Design Justice Studio (formerly ADE)

Catalog description

This course engages students in community-based, participatory design and action. Teams partner with communities and organizations to achieve positive social and environmental impact with a strong justice framing, working for change in areas like air quality, community development, food processing, global health, and rights and privacy (addressing mass incarceration) over several semesters. Guided by an experienced faculty advisor, teams make change through design for impact, social entrepreneurship, community organizing, participatory research, political advocacy and other practices. All teams practice social benefit analysis, theory of change, assumption testing, cross-cultural engagement tools, dissemination of innovation methods, and ethical norms. Students regularly engage stakeholders in inclusive processes, in person and virtually, to observe, strategize, plan, co-design, prototype, test, and implement approaches supported by a significant project budget. There are often opportunities to travel locally, nationally, or internationally to work with partners. Students are exposed to mindsets and dispositions for working with integrity and responsibility in their stakeholders' contexts through guided exercises, case studies, guest speakers, readings, and reflections. Students learn and apply changemaking practices through project work, and gain essential experience building relationships across difference and developing their own self- and cultural awareness. This course is part of the BOW collaboration, offered jointly between Olin and Babson, and open to Wellesley students. Olin students can elect ADE to fulfill the Engineering Capstone requirement by registering for ENGR 4290 for two consecutive semesters beginning in the second semester of their junior year or the first semester of their senior year. Alternatively, students can take this course for one semester to fulfill the Design Depth requirement by registering for ENGR 3290. Students that take ENGR 3290 in their second semester junior year can opt to switch to ENGR 4290 for capstone credit.