About Design Thinking

Our Mission

As an Initiative we encourage responsible innovation by integrating design methods, mindsets, and opportunities for hands-on making into the Smith experience.

We Believe in Being

Accessible

Providing the lowest barrier of entry to making, democratizing design practices, and demystifying processes so that everyone might consider themselves a maker/designer.

Life-Centered

Engaging those most impacted by a design in the process of design in order to break down systems of inequity and emphasizing the value in the messy process of figuring stuff out.

Hands-On

Introducing people to materials and methods for hands-on making as an act of building, reimagining, and taking care of our tangible shared experiences.

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Relational

Recognizing all that we do is connected to larger systems and structures and intentionally engaging people with diverse perspectives and experiences to co-create with.

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Circular

Considering the full lifecycle and impact of the products and materials we use as an act of creating a more reciprocal and sustainable relationship with our environment.

Design Methodologies and Opportunities for Hands-On Making

Smith College has a long history of educating women for social change. We believe designing and the making of our worlds is foundational to transitioning towards just futures. This requires responsible innovation, a process that promotes creativity and ethical considerations of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of bringing new ideas to fruition. The design methods and mindsets we promote are guided by the Design Justice Principles and we introduce students to making as an interdisciplinary practice.

What Is Design Justice?

This is a commitment to make space for the agency of the people and more-than-humans most impacted by any given design scenario to come together in enacting new ways of being. It is a centering of the voices and experiences too often excluded, silenced or forgotten. It is a practice of examining underlying assumptions and highlighting inequitable and world-negating conditions. It is a means of making alternate futures tangible and testing new ways of operating in this world. This is a reimagining of design as a means to “dismantle structural inequality and advance collective liberation and ecological survival.” It is a collaborative, cognitive and compassionate capacity for wonder and discovery, navigating uncertainty, and allowing change to emerge through the process.

What Do We Mean by Interdisciplinary Making?

Making is a form of learning through experimentation – where students navigate constraints, bump up against limitations, are pushed to think beyond binaries, translate the cerebral into something tangible, work through inevitable failures, learn from what is revealed by mistakes, and discover a unique sense of self-efficacy that comes with having materialized a vision. Making allows students to contextualize learning through, and between, disciplinary practices and fields of knowledge within the liberal arts. At Smith we question what kinds of making are, and have been, valued by whom and why.

Our Team

Emily Norton

Director and Lecturer of Practice

Emily is fascinated by the ways we design our worlds and how those designs in turn design us. She is committed to designing towards justice and resilience. Emily's own design education led her to a career spanning international residencies, research in wetlands preservation, teaching social innovation and leading cultural change campaigns in communities, organizations and institutions. She believes in the power of thinking through making as a means of bridging divides and feeling into the future. Emily holds a B.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design and an M.Des. from Design Academy Eindhoven.

Meet with Emily

Kathy Guo

Prototyping Studio Manager

Kathy Guo holds a B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art and has always been making. Her artistic practice combines fiber, sculpture, illustration, digital tools, play, and empathy to investigate the complexities of human relationships: In culture, family, community, self, and between one another. They are dedicated to always learning, connecting, feeling, critiquing, and empowering. At the Design Thinking Initiative, Kathy is passionate about creating an encouraging environment where hands on making and using technology are accessible to all.

Meet with Kathy

Jennifer Kennedy

Administrative Assistant

Jennifer joined Smith College in August 2018. She is the administrative assistant at the Conway Center and the Design Thinking Initiative. Jennifer is the primary contact for external offices and students, and has been a member of the Administrative Assistant Leadership Team (AALT) since November 2019. Jennifer has a master’s in education in athletic administration from Springfield College and a bachelor’s degree in Communication and English from Cedar Crest College.

Alix Gerber

Post-Graduate Fellow in Interdisciplinary Design

Alix Gerber is a design researcher who designs for alternative politics, collaboratively creating things to imagine worlds without capitalism and without policing. She also works as a human-centered designer and loves to plan interviews and co-creative activities to reflect on the needs of those who are impacted by designed programs, services, or products. Alix has a B.S. in design and environmental analysis from Cornell University and an M.F.A. in transdisciplinary design from Parsons School of Design. She has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis and at Parsons.

Sara Kragness AC ’21

Communications Coordinator

Sara is a social impact-driven entrepreneur, community organizer, and creative. Hailing originally from the Midwest, Sara relocated to the Valley in 2018 to attend Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar and has called the region home ever since. After graduation, Sara launched Crip Consulting to help small businesses align their marketing and branding to their values and a podcast to address social media’s growing influencer culture. Outside of work, Sara enjoys crafting, gardening, and spending time on the porch with her partner and dog.

Collaborative Innovation

The Collaborative Innovation partners—Conway Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center, Design Thinking, Reflective Practices, and Wurtele Center for Leadership—share a mission to help students develop agency, take purposeful action, and reflect on their journey.

An infographic of a triangle composed of four smaller triangles, labeled Conway Center, Wurtele Center, and Design Thinking Initiative. The fourth triangle is in the center, reading Collaborative Innovation. A circle goes around the whole image, labeled Reflective Practices.