Courses & Concentrations

Here you will learn more about the concentrations DTI is connected with and the additional courses we offer. For recommendations on course across the curriculum that integrate design and hands-on making schedule an appointment with Emily Norton to discuss.

Concentrations

The Design Thinking Initiative hosts the Interdisciplinary Making Concentration and is a partner in coordinating the Collaborative Innovation Concentration.

Interdisciplinary Making Concentration

IMX is for students who make things–who learn by doing. Concentrators explore making as a way to understand their disciplinary studies and reimagine their work in broader contexts. Concentrators learn to actualize ideas and both advance and diversify the culture of making at Smith and beyond. IMX provides the opportunity to understand the impacts of the made world, challenge definitions of making, model interdisciplinarity in action, and learn how to take advantage of the many making resources on campus.

Collaborative Innovation Concentration

For any Smithie who wants to change something for the better! To make real change, you will have to work with other people to understand and address complex challenges, and the Collaborative Innovation concentration will help you build the skills and capacities you need to do that effectively. Collaborative Innovation concentrators gain practical experience and develop skills for working with others to solve problems ethically and equitably all while critiquing and reimagining dominant frameworks for leadership, design, and entrepreneurship.

Courses

This course is a series of workshops that situate particular making techniques that take place in Smith’s many “makerspaces” within social, economic, ecological, historical and cultural contexts. Students connect their making practice to the ways making informs their liberal arts education. This course also serves to introduce students to the faculty and staff who facilitate making at the many different making spaces across the college. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 18.

Offered as IDP 200 and ARS 200. This course explores speculative design practices as a way to collaboratively envision radical social transformation. The course focuses on imagining worlds without capitalism, building on local Solidarity Economy efforts. Students work in small groups to make these visions tangible through stories, installations, performances and models of everyday objects from the future. Students learn to make iteratively as a process of critical thinking and to evaluate project work based on its ability to provoke questions and connect with viewers. Prerequisites: 100-level studio art course or IDP 116 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 16. (E)

In this 1-credit, introductory course we explore what designing towards justice might look and feel like. Students will employ human-centered design, a process that centers the lived experience of people most impacted by a challenge in creatively addressing it. We will look at the implications of design in shaping the world around us and develop a critical lens on designs' role in making change. Students will explore what it means to re-frame challenges as opportunities, engage in humble inquiry, observe in new ways, synthesize qualitative research, co-generate ideas, prototype, and test their designs. 1 credit; S/U only. Course max: 16 students 

Whether you are starting your Smith journey, embarking on or returning from an immersive experience abroad, weaving your interests through a Concentration or self-designed major, or wrestling with expressing what a Smith education has prepared you to do, this is the class for you. Test different integrative paths of your own design, tell your own story, and create a digital portfolio to showcase your work. By the end of class, you will be able to articulate connections between your work in and outside of the classroom, and to explain how Smith is preparing you to engage with the world beyond. Enrollment limited to 12. (E)

This course explores the materiality of paper through hands-on making and research. Papermaking is a craft of multiple cultural traditions with a depth of history and context. Connections to land, resources, labor, and techniques can be examined by following a sheet of paper from its beginnings through to its disposal. During this course, we will work together to make paper from plant-based and recycled materials. In partnership with on-campus collections, we will study the societal and environmental context of paper. Course participants will explore one aspect of papermaking in depth through a final independent project. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 12.