Justice and Equity Initiative 2020–2021

During the summer of 2020, seeing a need within the department, Katherine Hughes and I formed the Communication Design’s new Justice and Equity Initiative. With the help of Lyssa Paula-ay and Joe Quackenbush we drafted a list of possible initiatives and steps. Starting with a faculty Justice and Equity reading group, we invited all faculty to recommend readings for the group in a living google document as well as started a slack group for discussion. While many of the initial group readings were design specific we were also able to share workshops and college-wide resources. Our work in the Justice and Equity Initiative lead to our department participation with the design firm Agncy to examine the BIPOC student experience within the Communication Design department. I participated as a member in the core team of this year long engagement, working in co-creation sessions and class observations. The results of this work will drive my own work in the classroom as well as our Curriculum Committee and Justice and Equity Initiative group.