Advanced study in the fields of innovation and design that will address current and emerging issues. Topics will vary with each offering and will be announced at the beginning of each term.

We are living in a time where constant change is happening all around us. This has challenged us to find new approaches to our work and how we do that work together. This course will build students’ capacity to both respond to and shape the change that is happening in the world, by introducing cutting edge approaches to collaborative change process. The course introduces collaborative teaming frameworks, surfaces challenges that teams may face in the process of making change, and also looks at how to see challenges as opportunities through which we grow. In this hands-on course, students will engage through interdisciplinary team-based projects and learn to bring their unique knowledge and expertise to the table. Concepts and practices developed by changemakers bell hooks, Amy Edmondson, john a. powell, Layla Saad, Grace Lee Boggs, Stephen M.R. Covey, adrienne maree brown, and Deepa Iyer will guide our learning. Central themes are cultivating trust and psychological safety, deep listening and strengthening communication skills, developing capacity for generative conflict, learning best practices for equity and collaboration across difference, and gaining experience with high impact project management. The course is set up as a ‘flipped classroom,’ so students will work together in the classroom on team-focused projects. The homework per week will be limited to two hours. Rather than doing assignments alone, the flipped classroom puts emphasis on hands-on learning in the room with peers working collaboratively on projects rather than passively receiving lectures.

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