Dialectic 2690 Berry

Dialectic Volume V, Issue I: A Long-Form Case Study Report and Position Paper
Prioritizing Our Values: A Case-Study Report that Examines the

Efforts of a Group of University-Level, Communication Design
Educators to Collectively Construct Inclusive and Equitable
Design Teaching Practices in a (Post-) Pandemic Era
Anne H. Berry,¹ Meaghan A. Dee,² Penina Laker,³ and Rebecca Tegtmeyer⁴

Edited by Dialectic’s internal editing team led by Michael R. Gibson and Keith M. Owens
with assistance from Evelyn Denson
1. Associate Professor of Graphic Design, Department of Art + Design, College of Arts and Sciences, Cleve-
land State University, Cleveland, OH, USA
2. Associate Professor of Graphic Design and Chair, School of Visual Arts, College of Architecture, Arts, and
Design, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
3. Assistant Professor of Communication Design, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, College of Art,
Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
4. Associate Professor of Graphic Design, Department of Art, Art History, and Design, College of Arts & Let-
ters, East Lansing, MI, USA
Suggested citation: Berry, A., Dee, M., Laker, P., and Tegtmeyer, R., Prioritizing our values: Design Educators Collectively Building
Inclusive and Equitable Teaching Practices in a (post-) Pandemic era, Dialectic, 5.1 (2023): pgs. 8-60.
Published by the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC) and Michigan Publishing.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/dialectic.2690
Stable URL: https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/dialectic/article/id/2690/
A Positionality Statement
As university-level design educators—and, more specifically, women and women of color—who
represent groups that have been systematically marginalized in the U.S. and in many other so-called
developed and developing nations, and who experience the impact of sexism and racism in our daily
lives, the authors recognize that equitable design teaching practices are essential to the effective
sustenance of their pedagogy because they fundamentally affect how they interact with others,
especially their students. Specifically, they define equitable teaching practices as those that equip all
Copyright © 2023, Dialectic and the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC). All rights reserved.
students with the tools, resources, and quality of instruction and learning environments necessary
to foster and sustain effective design learning, such that each individual learner in a given design
classroom has the opportunity to thrive as a knowledge seeker and builder within that setting. Each
student comes into a design classroom informed by a unique set of life experiences, socio-cultural
biases, and distinct levels of expertise. The authors bear witness to the impact and results of inequita-
ble teaching practices (also known as debilitating teaching practices 1) when these result in students
being disadvantaged and losing opportunities to contribute and grow within given design learning
environments. In this context, “disadvantaged” refers to a student or students being excluded from
design learning activities due to their being unfairly and cursorily assessed as possessing knowledge
acquisition, construction and synthesis abilities that are “less than” those possessed by other stu-
dents of similar age and experience 2. The authors believe that professional career development for
all students preparing to embark on and sustain design careers should include the intellectual and
emotional preparation and skill-building necessary for working in a diversely populated and rapidly
evolving world, regardless of an individual student’s socio-economic and socio-cultural background.
The audience for the explorations and analyses described in this case study is diverse. Although
the authors do not personally know all of the design educators who participated in and contributed
to the pledge initiative chronicled in this article, they do know that these people represent a broad
range of university-level institutions, programs, experiences, and students, and the data that was
collected during this case study is framed by a shared viewpoint that diversity, equity, and inclusion
are integral and essential to the effective facilitation of design education. The authors primary objec-
tives as they formulated and operated the activities that inform this case study included determining
whether or not this pledge initiative, which henceforth in this piece will be referred to as the Value
Design Education Pledge, or, more simply as “the pledge,” was 1) sustainable and successful for design
educators, and 2) meaningful, effectively consequential, and worthwhile for design educators and/or
their students.
Additionally, despite the lack of data in the scholarly literature that currently informs design
regarding the effect of virtual/remote learning on the efficacy of design education specifically, there
is an abundance of data regarding the broader impacts of virtual/remote learning on many different
types of students and disciplines. Consequently, this case study builds on existing trends (such as the
increased emphasis on accounting for student mental health and maintaining awareness of and about
multiple types of learners 3) that inform education research, while also contributing key insights into
the specific field of inquiry that is framing this case study in design education.
Abstract
The Value Design Education Pledge was co-developed by the co-authors of this article: Associate
Professor Anne H. Berry, Associate Professor Meaghan A. Dee, Assistant Professor Penina Laker,
and Associate Professor Rebecca Tegtmeyer, with contributions by Kelly Walters (Assistant Profes-
sor, Communication Design, Parsons, The New School, New York City, N.Y., U.S.A.), to develop and
promote long-term, inclusive, and equitable teaching practices that could positively affect design
education. The pledge was initiated in the wake of events that transpired during the spring and
summer of 2020—namely, the COVID-19 global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, both
of which evolved across the United States during that time. It was also undertaken in recognition
of 1) the changes and challenges that evolved as a result of remote and online learning having to be
implemented across most U.S.-based, university-level and K–12 design education programs, and 2) the
need for pedagogic accountability when decisions have been taken by faculty and administrators to
commit to inclusive and equitable teaching practices.
This case study provides an overview of the timeline of events and the decision-making that
preceded the development of the pledge, including the first AIGA (the professional association for
design, and the primary funder of this journal) Design Educators Community (DEC) virtual roundtable
in May 2020 that spawned a draft of actionable items and outcomes from educators (working at K-12,
non-traditional, undergraduate, and post-graduate levels) who participated in the pledge initiative.
As a key point of planning and emphasis, the Value Design Education Pledge was developed to meet
two key goals. The first was to facilitate manageable and sustainable commitments to students and
communities for design educators already overburdened by the strain of adapting curricula and the
course materials that support them. The second was to encourage remote and online learning in
ways that could effectively provide emotional and academic support to design students throughout
the progression of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the social, political, and cultural upheavals that
accompanied it. The authors research fueled the generation of ideas for further exploration of initia-
tives that could effectively support these goals, including:
• developing mechanisms for measuring design students’ learning before and after they leave
particular classes and programs;
• identifying ways to emphasize that the outcomes of design processes can provide humanis-
tic, tangible, and positively transformative products, services, experiences, and systems; and
• building better mentor models that could be facilitated inside and outside of a variety of
types of design classrooms.
While the disciplinary focus of the pledge as it was initially developed was centered on design educa-
tion, the authors believe that several items and ideas that emerged from operating it can be adapted
to benefit education across a broader array of disciplines.
to promote positive outcomes for all students.”

1 Subini, A., Handy, T., Miller, A.L., & Jackson, E. “Animating American Psychological Association, 1 September,
Discipline Disparities Through Debilitating Practices: Girls 2021. Online. Available at: https://www.apa.org/
of Color and Inequitable Classroom Interactions.” Teachers monitor/2021/09/cover-remote-learning (Accessed
College Record, 122.5 (2020) pgs. 1–46. February 1, 2023).
2 Ibid.
3 Abramson, A., “Capturing the benefits of remote learning: How
education experts are applying lessons learned in the pandemic
A Long-Form Case Study Report and Position Paper
Prioritizing Our Values:

A Case-Study Report that Examines the Efforts of a Group of
University-Level, Communication Design Educators to Collectively
Construct Inclusive and Equitable Design Teaching Practices in a
(Post-) Pandemic Era
Anne H. Berry, Meaghan A. Dee, Penina Laker, & Rebecca Tegtmeyer
Introduction and Contextualization

In the spring of 2020, as the infectious disease Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19)
4 began making its way across the United States, the science around what the
Centers for Disease Control and
American public could do to protect itself from the rapid spread was evolving
Prevention. “CDC Museum COVID-
19 Timeline,” CDC.gov. Online. in real-time. 4 The subsequent spike in COVID-19 infections and deaths was
Available at: https://www.cdc.
marked by a nationwide shut-down of schools, organizations, and business-
gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html
(Accessed April 28, 2022). es, as well as the perpetuation—and politicization—of misinformation and
disinformation a across social and some mainstream media. The pandemic
a Although the terms “misinformation” erupted on the heels of the publication of the U.S. Department of Justice’s
and “disinformation” are used somewhat
Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential
interchangeably and both refer to incorrect,
false, or misleading information, disinfor- election, which identified the roles of misinformation and disinformation
mation is distinguished from misinforma-
in influencing the 2016 U.S. presidential election, exposing vulnerabilities
tion by its definition as a deliberate attempt
to deceive and is “often covertly spread” within American society 5 that later manifested themselves in the rejection
(Merriam-Webster, 2019; Wardle, 2017).
of science and the results of scientific research with respect for many U.S.
5 federal and state-based organizations issuing calls for masking mandates and
U.S. Department of Justice. “Report
widespread vaccination. 6 During this time of fear, economic uncertainty, and
on the investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 presiden- mass death, concerned educators teaching at all levels across the country
tial election, 2019. Volume I.”
rallied to provide support and stability for their students who were
Online. Available at: https://www.
justice.gov/storage/report_volume1. struggling with isolation, mental health challenges, physical health
pdf (Accessed July 23, 2019).
challenges, and family loss.
11
Prioritizing Our Values
6 The response to the sudden changes necessitated by the public

Bolsen, T. & Palm, R.
health crisis resulted in most American educators—from early childhood
“Politicization and COVID-19 vaccine
resistance in the U.S.” Progress in education to the doctoral level—having to pivot from in-person teaching
molecular biology and translational
modalities to ones that required the rapid implementation of remote and
science, 188.1 (2022): pgs. 81–100.
doi:10.1016/bs.pmbts.2021.10.002. online learning. This occurred despite most of them not having adequate
7 training and the resources necessary to do this efficiently or effectively,
Nazempour, R. and Darabi, H.,
regardless of their disciplinary associations. 7 Design educators were
“Nelson, P.C. Impacts on Students’
Academic Performance Due to suddenly having to confront many of the same challenges regarding their
Emergency Transition to Remote
abilities to effectively facilitate learning among their students as educators
Teaching during the COVID-19
Pandemic: A Financial Engineering in most other disciplines. In May of 2020, the AIGA’s Design Educators
Course Case Study. Educ. Sci.,
Community (DEC) held a virtual roundtable discussion to address this crisis
(2022):p. 202. Online.
Available at: https://doi. that was hosted by Associate Professor Anne H. Berry, Assistant Professor
org/10.3390/educsci12030202
Penina Laker, Associate Professor Meaghan Dee, Associate Professor Rebecca
(Accessed April 19, 2023).
Tegtmeyer, and Assistant Professor Kelly Walters.
Figure 1: This image depicts a virtual roundtable facilitated in May of 2020 by the
AIGA’s Design Educators Community (DEC) during which the co-authors of this case
study—Professors Meaghan Dee, Anne H. Berry, Rebecca Tegtmeyer, and Penina
Laker—hosted a variety of critical discussions among about 35 university-level design
educators that addressed how they might begin to effectively alter their teaching
practices to accommodate pandemically induced restrictions on in-classroom, face-to-
face learning. Source: Image provided by the Authors.
It was shortly after this event, as many American design educators

paused to reflect and catch their collective breath after having dealt with the
sudden disruption of teaching schedules, learning plans, assessment respon-
sibilities, as well their research, scholarly and creative agendas, that the Black
12
Berry, D e e, Laker, & Tegtmeyer
8 Lives Matter (BLM) protests began in various locations across the country.
Mahdy, M., “The Impact of COVID-19
They served as a painful reminder that even a global health crisis could not
Pandemic on the Academic Performance
of Veterinary Medical Students,” stymie the pervasiveness of American racism. The murders of George Floyd,
Front. Vet. Sci., 06 October, 2020,
Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, as well as the
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and
Social Sciences. Online. Available subsequent increase of anti-Asian violence in the U.S., required additional
at: https://doi.org/10.3389/
socio-cultural, economic, emotional, and intellectual responses. Trying to
fvets.2020.594261
(Accessed April 19, 2023). conduct “business as usual” in many American design learning settings in
9 the midst of several waves of social, cultural, and political upheaval became
Goyal, N., Abdulahad, A., Privett,
unrealistic. 8 On top of this, for many college students across the globe, “the
J., Verma, A., Foroozesh, M.,
and Coston, T., “Student Grade COVID-19 pandemic [had] induced a variety of negative emotions, including
Evaluation, Survey Feedback, and
frustration, anxiety, and isolation.” 9 Compounding this, there began to be
Lessons Learned during the COVID-
19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study a flood of misinformation and disinformation that sought to undermine the
of Virtual vs. In-Person Offering
peaceful intent of many BLM protests 10, 11 which also began to fuel anti-Asian
of a Freshman-Level General
Chemistry II Course in Summer at hate in many areas of the U.S., and fomented false ideas about how several
Xavier University of Louisiana,”
unfounded conspiracies had caused the outbreak and exacerbated the rapid
Educational Sciences, 12.3 (2022).
Online. Available at: https:// spread of the virus. 12 Many of these efforts also disputed the efficacy of vac-
doi.org/10.3390/educsci12030226
cines that U.S. government Center for Disease Control (C.D.C.) had certified
(Accessed February 24, 2023).
as safe and recommended for broad public use as a means to prevent further
10 spread. 13, 14 During the transpiration of these tumultuous events, there was
ADL. “ADL Debunk: Disinformation
a high demand for American design educators to demonstrate unequivocal
and the BLM Protests.” Online.
Available at: https://www.adl.org/ support for their students as they struggled to sustain the levels of engage-
resources/reports/adl-debunk-dis-
ment in their coursework necessary to build the knowledge and skills they
information-and-the-blm-protests
(Accessed April 27, 2022). would need to advance their careers. As the pandemic grew in severity and
11 the BLM movement simultaneously increased its momentum, there were
Corley, C. “Black Lives Matter
calls for these efforts to be coupled with inclusive and equitable learning
Fights Disinformation To Keep
The Movement Strong,” NPR, last experiences. Questions remained, however, about the ideal methods for
modified 25 May, 2021. Online.
doing this effectively. How could design educators address these growing
Available at: https://www.
npr.org/2021/05/25/999841030/ challenges without creating additional burdens for weary students
black-lives-matter-fights-disinfor-
and faculty?
mation-to-keep-the-movement-strong
(Accessed April 2, 2022). Along with the many other design educators (in the U.S. 15 and
12 internationally 16 ), the co-authors of this piece, found themselves having to
Chin, J. “Covid fueled anti-Asian
address the effects that a bevy of new social and economic challenges were
racism. Now elderly Asian Americans
are being attacked,” Washington having on their students that began with the global onset of the pandemic in
Post, 9 February, 2021. Online.
March of 2020 (and would last until roughly May of 2021). These were the
Available at: https://www.wash-
ingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/09/ direct and indirect results of U.S. government-mandated school and work-
attacks-asian-american-elderly-/
place closings, and the subsequent losses of income, disruption of familial
and other support networks, and (for some) an inability to consistently
13
Dialectic: Volume V, Issue I
13 access the internet. Together, these students' abilities to effectively engage

Centers for Disease Control
in their coursework, access university facilities and resources, and maintain
and Prevention. “Vaccines &
Immunizations: How to Address COVID- the social and cultural networks that many of them were relying on to bolster
19 Vaccine Misinformation,” CDC.
their educational and emotional experiences were disrupted. This confluence
gov. Online. Available at: https://
www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/ of events emphasized the responsibilities that many design educators the
health-departments/addressing-vac-
world over had to assume if they were to effectively facilitate the kinds of
cine-misinformation.html (Accessed
April 25, 2022). learning that had suddenly become essential and went beyond the need to
14 educate emerging designers about the formal and theoretical underpinnings
Alba, D. “Virus Misinformation
of visual communication design.
Spikes as Delta Cases Surge,” The
New York Times, 11 August, 2021. The primary responsibility the authors felt they had to assume
under the circumstances was—and remains—to empower emerging design-
nytimes.com/2021/08/10/technology/
covid-delta-misinformation-surge. ers to develop their skills and bases of knowledge in ways that actively create
html (Accessed April 26, 2022).
the cultures that contextualize and fuel theirs’ and others’ perceptions and
15 actualizations of the societies within which they live, or to shape and posi-
CDC (Centers for Disease Control
tively sustain their creations. The authors contend that culture is made up of
and Prevention). “CDC Museum COVID-
19 Timeline,” August 16, 2022. the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared
by a group of people, and they define creating culture as the intentional com-
cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html
(Accessed February 16, 2023). mitment to developing and maintaining sets of community standards that
16 afford equitable opportunities for all community members to advance their
United Nations. “The virus that
lives and careers. The authors further contend that it is essential to provide
shut down the world: Economic melt-
down,” December 30, 2020. Online. an ideologically open and inclusive space within which their diverse constit-
Available at: https://news.un.org/
uencies of students can plan and engage in a wide variety of positive learning
en/story/2020/12/1080762 (Accessed
February 15, 2023). experiences. Additionally, the authors believe that participants in a commu-
nity create a positive culture within it by favoring and satisfying the good of
the many rather than favoring and satisfying individual desires, and that the
co-creation of classroom values is essential to reaching this goal. The authors
have learned that fostering a sense of belonging among those who constitute
a given culture is imperative to creating and sustaining it in ways that achieve
the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of those who live and
work within it.
Additionally, the authors contend that this can be accomplished
most effectively and efficiently by ensuring the facilitation of a collective
sharing and distribution of knowledge that reflects our common values as
design educators. This was a primary goal of formulating, operating, and
analyzing the results of the case study. The authors acknowledge that design
students are informed by a multitude of intelligences and learning styles,
and, as such, knowledge should be disseminated and constructed among
14
17 them across multiple modalities (e.g. through discussion, writing, the iter-
van den Hooff, B., & de Ridder, J.
ative and heuristically informed creation of visual artifacts, systems, and
A. Knowledge sharing in context: The
influence of organizational commit- products, etc.).
ment, communication climate and CMC
Sharing knowledge is described in this article as “the process where
use on knowledge sharing. Journal of
Knowledge Management, 8.6 (2004): individuals mutually exchange their implicit (tacit) and explicit knowledge to
pgs. 117–130; (p.119).
create new knowledge” 17 to leverage collective expertise and contribute new
18 insights. In their book Collaboration in Design Education, Marty Maxwell Lane
Maxwell Lane, M. & Tegtmeyer, R.
and Rebecca Tegtmeyer (a co-author of this piece) 18 posit that it is necessary
Collaboration in Design Education.
London, U.K.: Bloomsbury, to exchange and share knowledge in order to build on and expand it, an idea
2020, p. 16.
that can be traced back as far as John Dewey’s early work regarding teaching
19 and learning. 19 Establishing an environment for knowledge sharing in a given
Dewey, J. Logic: The Theory of
design classroom culture begins with creating trust and openness, which the
Inquiry. New York, U.S.A.: Henry
Holt and Company, 1938, p. 140. authors hereby postulate are core values in design education. These values
20 are the foundation that the authors believe is crucial to create the condi-
Conklin, S. & Garrett Dikkers, A.
tions that shape the development and sustenance of what they are defining
“Instructor social presence and
connectedness in quick shift from as a positive classroom culture. Initiating these values at the beginning of a
face-to-face to online instruc-
course of study in design, or in the early days of the operation of a particular
tion.” Online Learning, 25.1 (2021):
pgs. 135-150. Online. Available design class, demonstrates the goals that the authors believe design educa-
at: https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.
tors should strive to attain as they attempt to guide learning activities and
v25i1.2482 (Accessed on September 5,
2022). “Empathic facilitation” is behaviors that benefit and inspire design students. Finally, the authors have
defined as “demonstrating
learned and now believe that attaining these goals enables students to oper-
an understanding of others’
situations through processes ationalize design processes that contribute to more equitable, inclusive, and
and practices” (p. 142).
holistically informed community cultures.
Examining the Effects of Virtual Learning Policies and

Practices on Design Educators and Their Students
At the onset of the pandemic, educators teaching across many
disciplines—including design—instinctively understood the need for
patience—specifically, patience with the development and implementation
of curricular initiatives, course- or classroom-specific teaching practices, and
learning outcomes—on behalf of both them and their students. Reframing
expectations, adopting “empathic facilitation” models that prioritized
student wellbeing and flexibility, 20 and keeping a sense of community when
many were feeling disconnected took precedence over keeping hard dead-
lines for project completions and exacting standards for particular student
project deliverables. A study conducted by a group of four chemistry pro-
fessors at Xavier University of Louisiana found that, “[a] lack of a sense of
15
21 community has also been reported in the literature as a weakness in

Goyal, N., Abdulahad, A., Privett,
virtual learning.” 21 Relatedly, in Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim
J., Verma, A., Foroozesh, M.,
and Coston, T., “Student Grade Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization, author
Evaluation, Survey Feedback, and
Cia Verschelden states, “research consistently points to belonging as a crit-
Lessons Learned during the COVID-
19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study ical factor in college success.” She goes on to note that, “belonging” comes
of Virtual vs. In-Person Offering
with its own set of challenges for first-generation and non-majority students,
of a Freshman-Level General
Chemistry II Course in Summer at and further articulates that peer support and “social connectedness” remain
Xavier University of Louisiana,”
critical components for motivation and engagement, particularly for margin-
Educ. Sci., 12 (2022): p. 226.
Online. Available at: https:// alized students. 22 Knowing that being deprived of close contact with their
doi.org/10.3390/educsci12030226
in-classroom learning community could have detrimental effects on students
(Accessed March 15, 2023).
and student engagement, many educators recognized the necessity of dili-
22 gently cultivating virtual, remotely accessible learning spaces. By embracing
Verschelden, C. Bandwidth recovery:
and then sharing new virtual communication and teaching technologies,
Helping students reclaim cognitive
resources lost to poverty, rac- tools, and methods for creating as much stability on behalf of their students
ism, and social marginalization.
as they could, some design educators whose practices are described in this
Sterling, Virginia, U.S.A.: Stylus
Publishing, LLC, 2017. study were able to effectively adapt their teaching practices to meet the new,
virtually facilitated learning needs of many of their students. Two years later,
design educators returned to in-person class meetings, utilizing some of the
same tools and resources that had become a crucial part of remote instruc-
tion, including a renewed push for inclusive and equitable teaching practices
that they had learned could positively contribute to the establishment and
sustenance of a positive classroom culture.
The May 2020 AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) DEC
(Design Educators Community) virtual roundtable was initially organized
to help design educators critically discuss what might become best practic-
es for planning and facilitating remote/virtual teaching across the design
education landscape. This event became the catalyst for guiding a broader
discussion and an initiative that was centered around determining how a
specific array of approaches and methods for framing and facilitating con-
temporary design education should and should not affect the learning
experiences of design students preparing to enter professional practice in
the 2020s and beyond. These efforts then evolved into an initiative that
would come to be known as the Value Design Education Pledge. Though the
move to online teaching was temporary (six months to a year, in most cases)
for most American and internationally located design educators, the impact
of the disruption on educational systems and the individuals that devel-
op, design, and utilize them has required additional thinking and planning
16
23 about issues that include the following: how to structure curricula and the
Abdrasheva, D., Escribens,
courses that constitute these, and how to conduct assessments of students’
M., Sabzalieva, E., Vieira do
Nascimento, D. & and Yerovi, C. work output and learning over time. 23 Most importantly, many of the design
Resuming or Reforming? Tracking the
educators initially involved in this roundtable exchange expressed that they
global impact of the COVID-19 pan-
demic on higher education after two were being affected—in some cases profoundly—by a pandemic-induced
years of disruption. Paris, France;
fatigue. As the group discussed this phenomenon more deeply, the exchange
Caracas, Venezuela: United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural spawned a series of ideas rooted in the need to re-imagine and re-shape how
Organization, 2022.
some aspects of design curricula and the learning experiences that constitute
them, particularly in the U.S., should be structured and facilitated in new
ways. Of particular interest and importance were ideas that could effectively
address how design and design education were affecting and being affected by
the sweeping socio-cultural, political, and economic changes that had trans-
pired—and were still transpiring—since the onset of the pandemic. The
group also quickly reached a consensus that any changes they might suggest
regarding curricular structures and classroom learning experiences would
have to be implemented in ways that could satisfy two key criteria. The first
was that they would have to be formulated and implemented in ways that
ensured that they would be effectively and efficiently manageable and
sustainable for those who would be charged with doing this. The second was
that this would have to be accomplished without adding to what many in
the group felt had become an undue and almost unbearable set of burdens
imposed upon them since the onset of the pandemic that involved incor-
porating new types of planning, teaching, and documenting their and their
students’ activities.
Articulating the Principal Rationales for Instituting the Value

Design Education Pledge Initiative
The Value Design Education Pledge is a set of working principles that evolved
into an initiative to construct a foundation for enacting long-term, positive
changes in and around how the learning experiences that constitute design
education are planned, operated, and assessed. Specifically, these involve
a commitment to demonstrating accountability for the direct and indirect
effects that design decision-making has on given societies writ large, and the
varieties of population groups that comprise them, as well as professional
designers, design educators, design researchers, design scholars, audiences,
user groups, student bodies, specific classroom populations, and even indi-
vidual students. This initiative was instigated with the participation of and
17
contributions from 100 design educators that represented university-level

design programs in the U.S., as well as Spain, Iran, Canada, and India in the
Fall of 2020 (diagram 1). Two years later, in the Spring of 2022, national
attention in the U.S. was once again focused on discussions involving diver-
sity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in a wide variety of educational
environments as national, “mid-term” elections there took place. This also
occurred in some countries outside the U.S., such as France, Italy, the U.K.,
and Germany, where issues such as wealth disparity, rising energy and food
costs, and immigration all contextualized discussions around these kinds of
initiatives. (Some of these efforts sought to increase the number of faculty
and research positions in institutions of higher education that could be filled
by people who would advocate for the planning and facilitation of DEI initia-
tives, police reform trainings, reframing admissions policies according to DEI
principles, etc.). Resources that highlighted the contributions of members of
marginalized communities to a wide variety of social, technological, econom-
ic, and public policy endeavors that were broadly perceived as effective were
Diagram 1: The AIGA DEC (DEC = Design Educators Community) is comprised of

educators teaching within K-12, non-traditional, undergraduate, and post-graduate
levels. This diagram depicts the various types of teaching and learning institutions
represented among the constituency of the 100 educators who participated in the
initial Value Design Education Pledge initiative (93 were from the United States, and
the remaining seven hailed from countries outside the U.S.). Source: Diagram provided
by Rebecca Tegtmeyer.
18
24 made accessible to a wider variety of student audiences. A significant uptick

American Library Association.
in the number of banned and challenged books by Black and/or LGBTQ+
“State of America’s Libraries
Report 2022,” 1 April, 2022. authors also occurred during this time in many parts of the U.S., 24 and these
Online. Available at: https://
were accompanied by legislative efforts in several states that were designed
www.ala.org/news/sites/
ala.org.news/files/content/ to prevent teaching various aspects of Black history. 25 These were (and still
state-of-americas-libraries-spe-
are) examples of the effects that misinformation and disinformation can
cial-report-pandemic-year-two.pdf
(Accessed March 29, 2022). and do have on American learning environments, as well as those situated
25 in many other parts of the world. They also provide evidence for why dedi-
Fortin, J. & Heyward, G. “Teachers
cated efforts for creating and sustaining socially and culturally healthy (i.e.
Tackle Black History Month, Under
New Restrictions,” The New York inclusive and equitable) learning environments for educators and students
Times, last modified 13 February,
continue to be necessary.
2022. Online. Available at: https://
www.nytimes.com/2022/02/12/us/black- Each of the 100 design educators that participated in and contrib-
history-month-schools-teachers.html
uted to the Value Design Education Initiative chose to focus on two or more
socio-culturally rooted and guided endeavors that emerged from the following
categorically organized list of six commitments. These were articulated as
pledges that they promised to actualize and support in their respective class-
rooms and, more broadly, across the scope of the curricula they were
responsible for shaping and teaching:
1) Commit to being anti-racist

2) Commit to upholding all (design) histories
3) Commit to distributing knowledge
4) Commit to demonstrating the broad impacts of design
decision-making
5) Commit to creating culture
6) Commit to defining and promoting healthy student
life experiences
These six pledge ideas, or commitments, have been articulated to address the
needs and aspirations—from narrow to broad—of the increasingly diverse
groups of students to whom we, as design educators, are accountable. This
became the approach for further defining the essential principle or principles
that each pledge sought to address. Actionable strategies were then created
to serve as starting points to help the 100 participants effectively implement
these endeavors, or “pledges,” across their various curricula, within indi-
vidual courses, and as essential aspects of individual project or assignment
parameters. A collection of resources, such as peer-reviewed articles from
19
26 scholarly journals 26, 27 and book chapters that inform design education and
McIntosh, P., “White Privilege:
practice, AIGA Eye on Design articles (available at https://eyeondesign.aiga.
Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
first appeared in Peace and Freedom org), and other web-based resources were amassed, curated, and shared to
Magazine, July/August, 1989, pgs.
support the development of other possible undertakings that could
10-12, a publication of the Women’s
International League for Peace improve the array of content that would come to constitute the Value Design
and Freedom, Philadelphia,
Education Pledge. An online-facilitated, follow-up survey was also conducted
Pennsylvania, U.S.A..
for a period of 90 days across the AIGA Design Educators Community during
27 the summer of 2020 to collect more suggestions for ideas and action items,
Benson, E., Jennings, J., & Gibson,
and this was further augmented with information cultivated from an addi-
M.R. “Dezombies and the Coming
Design Apocalypse: Confronting tional virtual discussion session facilitated by the authors.
the Urgent Need to Increase
Racial Diversity and Environmental
Awareness in University-Level A Description of the Timeline and the Decision-Making
American Communication Design
Processes That Guided the Development and Execution of the
Programs.” Dialectic, 1.2 (2017):
pgs. 129-154. Value Design Education Pledge Initiative
The following section of this article articulates the timeline of events the
authors forumlated and operated and that allowed us to develop and execute
this initiative (diagram 2).
March 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic began, which triggered a rapid shift to remote and
online learning in and across pre-Kindergarten to doctoral-level learning
environments around the world.
20
Diagram 2: The Value Design Education Roundtable occurred as a critical response

from a small group of U.S.-based design educators to a series of social, cultural, eco-
nomic, technological, and public policy issues that proved to be challenging for many
people around the world to deal with during the first few months of the pandemic. As
the dialogue that began in the spring of 2020 evolved and expanded, it prompted the
formulation of the Value Design Education Pledge. This timeline of events depicts the
evolution of the Value Design Education Pledge initiative in relation to U.S.-based and
global events that were affecting both teaching and learning across design education
during this time. Source: Diagram provided by Rebecca Tegtmeyer.
April 2020
Associate Professor Anne H. Berry of the Department of Art and Design in
the College of Arts and Sciences at Cleveland State University in Cleveland,
Ohio, U.S.A. contacted her colleagues on the national steering committee of
the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC) about the possibility of
engaging other design educators across the U.S. and abroad in discussions
about their efforts regarding making the transition to online teaching. She
also raised questions to this group about how best to address what she was
quickly learning were some of the most significant challenges to teaching
design in the unforeseen circumstances that now faced design educators who
were being challenged to teach effectively as the pandemic progressed. What
she articulated at this time is expressed as follows:
How can we continue providing quality learning experiences for our design
students when 1) we are accustomed to (and find value in) our in-person
interactions with them, and 2) we don’t necessarily know how long we will
be teaching online?
May 2020
The Value of Design Education During a time of Online Teaching virtual
28 roundtable discussion was hosted by the AIGA’s Design Educators
Design Educators Community.
Community (DEC) 28
“Virtual Event Recording: The Value
of Design Education,” AIGA.org, AIGA DEC Steering committee members Associate Professor
22 May, 2020. Online. Available
Meaghan Dee of Virginia Tech, Assistant Professor Kelly Walters of the New
at: https://educators.aiga.org/
virtual-roundtable-the-value-of-de- School at The Parsons School of Design and Rebecca Tegtmeyer of Michigan
sign-education/ (Accessed
State University coordinated a virtual event that involved hosting Anne H.
March 29, 2022).
Berry and Penina Laker (two of the authors of this piece) as they
21
Figure 2: The Value Design Education virtual roundtable discussion was held
on Friday, May 15, 2020, and was moderated by co-authors and design educators
Anne H. Berry (Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.) and Penina Laker
(Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.). Over thirty participants listened
to Professors Berry and Laker share their perspectives and approaches to ensuring
value and equity across the spectrum of their students’ learning experiences in both
their classrooms and in their interactions with community organizations. Group
discussions included responding to the following questions: What value do we provide
to our students, our institutions, and our collaborators as design educators? How do
we measure and demonstrate that value? Additional questions were prefaced by the
statement: we can’t recreate in-person experiences online. Given this fact, what are
some reasonable expectations we should set for ourselves? For our students? Source:
Image provided by the Authors.
22
Diagram 3: As led by the authors, the Value Design Education virtual roundtable
opened with a short poll that queried the participants about how confident they felt
in bringing value to their students and programs as a design educator. This diagram
represents the poll results. Source: Diagram provided by Rebecca Tegtmeyer. .
facilitated the roundtable discussion about the value of design education

(figure 2). The event began with a short Zoom-facilitated poll that queried
the approximately 30 participants about how confident they felt in bringing
value to their students and programs as design educators, as well as how their
institutions acknowledged whatever they defined as value in and around the
facilitation of design education (diagram 3). Reflections about how the value
of design education could still be made manifest during COVID-19-induced
classroom shutdowns formed the basis of this roundtable discussion, as
participants discussed how the lack of in-person instruction, limited or no
access to supplies and computer labs, and the lack of interaction within
physical communities was affecting their abilities to teach and their students’
abilities to learn.
23
Over 30 participants listened to co-authors and discussion

facilitators Anne H. Berry and Penina Laker share the perspectives, approach-
es, and methods that have helped them to ensure that their students’ learning
experiences—whether these were occurring in their classrooms or in the com-
munities that surrounded them—were imbued with equity and value.
(A central focus of this initial conversation about the value of design education
centered on defining what kinds of learning experiences could be facilitated
most effectively as COVID-19 induced classroom shutdowns were being
imposed. These included implementing and sustaining virtual connections
with students and experimenting with new modalities of teaching.) After
Professors Berry and Laker shared the knowledge and understandings they
had constructed, smaller break-out discussion groups were formed that were
asked to respond to the following two questions:
1. As design educators, what value do we provide and can we provide to

our students, our institutions, and ourselves during the evolution of the
most severe disruption to our pedagogy and pedagogical practices that
has occurred in the past 100 years? How do we measure or demonstrate
various aspects of this value/these values? and,
2. Given that we can’t recreate in-person experiences online, what are rea-
sonable expectations to set for ourselves? For our students? For those we
work with in the communities around us?
The following key points surfaced as a result of engaging in these break-out dis-
cussion groups:
• We now have more and better ways to measure the efficacy of our
teaching, particularly in areas like UX/UI; analytics and usability
testing allow us to evaluate metrics in ways we couldn’t before.
• As educators, we are providing mentorship, facilitating experiences,
counseling students, and modeling behavior; we are also actively
engaged in helping students identify opportunities to grow, devel-
op, and build their skill sets (soft skills, design aesthetics, etc.) and
the bases of knowledge and understandings that inform their criti-
cal thinking abilities.
• Students value the one-on-one feedback their faculty provide
because it offers them a personalized response to their design
24
decision-making processes as well as undivided, critical attention

from their mentors.
• As design educators, we tend to be good at talking about the value
internally (i.e., to each other), but need to develop better ways of
communicating our value externally to stakeholders, prospective
students, and community partners; we articulate value beyond
research funding, to encompass the overall student experience.
This roundtable event also generated other ideas for broader consideration
among the design education community, such as developing mechanisms
for measuring students’ learning before and after they leave our classes and
programs, and co-creating methods for mentoring design students inside and
outside of the classroom.
Summer 2020
The discussions that occurred during the May roundtable event motivated
the authors to think of ways to elevate the discourse they had helped initiate
to a higher level of active engagement with a more diverse array of design
educators. As so many across the design education landscape were facing the
specter of having to continue teaching remotely in the Fall of 2020, the
authors felt it was critical to sustain the conversation that they had started
the previous spring that had been focused on course planning and teaching.
They met frequently during the summer months of 2020 to analyze the data
they had documented in notes from the roundtable, and to brainstorm ideas
that could effectively guide what would be the best “next steps” that could
be taken. As their discussions evolved, they decided that their primary goal
should be to develop an initiative that:
1) would make it easy for design educators to participate and

contribute,
2) was reasonably feasible to put into practice,
3) would leverage existing resources and tools, and
4) would facilitate continued growth, accountability, and adaptation
as the various aspects of the social, economic, technological, politi-
cal, and environmental forces that affect and are affected by design
education continue to evolve.
25
August 2020
The authors launched the Value Design Education Pledge 29 across the online
communication networks operated by the AIGA Design Educators
Community (DEC).
29 The call for participants was promoted and shared across all of
Design Educators Community. “Value
the AIGA DEC social media channels (Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook).
Design Education Pledge,” AIGA.org,
20 August, 2020. Online. Available This call directed those interested in participating to a webpage on the AIGA
at: https://educators.aiga.org/val-
uedesigneducation/ (Accessed
DEC website that articulated detailed instructions for participating. This
March 29, 2022). included a video introduction that featured commentary and instructional
30 language from Professors Berry and Laker (figure 3 and figures 7-14), as well
Design Educators Community. “Value
as a downloadable PDF that articulated each of the pledges in clear and
Design Education Pledge,” SCRIBD.
Online. Available at: https://www. concise language. 30
scribd.com/document/473018467/
In the call for participation, the authors posed the following preface
Value-Design-Education-
Pledge#download&from_embed (Accessed question-and-response to help introduce the Value Design Education Pledge
April 1, 2022).
initiative to the AIGA Design Education Community (DEC):
Figure 3: Still images taken from the video introduction to the Value Design
Education Pledge that featured co-authors Professors Anne H. Berry and Penina Laker
articulating instructions about how other design educators could participate in this
initiative. This video was featured on the AIGA DEC website during the summer and
fall of 2020, and was accompanied by the call for participation. Source: Image provided
by the Authors.
26
Figures 4-11: The authors met regularly following the initial Value of Design
Education virtual roundtable discussion to brainstorm ideas and to develop a set of
approaches to fostering and facilitating learning experiences for their design students
and their collaborators that could eventually be adopted by other design educators.
They initially discussed many possible goals, but in order to make what they were
proposing manageable for a wide variety of design educators, they narrowed their
ideas down to the six the pledge statements depicted here, and that were originally in-
troduced on p. 19. The structure and content of these statements have been informed
by many of the people and communities that they perceive as being affected by the
27
work of design educators: the societies within which they teach and work, professional
b According to American educational psy-
designers, other design educators, the audiences for whom they teach their students
chologist Jere Brophy, classroom norms are to design (and for whom they themselves design), specific social classes and other
“…a teacher’s stated expectations for stu- socially organized groups, the physical and cultural environments within which their
dent behavior…” and they constitute “… a and students’ work is perceived and acted upon, and the individual students that they
dependable system of rules and procedures
teach. The images presented here were posted on Instagram to promote the Value
[that] provides structure for students. This
Design Education Pledge initiative. Source: Image provided by the Authors.
structure helps students to be engaged with
instructional tasks, and communicates to
students that the teacher cares for them.”
Finally, Brophy states that, “…authoritative What do you value?
implementation of rules includes com-
municating care and respect for students,
teaching students what is expected of them Re-imagining and then re-building a given university-level design curric-
and why this is of value, and responding to
ulum so that it can be equitable and inclusive within the timeframe of a
students’ actions and interactions in ways
that help them to become more responsible single academic year, or at least more equitable and inclusive than it is
self-regulated learners.” Brophy, J.E.
Motivating students to learn, second
currently, may not be feasible for many design educators in the U.S. and
edition. Boston, MA, USA: McGraw-Hill, abroad. Many institutions require several types of approvals to actuate
2004: pgs. 4-24.
any major curricular overhaul, and these can occur at the department-
or university-level, even requiring approval at the state-level or by one
or more accrediting bodies (especially at the graduate level). However,
incremental modifications such as 1) the inclusion of shared classroom
norms b and anti-racism statements to course syllabi, 2) broadening the
scope of resource materials so that students can easily find credible ref-
erences for design work created by and/or on behalf of underrepresented
population can be an important part of implementing positive changes
and then sustaining them over the course of at least a semester. In light of
this, design educators are hereby encouraged to commit to one of the six
pledge statements (as articulated on p. 19 of this piece), and then adopt
one or two corresponding action items so that these can be incorporated
into their Fall 2020 curricula, in either a single course or across several
design courses in a given program.
A Google Form, which posed the following questions, was used to track inter-
est and participation:
• Name + Email + Institution

• What courses are you teaching during the F20 semester?
• What mode of instruction are you using for the F20 semester?
• What Value Design Education Pledge(s) are you committing to
during the F20 semester? (We encourage you to limit your pledge
commitments to two)
28
• How do you plan to actualize the one or two Value Design Education
Pledges to which you have committed with YOUR students in YOUR/
THEIR classroom settings?
• What resources do you foresee needing to make this happen?
• Are you willing to participate in a follow-up discussion mid-way
through the F20 semester?
The authors used email to follow up with participants who filled out this
form in order to confirm their participation. The authors also provided par-
ticipants with a PDF that listed resources cultivated specifically to support
each Value Design Education Pledge from existing articles in the AIGA DEC ar-
chive (table 1). Additionally, they emphasized accountability by encouraging
educators to share their pledge(s) with their students and colleagues at the
beginning of the semester. Participants could commit to the pledges through
September 15, 2020.
The authors then used email to plan and announce a special virtual
roundtable discussion to allow pledge participants to share their knowledge
and perspectives that was to be held in December of that year (2020). Once
participants completed the survey, the authors asked them to complete
a Google Form that would provide us with content to guide and fuel the
December discussion. The Google Form asked participants to respond to the
following questions:
• Name + Email + Institution

• What pledge(s) did you commit to for the F20 semester?
• What actions did you take this semester in response to the
pledge(s) you took?
• What actions + results turned out differently than you expected?
• What actions + results were successful? Why + how?
• Other comments, suggestions, or actions you took that you would
like to share?
December 2020
The authors hosted a virtual roundtable discussion for approximately
three-dozen participants. This event was dedicated to discussing partici-
pants’ pledge commitments, the actions they took as a result of committing
29
DIALECtIC: VOLumE V, IssuE I
Table 1: After individual university-level design educators confirmed their individual

willingness to participate in the Value Design Education Pledge initiative, the authors
provided resources to support their contributions that were curated specifically to
support their student’s learning as they engaged in coursework rooted in ideas artic-
ulated in the actions/definitions that were correlated with specific pledges. Many of
these resources were provided in the form of existing articles in the AIGA DEC archive.
Additionally, this chart was shared with all participants. Source: Image provided by
the Authors.
30
to actualize these with their particular groups of students in their respective

classrooms, and to allow participants to recount what they felt were their
greatest successes and struggles. Examples of some of the actions taken by
participants as they operationalized the various pledges they had committed
to supporting included modifying specific course syllabi and projects, hosting
student discussions, and inviting guest speakers to address issues related
to their chosen pledges. To better facilitate this roundtable discussion and
to offer a viable means to capture the group’s thoughts and reflections, the
authors used a virtual messaging board created in Padlet, an online tool that
enables collaborative content collecting (figure 12).
Analyzing the Outcomes That Resulted from Facilitating the

Value Design Education Pledge
Each of the six pledge items corresponds to a specific group of people
(various members of society, graphic designers, design educators, people/
audiences, class groups/environments, individual students) that affect
and are affected by the decisions that design educators and their students
routinely make (table 1). Actionable items/strategies were created by the
working group as starting points to help design educators effectively plan
and then implement the principles articulated in each of the pledges in a
variety of classrooms. A collection of resources from other AIGA articles
31 was also shared, including the Design Teaching Resource, 31 compiled Anti-
AIGA, Resources. Online. Available
Asian Racism and Violence Resources, 32 and the AIGA Design Educators
at: https://teachingresource.aiga.
org/resources (Accessed Community compiled Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion Resources. 33
March 15, 2023).
Outcomes from the AIGA DEC community were collected through a
32 follow-up survey and virtual discussions.
AIGA Design Educators
Of the 100 responses that the authors received from graphic design
Community, Anti-Asian Racism and
Violence Resources. Available educators (again, 93 came from the United States, and 7 were fielded from
at: https://docs.google.com/
international sources), 67% pledged a commitment to being anti-racist
spreadsheets/d/17ME0tbKrmACUlELrkt-
71DjO7t1VOVX5YgpQMPfALEc4/edit#gid=0 (within given societies), 56% pledged a commitment to promoting healthy
student life experiences (on behalf of individual students), 53% pledged a com-
33 mitment to creating and helping to sustain authentic cultures (in ways that
AIGA Design Educators Community,
benefitted particular class groups/social environments), 51% pledged a com-
Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion
Resources. Online. Available mitment to upholding all design histories (so that contributions from a broad,
at: https://docs.google.com/
not necessarily mostly white and western group of designers could be critically
document/d/1tpAhZ8xzXiEngDE5egzpuF-
h3O82KZbZglpgvkNp7smo/edit (Accessed examined), 45% pledged a commitment to distributing knowledge (between
March 15, 2023).
design educators and those who collaborate with them), and 32% pledged a
31
commitment to demonstrating the broad impacts of design decision-making

(on a wide variety of people/audiences). (This information is depicted
in diagram 4).
Design educators shared plans for how they intended to act
upon the selected pledge(s) and action items within their respective
classrooms, as well as within their own research endeavors and practices,
and finally within their respective institutions. A brief summary of the
Figure 12: A virtual roundtable discussion that included approximately three-dozen

participants who identified as design educators was held in December 2020. This
event was dedicated to allowing individual participants’ to present and discuss their
experiences actualizing whatever pledges they had committed to addressing with their
students in their classrooms, the actions that were taken as a result of engaging in the
pledge, and the resulting successes and struggles that many participants experienced
as they attempted to facilitate these as essential components of learning experienc-
es during the height of the pandemic. A Padlet board was created to document this
discussion that was populated with content generated by the roundtable participants.
Source: Image provided by the Authors.
32
responses from participants to each of the six pledge items (diagram 4)—
items which were proposed by design educators who contributed to the Value
of Design Education Pledge—are articulated as follows:
I Commit To Being Anti-Racist.

This pledge holds design educators accountable for the effects that their
decision-making has on the well-being of one or more societies in the world
(table 2) as they strive to identify racist policies, practices, and procedures
and replace them with antiracist policies, practices, and procedures. It also
calls for design educators to 1) promote understandings among their stu-
dents about how racism is a systemic issue, 2) to sensitize them about the
racist ideas that have been socialized across the American (and the South
African, British, French, Japanese and many other socio-economic, socio-
political, and socio-economic landscapes around the world), and 3) make
them aware of the racist biases that these ideas have helped nurture in the
minds of people the world over as a result. This pledge also more broadly
posits that educators should strive to fulfill societal roles that question and,
on occasion, challenge existing socio-cultural structures, as well as work to
foster the awarenesses necessary in their students to respond to, and, as they
deem necessary, challenge them. Meeting these challenges requires design
educators to thoughtfully and diligently read and listen to anti-racist per-
spectives from a wide variety of speakers and authors from around the world
and contribute to the critical dialogues that are evolving within and around
this issue.
Table 2: An articulation of the content that constituted Pledge #1. Source: Image
provided by the Authors.
33
Diagram 4: At the onset of the Value Design Education Pledge initiative, participants
pledged a commitment to one or more of the six pledges. This infographic indicates
the priorities of the 100 design educators who participated in the initiative. Source:
Diagram provided by Rebecca Tegtmeyer.
34
Examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to being

anti-racist:
• Including an Anti-Racist Power & Privilege statement in the course

syllabi.
• Incorporating empathy-building exercises into class activities.
• Revising project briefs to be more inclusive of examples from
underrepresented and minority groups.
• Uplifting the work of underrepresented designers from the US and
beyond.
• Participating in and contributing to university and local school
district diversity, equity, and inclusion committees and initiatives.
• Assuming on the role of mentor and counselor, particularly when
working with first-generation or at-risk students who might
be navigating the college experience for the first time and, as
such, bearing a large amount of external pressure from
home, peers, etc.
• Actively measuring (with evidence-based data) the value that de-
sign educators can and do bring to addressing and, as necessary,
combatting this issue, and then broadly sharing credible, well-vet-
ted information and sources.
I Commit To Upholding All Design Histories.

This pledge holds design educators accountable to the critical study of and
about our discipline, both through the study and practice of graphic, visual
communication, and, more recently, user experience and interaction design,
as well as fashion, interior and industrial, or product, design (table 3). As
educators, they are in a position to uphold and afford opportunities for our
students to construct knowledge of and about the myriad of design histo-
ries that extend beyond western influences and the so-called western canon.
Design educators do this by highlighting design contributions from underrep-
resented cultural and social groups whose traditions and bases of knowledge
are not rooted solely in modernist or Bauhaus methods.
Some examples of actions taken by design educators who participat-
ed in the December 2020 discussion as part of their commitment to upholding
the broadest possible array of design histories are articulated below:
35
• Addressing the limitations implied by the western canon and

identifying the power and privilege dynamics that are and have
been promoted by this limited and limiting view of design history.
• Broadening the canon of histories that examine and explore
design that account for influences and ways of thinking that are
inclusive of the widest variety of global cultures possible.
• Reevaluating the variety of project examples and outcomes of
design processes that are shown to and critically discussed with
students.
• Extending invitations to designers with disabilities and BIPOC/
LGBTQ+ designers to speak and work with students.
I Commit To Distributing Knowledge.

This pledge holds design educators accountable to their peers and their dis-
cipline(s) writ large by asking them to re-evaluate how and why they engage
in the formulation and operation of research, as well as the dissemination of
understandings and knowledge that stem from this as they affect (or could
affect) how design education is taught and practiced (table 4). Design
educators have a responsibility to contribute to the bodies of knowledge
that inform their respective discipline(s) by sharing the outcomes of their
research and pedagogic practices. These can be expressed as new ideas,
insights, and examples of knowledge and understandings that they have
acquired or constructed by engaging in these activities, and should be
shared by publishing them in peer-reviewed and other, more broadly
accessible publishing platforms.
36
Some examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to dis-

tribute knowledge are articulated below:
• Sharing outcomes of research and creative activities addressing

issues such as design justice, environmental racism, and equi-
ty-centered design practices at credible, well-acknowledged
academic and professional conferences.
• Hosting guest lectures and speaking opportunities from members
of underrepresented groups that allow them to address issues
rooted in equity, diversity, and inclusion.
• Encouraging student engagement with invited BIPOC
designers/guests.
• Seeking out, when appropriate, opportunities to collaborate with
colleagues—from within the realms of design education and
without—from other university-level institutions who have com-
mitted to working on similar topics.
I Commit To Demonstrating Impact.

This pledge holds design educators accountable to the various audience
members and user groups with whom they work as co-designers, or on whose
behalf they endeavor to create artifacts, products, systems, services, and
communities (table 5). The authors recognize that building and sustaining
trust with those with whom you work, and/or on whose behalf you work,
involves developing strategies to define and measure what impacts look like
from both the perspective of the designer and that of the audience or user
group who are affected by the decisions made by the designer and his, her or
37
their collaborators (see table 5 for action item on demonstrating impact).

Some examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to
demonstrate impacts are articulated below:
• Providing students with opportunities to create work that posi-

tively affects various aspects of the lives of those who live in their
local communities.
• Designing “with” rather than “for” people living in specific com-
munities that are proximal to them, or who are located farther
away but may still be affected by decisions made by particular
designers, design educators, and/or their students.
• Defining strategies that effectively measure the societal and com-
munity impact of a given project’s deliverables and/or outcomes.
• Prompting students to track the efficacy of the work they develop,
design, and disseminate (e.g. via petitions, social engagements,
online data collection and analysis, etc.) as a means to assess
whether it improved a given situation or set of circumstances.
• Acknowledging and addressing how issues of power, positionality,
and privilege affect the populations of those living in the vulnera-
ble communities with whom they collaborate or engage in design
processes on behalf of.
38
I Commit To Creating Culture.

This pledge holds design educators accountable to the respective socio-
culturally-based class groups/environments with whom they collaborate or
work on behalf of, most especially their own students, and the need to create
and facilitate the evolution and dissemination of the customary beliefs, social
norms, and material traits of a given racial, religious, or social group, which
are otherwise known as its culture (table 6). Design educators contribute to
these endeavors by giving their students opportunities to engage and interact
with each other in ways that allow them to broaden their bases of socio-
cultural knowledge and understandings and, as necessary, deepen their
critical thinking abilities.
Examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to

create culture:
• Facilitating activities in online and in-person spaces that enable

students to share their respective social and cultural voices in a
safe environment.
• Minimizing stress by initiating a consistent flow of communi-
cation with students, with particular respect to their social and
cultural backgrounds, as adjustments are made to specific assign-
ments and course expectations.
• Encouraging community building as a way to help students
connect with their peers and with people who live and work in
communities that are affected by their decision-making.
• Developing better methods and mechanisms for maintaining
39
communications with alumni and following them throughout

their careers.
• Serving as “bridge-makers” who make essential ideas and
concepts clear in ways that have the potential to be understood
by a wide audience.
I Commit To Promoting Healthy Student Life Experiences.

This pledge holds design educators accountable to the mental health and
well-being of their students (table 7). The unique nature of design pedago-
gy—which requires introspection and self-awareness on the parts of design
students so that their approaches to designing with or on behalf of those who
are different from them are guided by empathy and understanding—tends
to demand that the facilitation of learning experiences that support and pro-
mote the mental and physical well-being of our students. Design educators
do this most effectively when they reconsider the assumptions that guide the
planning and execution of their teaching strategies and tactics, when they
model behaviors that their students can positively emulate, and when they
prioritize student mental health by revisiting language in their syllabi and
their assessment materials that could exclude or marginalize students.
40
Some examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to pro-

mote healthy social and cultural life experiences on behalf of design students
are articulated below:
• Encouraging working alliances among students as a means to

foster and facilitate learning experiences that are socially and
culturally informed from broad perspectives.
• Promoting a healthy, balanced lifestyle by demonstrating
effective daily life planning and self-awareness activities.
• Seeking out community learning experiences from other faculty
and on- and off-campus organizations that can be modeled in
classrooms and curricula.
• Being aware of signs of mental, physical, and emotional
fatigue among students, and then acting appropriately and
empathetically.
• Being clear and direct about what is expected from students as
given learning experiences/assignments progress according to a
particular course schedule.
• Recognizing that different institutions and programs serve
different communities of students, and that the learning expe-
riences planned and facilitated cannot be “one size fits all”—for
example, the challenges and needs a community college student
faces may differ markedly from those faced by a student enrolled
in a 4-year institution.
Institutional Support Opportunities For Value Design Education

Pledge Action Items
Although the primary audience for the Value Design Education Pledge is design
educators, and administrators, the institutional guidelines they foster and
promulgate can also support these pledges and initiatives.
Exploring the Most Common Challenges Faced by Design

Educators
The data the authors collected from their surveys and from hosting the
array of conversations they had with design educators as this endeavor pro-
gressed allowed them to identify several common challenges, or barriers, to
41
Pledge Available Resources From The AIGA Resources That Institutions Can
Design Educators Community Implement
I commit to being anti-racist. Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion Provide students and faculty with access
I will be engaged (read + listen) and Resources Archive—AIGA to learning resources that feature BIPOC
contribute to the current dialog. I will DEC—June2020 designers and their work
actively educate myself about the systems
of oppression. Anti-Asian Racism and Violence Invest in tech resources for students and
Resources faculty to reach people in times of limited
mobility — Such as through supporting
A Toolkit for Breaking Down Racialized legislation for universal access to WiFi
Design in the Classroom, Racism
Untaught Facilitate connections to communities of
color (e.g. hosting conferences,
promoting cross-collaboration and
outside partnerships)
Create more space and time for

instructors to plan inclusive teaching
Allocate funding to support these ongoing

initiatives
I commit to upholding all design Beyond the Bauhaus Designate honoraria for guest lectures
histories. from BIPOC designers and underrepre-
I will highlight design contributions from Perspectives and Reflections sented groups
underrepresented cultural and social
groups that do not have roots in Can We Teach Graphic Design History Expand access to more textbooks,
modernist or Bauhaus methods. Without the Cult of Hero Worship? articles, and information providing
knowledge of design history
Contribute to the DEC Website Support student and faculty attendance

I commit to distributing knowledge.
at conferences and events
I will actively disseminate revised Submit a paper to Dialectic
pedagogicalmethods with my peers Acknowledge and encourage academic
through a variety of avenues. These can Share a project on Design research and pedagogy in this space
be low or high commitment activities. Teaching Resource
I commit to demonstrating impact. A Blended Perspective: Social Impact Provide training to faculty
I will define and determine what impacts Assessment in Graphic Design
are present from the get-go (tangible Establish models for evaluating and
or intangible). I will document and AIGA Design Futures: Core Values measuring impact
share these with myself,students, Matter
and other stakeholders.
Discursive Design and the Question of
Impact: Perspective, Pedagogy,
Practice
I commit to creating culture. Critiques + Community | SHIFT Virtual Create safe environments for learning
I will give students opportunities to Summit 2020
engage and interact with each other in Make technological support readily
fun ways. I will facilitate activities in the Panel: Who Gets to Teach? | SHIFT available to better facilitate remote
online space that enable students to share Virtual Summit 2020 learning and teaching
their voice in a safe environment.
Fund purchases for students and faculty
to make remote learning more equitable
I commit to promoting healthy Value Design Education Checklist Hire counselors and mental health
student life experiences. professionals to meet the needs of
Confronting Stress & Anxiety: Mental students health and well-being
I will prioritize and encourage student
Health Techniques for Design
mental health; reconsider what
Educators Offer training for faculty on how to
assumptions I might be making about
manage mental health related challenges
students and their access to tools,
in the classroom
resources, and opportunities. I will also
revisit and analyze my syllabi, project
Foster a culture of care
briefs, and assessment practices.
42
34 effectively facilitating design education experiences at the university level.

Neal, K. “College Students More
These were—and are—primarily:
Concerned About COVID-19 Than Ever,
New Survey by TimelyMD Finds,”
TimelyMD, 12 January 2022. Online.
• Mental health-related issues as experienced by both students and
Available at: https://timely.md/
college-students-more-concerned- faculty.
about-covid-19-than-ever/ (Accessed
• Defensiveness and pushback when addressing socially, culturally,
March 27, 2022).
politically, or economically sensitive issues in the classroom.
35 • Working to equitably help people who are struggling with access
Mayo Clinic Staff. “Job burnout:
to food, the internet, software, and computer access.
How to spot it and take action.”
5 June 2021. Online. Available
at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/
healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-
depth/burnout/art-20046642 (Accessed Mental Health-Related Issues
February 8, 2023).
Throughout the pandemic, many design education and other university
36 faculty faced an unprecedented array of mental health crises among their stu-
Wexner Medical Center, “Survey:
dents—and this continues to be true. A survey of nearly 1,700 university-level
Anxiety, depression and burnout on
the rise as college students prepare educators conducted by TimelyMD in January of 2022 revealed that 88% of
to return to campus,” The Ohio State
the students queried said that there is a mental health crisis at U.S. colleges
University, 2021. Online. Available
at: http://osuwmc.multimedia-news- and universities. 34 Burnout among students was also reported to be at an
room.com/index.php/2021/07/26/
all-time high. The Mayo Clinic defines burnout as “a special type of work-
survey-anxiety-depression-and-burn-
out-on-the-rise-as-college-stu- related stress—a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves
dents-prepare-to-return-to-campus/
a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”. 35 The
Ohio State University conducted surveys of their student body in 2020
37 and 2021. The first responses they received and analyzed in August of 2020
Fidelity Investments, “On the
reported student burnout at 40%, and by April of 2021, it was up to 71%. 36
Verge of Burnout: Covid-19’s im-
pact on faculty well-being and However, students have been and still are not the only ones in university-
career plans,” The Chronicle of
level settings facing mental health challenges: faculty have also been and still
Higher Education, 2020. Online.
Available at: https://connect. are experiencing higher rates of mental health challenges and burnout. In
chronicle.com/rs/931-EKA-218/images/
October of 2020, the Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed 1,122 universi-
Covid%26FacultyCareerPaths_Fidelity_
ResearchBrief_v3%20%281%29.pdf ty-level educators from two-year and four-year institutions from across the
United States and found that, since the start of 2020, 35% of faculty consid-
ered leaving higher education altogether, 74% said their work-life balance had
deteriorated, and 82% said their workload increased. 37
At the onset of the pandemic, many faculty and students were
operating in survival mode. But what at first seemed like a sprint that would
last only a few weeks turned out to be—in some university-level settings
around the world—a marathon that lasted five to seven months. Or, in some
cases, for more than two years. As such, many strategies and tactics for
43
addressing pandemically induced challenges to teaching and learning have

proven difficult to maintain. One contributing factor to faculty burnout,
particularly in design education, is that the counseling services in many
institutions were overburdened, which forced them to have to turn to oth-
ers (often other faculty) for mental health support. Most university faculty
are not trained mental healthcare professionals, nor is it a part of their job
description to provide emotional support for their peers or their students.
However, over the past two-plus years, many faculty, including design educa-
tors, have had to fulfill roles as first points-of-contact in these crises.
The authors also gathered advice from design educators about how
to effectively confront the mental health struggles they and their students
now commonly face. One suggestion included providing direct access to dis-
ability and mental health resources to students. This begins by faculty having
to learn what disability, mental health resources, and reporting systems their
institution provides, and then making this information readily accessible,
while reminding students that this type of help is available and accessible
on their campuses. Additionally, the authors learned the importance of
identifying local and remote resources that are accessible to faculty at their
respective institutions. Many institutions across the globe now require
faculty to incorporate mental health resource information in their syllabi.
However, a number of these requirements and resources came in response to
the COVID-19 pandemic and were often developed by working faculty groups
who were not subsequently asked to provide this information to students
living in these now post-pandemic times. Some faculty, including several in
the design education community, have integrated health and mental health
statements into their syllabi. Co-author Rebecca Tegtmeyer, a member of
the design faculty at Michigan State University, used the following language,
which is an adaptation of an MSU syllabi statement: 38
Almost all of us are struggling with a unique set of challenges these days,
38 brought about by the remote start, COVID-19 pandemic, economic fallout,
Pyle, K., “Ideas for Inclusive
ongoing efforts for social justice, and other experiences.
Language for Course Syllabi,”
Michigan State University, 2020.
Online. Available at: https://
natsci.msu.edu/sites/_nats-
ci/assets/File/Diversity/PDF/ While I am not a trained mental health professional, I am someone you
InclusiveStatement_syllabi_2020.pdf
can reach out to if you’re struggling, whether or not your concerns pertain
directly to this course. Our conversations will be confidential, though please
44
remember that all faculty are mandatory reporters if issues of violence,

sexual harm, or harassment are disclosed. I do ask that if you are having
any personal difficulties (that are affecting your participation) please noti-
fy me sooner than later so we can discuss options for you to move forward.
I’m a good listener, and I can help connect you to campus and other
resources that are here to help you. As your course instructor, I am com-
mitted to helping you successfully complete this course, but it’s even more
important to me that you experience our classroom as a space that is open,
inclusive, and supportive.
*I am a Mom and a commuter, and I do my best to make it on-time for class,

however, sometimes situations do arise that cause me to be late to class. I
will try to notify you all sooner rather than later if this occurs.
Rebecca’s statement made room for her students to share information about
their needs for emotional support and revealed some of her own challeng-
es (being a mom and a commuter) that are rooted in meeting her pedagogic
responsibilities. This allows her students to be empathetic about her circum-
stances, and, in so doing, helps them build empathy for those who face both
familiar and unfamiliar situations as they attempt to engage in their studies.
The statement articulated above may be adapted for use by anyone reading this
piece who wishes to include similar language in their own materials.
Addressing Issues Involving Defensiveness and Political

Pushback Among University-Level Design Students
Another challenge some university-level design faculty reported as they
tried to facilitate anti-racist activities in their classrooms was defensiveness
and political pushback from their students. One faculty member offered
that, “…one student unfortunately misunderstood racial justice as being
39 racist against white people.” Racial justice is not an attack on any one group
Americal Civil Liberties Union,
or race, but rather, as defined by the American Civil Liberties Union, it strives
”Racial Justice,” ACLU, 2023.
Online. Available at: https://www. to “…preserve and extend constitutionally guaranteed rights to people who
aclu.org/issues/racial-justice.
have historically been denied their rights on the basis of race.” 39 More broad-
ly, especially in many places in the U.S., there has been and continues to be
45
40 strong resistance to the teaching of “critical race theory,” (defined by the

Legal Defense Fund, ”Critical Race
Legal Defense Fund as, “…an academic and legal framework that denotes that
Theory,” NAACP Legal Defense Fund
and Educational Fund Inc., 2023. systemic racism is part of American society—from education and housing to
Online. Available at https://www.
employment and healthcare. Critical Race Theory (CRT) recognizes that rac-
naacpldf.org/critical-race-
theory-faq. (Accessed on ism is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice. It is embedded in
February 18, 2023).
laws, policies and institutions that uphold and reproduce racial inequalities.
According to CRT, societal issues like Black Americans’ higher mortality rate,
outsized exposure to police violence, the school-to-prison pipeline, denial of
affordable housing, and the rates of the death of Black women in childbirth
are not unrelated anomalies.” 40) Critical race theory is often misinterpret-
ed and misunderstood as a strategy that can guide how one or more faculty
members in a variety of types of learning environments teach their students
about the history of racism, most particularly but not limited to the U.S. As
such, it is often used in attempts to silence faculty with regard to how they
teach a wide variety of race-related issues across disciplines in the K-12 sector.
In the U.S., and in most other so-called G20 nations around the world where
design education is taught at the university level, those in higher education
generally have more freedom of speech and action, and some university-level
institutions are much more supportive of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
(DEI) initiatives than others, especially in American states and nations
around the world with legislative bodies that are not dominated by various
right-wing political factions. To effectively address the kinds of pushback
and defensiveness described above, the authors encourage utilizing broadly
available printed and online resources that suggest ways to address these
(well-edited newspapers tend to be a good place to start looking…), as well
as participating in workshops facilitated by educational organizations and
non-government organizations (NGOs) that support socially, culturally and
politically inclusive approaches to teaching and learning. Well-vetted
academic lectures offered within university-level institutions can also be
great sources of inspiration and credible information, and often afford
attendees opportunities to gain knowledge and understandings from outside
their disciplines.
A few ways design faculty in the U.S. and abroad have worked to pos-
itively frame anti-racist work in design classroom settings are rooted in the
collective generation (along with their students) of one or more sets of guiding
classroom principles, or “classroom norms.” Sharing these between stu-
dents and those who teach them has been shown to be effective. For example,
46
co-author Penina Laker, of Washington University in St. Louis, co-created the

following principles regarding engaging in anti-racist approaches to teaching
and learning in design classrooms with her students:
“We are committed to the ongoing work of anti-racism and we ask you to do
the same. To move forward, we must acknowledge the role that designers
have contributed to the creation and perpetuation of unjust systems and
institutions. We also realize that this work takes time and sustained in-
volvement; let us all work together and approach new knowledge with a
learning mindset.”
Co-author Meaghan Dee of Virginia Tech provided a list of anti-racism resourc-

es available through her institution and more broadly (in the form of podcasts
and books), and included a Respect & Diversity statement in her syllabus that
reads as follows:
“Students in this class are encouraged to speak up and participate during

class meetings. The class will represent a diversity of individual beliefs,
backgrounds, and experiences—and every member of this class must show
respect for every other member of this class. Additionally, if you have a
preferred name or pronoun, please let me and your classmates know. And
please do not hesitate to correct me if I make a mistake. My preferred pro-
nouns are she and her. All are welcome here.”
Acknowledging that student perspectives are not homogeneous can be

an important step in facilitating broadly informed classroom discussions.
Additionally, faculty can provide ground rules for debate and discussion, and
then actively foster them. Just as it takes time and thoughtful, concerted effort
for a design educator to become skilled at facilitating critical discussions about
the outcomes of his, her, or their students’ work, it will likely also take time
and thoughtful, concerted effort to foster these abilities among given groups of
design students.
Exploring more diverse ways to provide help equitably

The pandemic amplified many university students’ personal struggles. With
the abrupt shift to remote and online teaching and learning, students and
faculty often lacked computers, or access to them (internet access was much
47
less reliable, especially in more rural or mountainous areas), as well as soft-

ware, and other crucial resources like library materials. Students who moved
“back home” often had to share computers with younger siblings who were
also attending virtual classes. Inconsistent computer or internet access led to
many students having to resort to using their cell phones to call into Zoom-
facilitated class sessions, which proved problematic for many.
Design faculty around the world responded to these challenges by
modifying their attendance policies, increasing flexibility with project dead-
lines, and emphasizing a wider variety of types of student engagement than
they had in pre-pandemic times. For example, Meena Khalili, a professor of
design and interaction at the University of South Carolina in the U.S., adjusted
the attendance statement in her course syllabi to focus on project completion
as follows: “Attendance in this in-person and remote course will be assessed
through on-time delivery of all work including but not limited to all projects,
blog posts, feedback, surveys, reading responses, sketches, and uploads of any
kind pertaining to [the operation of ] this course.”
Many university students, from lower-level undergraduates through
the doctoral level, also faced increased food insecurity during the pandemic,
which was amplified when cafeterias and food venues on campuses the world
over shut down, and community food banks that serve university students
saw sharply increased demands. Additionally, countless design students and
faculty had to add the responsibilities of increased childcare and eldercare to
their teaching and learning loads. Some institutions responded by providing
extra resources to support these efforts, but others did not or could not, and if
they were available, they were not always widely advertised. For example, one
American university-level design educator had a student come to her when
they were struggling to pay their rent. The educators asked around and found
out about a pandemic relief fund, which provided several hundred dollars to
help the student in crisis pay her landlord.
Though the pandemic exposed widespread disparities regarding
access to resources for educators and students across numerous campus
communities worldwide, many of these had existed before the pandemic, and
have continued to exist afterward. However, the disparities involving access
to these present opportunities for design educators to imagine and create new
pathways forward for learning and skill-building. Course and curricular mod-
ifications—such as highlighting design contributions from underrepresented
cultural and social groups, prioritizing student mental health, and making
48
41 course resources and activities more accessible—address barriers to student

Cameron, M., Lacy, T.A., Siegel,
success, and help achieve greater educational equity across the most broadly
P., Wu, J., Wilson, A., Johnson,
R., Burns, R., and Wine, J. (2021). populated cross-sections of student populations universities around the world
2019–20 National Postsecondary
have ever seen.
Student Aid Study (NPSAS:20):
First Look at the Impact of the
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic on
Conclusion
Undergraduate Student Enrollment,
Housing, and Finances (Preliminary Within the United States, “…87 percent of students, [from pre-K through
Data) (NCES 2021-456). U.S.
the doctoral level of study]… experienced a disruption or change in their
Department of Education. Washington,
DC: National Center for Education enrollment, with 84 percent having some or all classes moved to online-only
Statistics. Online. Available at:
instruction” at the outset of the pandemic during the spring of 2020. 41 By
https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pub-
sinfo.asp?pubid=2021456 (Accessed January of 2022, the vast majority of American colleges and universities had
September 5, 2022).
returned to in-person instruction. 42 The aftermath of these disruptions has
42 allowed university-level design educators to shift their collective thinking
Moody, J. “Most Colleges Resume In-
about they will plan and operate the increasing variety of learning experienc-
Person Classes,” Inside Higher Ed,
6 January, 2022. Online. Available es they are now called upon to facilitate on behalf of their students, and how
at: https://www.insidehighered.
they might improve in areas that account for far more than effectively dealing
com/news/2022/01/06/colleges-re-
suming-person-classes-amid-omicron with the threat imposed by having to teach during apublic health crisis. The
Chronicle of Higher Education recently published the following about teaching
43 and living in a watershed moment on the timeline of university-level educa-
Bartlett, T., “The Antiracist
tional history, particularly in the U.S.:
College: This may be a watershed
moment in the history of higher ed-
ucation and race,” The Chronicle of
“It would be easy to downplay the significance of any particular
Higher Education, February 15, 2021.
Available at https://www.chronicle. announcement: a renamed auditorium here, a workshop there. After all,
com/article/the-antiracist-college
nearly all the topics highlighted in these many statements—diversifying
(Accessed on September 7, 2022).
the faculty, improving graduation rates for students of color, examining
bias in the curriculum—have been bandied about on college campuses
for decades. At the same time, the number of changes and the scope of the
commitments made in recent months are striking. Some critics see these
moves as pandering to student activists, or perhaps buying into a par-
ticular ideology. But supporters and detractors alike may come to see the
summer and fall of 2020 as a watershed moment in the history of higher
education and race.” 43
The forced adaptation to online learning that began occurring in design

programs in the U.S. and around the world in the spring of 2020 has caused
hundreds of them to either begin or continue to implement hybrid forms
of educational instruction that involve blending in-person instruction with
49
44 learning experiences that are facilitated online. According to the interna-

Cubbison, E., Nobre, P.,
tional global architecture, design, and planning consultancy Gensler, “68% of
Sellers, K., and Bullgart, A.,
“5 Considerations for Designing students and 74% of educators [now] want a hybrid approach.” 44 Worldwide,
the Future of Higher Education,”
institutions of higher education have become better equipped to respond
Gensler, August 9, 2021. Available
at https://www.gensler.com/ to future emergencies because the experience of rapidly shifting to online
blog/5-ideas-for-designing-the-fu-
teaching and learning during COVID-19 created a viable and sustainable
ture-of-higher-education. (Accessed
on September 5, 2022). foundation for facilitating models upon which they could build. Although
45 in-person teaching and learning will likely not be replaced, virtual and hybrid
Abdrasheva, D., Escribens,
models have and will continue to be a more significant part of higher ed. 45
M., Sabzalieva, E., Vieira do
Nascimento, D. & and Yerovi, C. Many of the participants from the discussion sessions the authors
Resuming or Reforming? Tracking the
moderated shared that they thought the discipline of visual communication
global impact of the COVID-19 pan-
demic on higher education after two design is moving away from a focus on engaging in design processes that
years of disruption. Paris, France;
yield artifacts and moving toward engaging in design processes that yield
Caracas, Venezuela: United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural experiences or services, or new ways of making, thinking, doing, or shaping
Organization, 2022.
public policy. Richard Buchanan’s Four Orders of Design is one model that
reflects how this kind of thinking is now affecting how design education is
planned and facilitated, so that “…[it moves] from critically exploring that
which is tangible and visible to that which is abstract and invisible, yielding
interactions and experiences as outcomes of design processes and systems.” 46
As such, design education is evolving; students are challenged to work in
teams and to plan and engage in identifying and framing opportunities that
yield various types of benefits to their communities, empowering individuals
and groups living and working within them, and allowing them to discover or
re-discover, or, as necessary, invent their social and cultural identities. These
approaches to designing educational experiences for emerging designers are
proving valuable as a means for them to better to assess the wide variety of
effects their decision-making processes now have.
Some design faculty who participated in the discussions also
reported that the changes they made to their course plans (such as creat-
ing socio-culturally inclusive and validatory principles and norms for their
classrooms) and broadening project parameters (to encompass underrep-
resented populations/designers/communities) increased critical discussion
in their classrooms. Additionally, some participants also revealed that their
students came to value sustained interactions with their peers more highly
than they had during their pre-pandemic learning experiences, and that they
felt a greater sense of connection to them. Other faculty found themselves
assuming roles in their classrooms that involved much more active listening.
50
Educators observed that sharing real-life examples and personal stories can
be powerful ways to connect with students, but could also leave them feeling
vulnerable by exposing a side of themselves that they often choose to keep
out of the classroom. Some faculty said they struggled with “how personal
to get with their students,” and how available to their students they thought
they should be outside of their classrooms. The changes that the pandemic
imposed on many long-practiced design classroom teaching practices broke
down many traditional boundaries between faculty and their students (such
as the mutual sharing of cell phone numbers), as their students came to rely
more heavily on their instructors for emotional support than they might have
during pre-pandemic times. As a result, many faculty felt as if they were able
to “bring their whole self into the classroom” (including sharing their own
experiences, that often extended beyond sharing their knowledge of design
strategies and principles), and found that their students were newly empow-
ered to learn differently, which led them to operate a more proactive and
engaged approach in the classroom, and by developing deeper connections
with their communities.
Incorporating the Value Design Education Pledge items
into their teaching, course-planning and curricular planning and facilitation
inspired some of the university-level design faculty that participated in this
initiative to fundamentally restructure some of their classroom activities.
Many included activities that afforded students opportunities to be more
self-reflective, and that involved them having to take time to think more
broadly and deeply about their respective levels of social awareness, and the
responsibilities they have to assume on behalf of their audiences, user groups
and clients as designers. Many students also focused on critically exam-
ining more contemporary issues in the design classroom, which infused
their work outcomes with heightened levels of social, cultural, and political
purpose, awareness, and impact. When faculty provided a more welcoming
classroom environment, students faced tough questions and explored cur-
rent events with higher levels of respect and kindness. Karin Jager, Associate
Professor of Graphic and Digital Design at the University of the Fraser
Valley in Abbottsforf, BC, Canada, opined that “…I was deeply moved by the
issues students chose to focus on. [They] began to connect with purpose,
awareness, and impact in their work.” Nancy Wynn, Associate Professor of
Graphic Design and Chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts
at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA, U.S.A., shared that “…[my]
51
students would embrace tough questions and current events with respect
and kindness. Their thoughtfulness, exploration, conversation, and critique
of each other’s work went beyond my expectations.” Many educators shared
that while some students were indifferent or resistant to the discussions
and projects, others became much more involved. Additionally, as Professor
Jason Tselentis of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, U.S.A. stated, “…stu-
dents felt proud about the work that was ‘more personal’ to them, but were
also a tad more private about that work.” Inspiration drawn from students’
own experiences positively influenced their engagement, despite a degree
of reticence in sharing those ideas. And though receiving critical feedback
can still present challenges for many design students, particularly when they
c Venit, E. ”The Pandemic Ripple Effect: are emotionally invested in work that is deeply personal to them, providing
Four Potential Long Term Impacts on
guidelines for (and fostering) classroom respect between students (both
College Enrollment and Student Success.”
EAB, 2022. Online. Available at https:// toward one-another and their instructors) can ensure that critiques of
eab.com/insights/blogs/student-success/
student design work are constructive and meaningful (i.e., they strive to
pandemic-ripple-effect/ (Accessed 6 Febru-
ary 2023). According to an Active Minds improve each participants’ design knowledge and abilities as well as elevate
Survey, which was reported in the EAB
them emotionally).
white paper, “three quarters of students
reported that their mental health worsened In reflecting upon the essential ideas that were developed to sup-
during the pandemic, with 18% saying that
port the instantiation of the Value Design Education Pledge, the authors strove
it ‘worsened significantly.’”
to place increased focus on promoting faculty well-being and mental health. c
Additionally, although the authors viewed hybrid and remote learning as a
46 temporary challenge, an EAB (Educational Advisory Board) report on “The
Buchanan, R., “Wicked Problems in
Pandemic Ripple Effect” cautions about the long-term effects of “Social
Design Thinking,” Design Issues, 8.2
(1992), pgs.5–21. Online. Available Disengagement, Mental Health, Availability of Transfers, and Unfinished
at https://web.mit.edu/jrankin/www/
Learning in K12” on the overall preparedness of students for college educa-
engin_as_lib_art/Design_thinking.
pdf?utm_campaign=Explorations%20 tion. 47 The authors believe that it is crucial for design educators to strive to
in%20Design&utm_medium=email&utm_
ensure that students learning in these virtual spaces are able to effectively
source=Revue%20newsletter (Accessed
20 February 2023.) construct knowledge and gain new understandings while working within
47 them. During the pandemic, virtual learning among all student populations in
Ibid.
the U.S. jumped by 97% (from 2019 to 2020), with 75% having to take at least
48 one distance-learning course, and 44% taking exclusively online courses. 48
National Center for Education
The authors research fueled the generation of the following key ideas:
Statistics, “Postbaccalaureate
Enrollment. Condition of Education.
U.S. Department of Education,
• reminders about the need to accurately measure design students’
Institute of Education Sciences,”
2022. Online. Available at: https:// learning before and after they leave design classes and programs,
nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/
particularly in the midst of and in the aftermath of a global
chb (Accessed September 7, 2022).
52
pandemic when outcomes and methods for measuring outcomes

may have shifted;
• identifying ways to emphasize to campus and community stake-
holders, academic administrators, and prospective students, that
the outcomes of design processes can provide humanistic, tangi-
ble, and transformative products, services, and systems; and
• building better mentor models inside and outside of
the classroom.
While the authors primary goal for planning and operating the Value of Design
Education Pledge initiative was to improve the scope of ideas and approaches
that frame and guide contemporary design education, they believe that the
Value Design Education Pledge items can be adapted to education more broadly.
In the book What Inclusive Instructors Do: Principles and Practices for Excellence
in College Teaching, the authors, representing a range of academic fields—
including education/teaching and learning, biology, nursing, and public
policy—speak to the efficacy of these same values in the classroom. In short,
inclusive teaching practices are necessary to make education more accessible
to more students. Additionally, inclusive practices provide a sense of belong-
ing which has been shown to contribute to higher achievement, “particularly
49 for students from marginalized groups.” 49
Addy, T. M., D. Dube, K. A.
Regardless of how design faculty are faring in the aftermath of a
Mitchell, and M SoRelle. What inclu-
sive instructors do: Principles and demanding two- to three-year period imposed by the COVID pandemic during
practices for excellence in col-
which they were forced to teach design processes using virtual means, design
lege teaching. Sterling, Virginia,
U.S.A.: Stylus Publishing, educators must remain committed to creating positive learning experiences
LLC, 2021.
on behalf of their students. The experiential knowledge the authors construct-
ed for success helped ensure that they felt safe, supported, and included. For
some, this might mean including equity and inclusivity statements in course
syllabi and making sure that the work of a diverse range of designers are
featured in various design classrooms and the assignment parameters that
guide the learning expriences that transpire within them. For others, it may
mean engaging with communities, locally and on-campus, by forging and
sustaining partnerships and continuing journeys of self-education by reading
broadly—including in disciplines outside design—and/or by building long-term
relationships with other university faculty, activists, and community advocates.
As one faculty member responded in our survey “I certainly have more work to
do,” as do we all.
53
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58
Biography
Anne H. Berry is a writer, designer, Associate Professor in the Department of

Art and Design at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., and
the president of AIGA Cleveland. She earned her MFA degree from the School
of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University. Her writing has
been featured in Italicize magazine, Letterform Archive, Black, Brown + Latinx
Design Educators: Conversations on Design and Race by Kelly Walters, and in
the inaugural issue of the Recognize anthology featuring commentary from
Indigenous people and people of color. She is also co-creator of the award-
winning project Ongoing Matter: Democracy, Design, and the Mueller Report and
managing editor of The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, and
Reflection, which was published by Allworth Press in 2022. Anne can be reached
via email at: a.h.berry@csuohio.edu
Meaghan A. Dee is an Associate Professor and chair of Graphic Design at

Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. She is also a senior fellow at
Virginia Tech’s Institute of Creativity, Arts, and Technology, and serves as a
docent for the Letterform Archive in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. She
served as co-chair of the AIGA Design Educators Community (AIGA DEC)
National Steering Committee from 2019 to 2021. She earned her Bachelor’s
of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois and a Master’s of Fine Arts from
Virginia Commonwealth University, both with a focus in design. She special-
izes in engaging in and examining design and systems thinking, typography,
branding, user-experience design, cross-media design, packaging, and editorial
design. She’s also experimented with many different materials, methods, and
outputs as her design processes have evolved, such as taking her work into
the realms of motion design, AR (augmented reality), and immersive environ-
ments. Regardless of the final output, she emphasizes empathizing with the
core values of her audiences and her collaborators, immersion in an iterative,
heuristically informed process of designing, and engaging in design thinking.
Her work can be seen at meaghand.com. Meaghan can be reached via
email at: meaghand@vt.edu
Penina Laker is a designer, researcher, and educator at Washington University

in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. Through her research, Penina applies an interdis-
ciplinary and community-engaged approach to co-create and implement
59
design solutions that make complex public health-related information acces-

sible to wider audiences, locally and internationally. She is also broadening
the scope and access of design education to young people in Uganda through
DesignEd workshops and the My African Aesthetic podcast which she co-hosts.
She is a co-editor of the book The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression,
and Reflection, published by Allworth Press in 2022. Penina earned an MFA in
Visual Communication Design from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, U.S.A.,
and a BA in Art from Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, U.S.A. Penina can be
reached via email at: p.acayo@wustl.edu
Rebecca Tegtmeyer is a graphic design educator and practitioner. Through

her active research, writing, making, and teaching agenda she investigates
the role of the designer and the creative process through a variety of forms.
Rebecca is a co-author and co-editor of the book, Collaboration in Design
Education, published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2020, with Marty Maxwell
Lane of the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.A. She is an
Associate Professor and the Associate Chair in the Department of Art, Art
History and Design at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan,
U.S.A. and a former member of the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC)
National Steering Committee (2019–2022). Rebecca received her MGD de-
gree from the College of Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh,
North Carolina, U.S.A. Rebecca can be reached via email at: tegtmey2@msu.edu
60

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Dialectic Volume V, Issue I: A Long-Form Case Study Report and Position Paper

Prioritizing Our Values: A Case-Study Report that Examines the

Anne H. Berry,¹ Meaghan A. Dee,² Penina Laker,³ and Rebecca Tegtmeyer⁴

to promote positive outcomes for all students.”

Prioritizing Our Values:

Anne H. Berry, Meaghan A. Dee, Penina Laker, & Rebecca Tegtmeyer

Introduction and Contextualization

6 The response to the sudden changes necessitated by the public

It was shortly after this event, as many American design educators

13 access the internet. Together, these students' abilities to effectively engage

Examining the Effects of Virtual Learning Policies and

21 community has also been reported in the literature as a weakness in

Articulating the Principal Rationales for Instituting the Value

contributions from 100 design educators that represented university-level

Diagram 1: The AIGA DEC (DEC = Design Educators Community) is comprised of

24 made accessible to a wider variety of student audiences. A significant uptick

1) Commit to being anti-racist

Diagram 2: The Value Design Education Roundtable occurred as a critical response

facilitated the roundtable discussion about the value of design education

Over 30 participants listened to co-authors and discussion

1. As design educators, what value do we provide and can we provide to

decision-making processes as well as undivided, critical attention

1) would make it easy for design educators to participate and

• Name + Email + Institution

• Name + Email + Institution

Table 1: After individual university-level design educators confirmed their individual

to actualize these with their particular groups of students in their respective

Analyzing the Outcomes That Resulted from Facilitating the

commitment to demonstrating the broad impacts of design decision-making

Figure 12: A virtual roundtable discussion that included approximately three-dozen

I Commit To Being Anti-Racist.

Examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to being

• Including an Anti-Racist Power & Privilege statement in the course

I Commit To Upholding All Design Histories.

• Addressing the limitations implied by the western canon and

I Commit To Distributing Knowledge.

Some examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to dis-

• Sharing outcomes of research and creative activities addressing

I Commit To Demonstrating Impact.

their collaborators (see table 5 for action item on demonstrating impact).

• Providing students with opportunities to create work that posi-

I Commit To Creating Culture.

Examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to

• Facilitating activities in online and in-person spaces that enable

communications with alumni and following them throughout

I Commit To Promoting Healthy Student Life Experiences.

Some examples of actions taken as part of the commitment to pro-

• Encouraging working alliances among students as a means to

Institutional Support Opportunities For Value Design Education

Exploring the Most Common Challenges Faced by Design

Create more space and time for

Allocate funding to support these ongoing

Contribute to the DEC Website Support student and faculty attendance

34 effectively facilitating design education experiences at the university level.

addressing pandemically induced challenges to teaching and learning have

remember that all faculty are mandatory reporters if issues of violence,

*I am a Mom and a commuter, and I do my best to make it on-time for class,

Addressing Issues Involving Defensiveness and Political

40 strong resistance to the teaching of “critical race theory,” (defined by the

co-author Penina Laker, of Washington University in St. Louis, co-created the