectively pursue and inspire design for social impact? What are the implications of bringing the practice of discomfort into the design classroom? What ethical considerations must we be accountable for as designers? This session invites the audience to join in and contribute to this dialogue.

Challenging Sociopolitical Status Quos with Ethically-driven Design Pedagogy and Scholarship: Session Agenda (90 minutes total):
(10 minutes) Introduce the session topics, schedule, and brief panelist biographies.
(30 minutes) Each panelist will give a five to six minute presentation of their socially-engaged scholarship and pedagogical practices. Brief summaries of the panelists’ topics are below:
Panelist 1: This presentation shares examples of design activism for North Korean human rights and outcomes from ethically-conscious design pedagogy.
Panelist 2: This presentation will share projects that engage students in reflective identity and positionality exploration, considering ethical implications in design practice, and research into social issues.
Panelist 3: Through the feminist practice of engaged pedagogy, this presentation seeks to inspire agency and meaningful collaboration in design classrooms.
Panelist 4: This presentation showcases virtual reality as a narrative-based experiential media aimed at cultivating empathy for children experiencing traumatic events in their pursuit of education.
Panelist 5: As a means of social dissemination, this presentation reveals medium-independent and socially engaged artifacts in the classroom.
(25 minutes) This time will be used for a series of pre-generated, open-ended, theory-based questions for panelists to facilitate dialogue. We will have intentional moments of reflection during this part of the session in order to engage the audience. The list of questions for the panelists is below:
Question 1: How can we collectively pursue and inspire design for social impact?
Question 2: What are the implications of bringing the practice of discomfort into the design classroom?
Question 3: What ethical considerations must we be accountable for as designers?
(25 minutes) This time will be used for questions from the audience and further discussions surrounding the topics set forth in this abstract.

Resources:
First things first 2020 a manifesto — 2020 edition. (2020). https://www.firstthingsfirst2020.org/
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Noel, L. A. (2020, October 4). Critical Alphabet. Critical Alphabet. https://criticalalphabet.com/
O'Grady, J. V., & O'Grady, K. V. (2017). A designer's research manual, updated and expanded: Succeed in design by knowing your clients and understanding what they really need (2nd ed.). Rockport.
Shea, A. (2012). Designing for social change: Strategies for community-based graphic design. Princeton Architectural Press.