Projects at Williams

Design thinking projects at Williams 2018

Winter Study Travel Course 2018: Liberal Arts for Epic Challenges: This winter study travel course introduced students to a variety of approaches toward design thinking, then traveled to IBM's Design Studio in Austin, Texas to explore the question of how artificial intelligence (AI) will challenge current practices in libraries of liberal arts colleges. At IBM, the students worked with designers transforming IBM and developing Watson, IBM's AI engine. In two independent teams working in parallel, students determined that the challenges for the future were not issues related to artificial intelligence and machine learning, as library professionals initially thought, but the ways students can relate the knowledge gained from a liberal arts education to the challenges they will face in the world. In addressing this reconsidered perspective, the teams recommended approaches for Williams to help students understand how to navigate future endeavors and benefit from both problem solving techniques and alumni experiences to empower them in using the strength of the Williams academic experience. The college is implementing their recommendations in a student-alumni networking tool—EphLink—and through the creation of a design lab.

The design thinking initiative at Williams started with the fall semester 2017. As students, faculty, and staff become more familiar and engaged with design thinking projects, the approaches and outcomes will be documented here. To review earlier design thinking projects at Williams, see the timeline for pilot efforts 2012-2016

Planning the development of design thinking at Williams 2018

The Design Thinker in Residence and four research assistants used design thinking techniques to craft the strategy for increasing the exposure design thinking has on campus over the next two years. The murals from this assignment reveal the sequencing in a typical exercise.

Projects for student organizations and activities 2018

Design thinking is an effective tool for developing strategies and plans around human-centered needs and collaborative problem-solving. As a result, there is demand for facilitated workshops among students and Williams staff as they seek ways to enhance the educational experience. In this first year, there were projects that included:

• Reimagining the Williams bookstore to have a more literary and "bookish" atmosphere with a faculty committee
• Exploring how students and the Museum of Art could organize to design, facilitate, and collaborate to enhance the creative experience of students
• Developing recommendations to decrease the amount of food waste and misprocessed compostable waste, working with food service employees, students, and Zilka staff
• Reimagining the Jewish experience on campus with the student leaders of the Jewish Student Association
• Framing the expectations and imperatives for a celebration of fifty years of winter study
• Equipping CLiA students with the tools they need to solve problems with community organizations, assuring that their work focuses on human-centered solutions and involves the kind of creative collaboration that will build ownership and support from the community
• Developing a customer service strategy with the student entrepreneurs who won $15,000 for their business plan before they reached out for additional funding
• Designing a team culture for the men's and women's track and field teams that is built on relationships and respect

Projects with Williams staff and administration

Athletics Department: Ten year self-evaluation and consideration of issues of work/life balance for coaches, student athlete mental wellness, recruiting, and more.

Admissions and Financial Aid Office: Organizing around changing capabilities, leadership, challenges, and opportunities.

Reassessing academic advising: Working with the dean’s office and select faculty members, facilitating a reimagining of how to make the academic advising system with a particular focus on how to better prepare students to make the most of the advising relationship.

Design Your Life: Workshops for students to consider how they can take control of their life, with intent and balance.

Give It Up: Re-evaluating this program to reduce end-of-year waste with Zilkha staff, Facilities staff, and students and imagining improvements.

Williams Bookstore: Re-imagining the bookstore to enhance its atmosphere as a literary, book-centric, warm and enticing space within a modern building, working the Faculty Bookstore committee.

Track and Field Team: Working with athletes, captains and coaches to reimagine the team culture to be supportive of its male and female athletes.

Orientation of new faculty: Using design thinking techniques to assist new faculty in sharing concerns, considerations, and aspirations in their introduction to Williams.

'68 Center for Career Exploration: Re-imagining ways to best serve the variety of student needs and interests in exploring career opportunities.

Winter Study Travel Course 2019

Liberal Arts for Epic Challenges: This winter study travel course introduced students to a variety of approaches toward design thinking, then traveled to IBM's Design Studio in Austin, Texas to explore the question of how to design a better way for stakeholders to communicate, organize and mobilize in response to natural disasters, so that recovery is more efficient and effective.

At IBM, the students worked with designers transforming IBM and developing Watson, IBM's AI engine that has been applied to weather challenges since IBM acquired the Weather Channel. The teams’ recommendations were presented to emergency management professionals at Williams and Berkshire County.

Collaborating on winter study courses

Field Work in a Bay Area Start Up, Tonio Palmer, Entrepreneur in Residence. Grounding students interested in entrepreneurship in the role of design thinking in developing innovative products and services as a lead in to this travel course. Project lead: Kai Cash ‘19

Solution Design: From ideas to implementation, Allan Wellenstein. Solution design examines how to visualize interactions between market forces, corporate directives, and engineering requirements, and how to apply design thinking to generate novel ideas within these constraints. An initial grounding was provided in design thinking.

Kyoto Artisans: Exploring 1200 years of cultural history of Kyoto through modern craftsmanship, Kasumi Yamamoto. Using design thinking tools and techniques, develop a conceptual mapping approach for students to journal about the daily evolution of their impressions of Japanese culture through exposure to the artisans of Kyoto.

Introducing design thinking into courses

Design thinking techniques can contribute to students' framing of problems and developing innovative solutions. During 2019, the Design Thinker in Residence worked with faculty in introducing design techniques in the following courses:

• Androids, Cyborgs, Selves, ENGL 153
• Social Construction, SOC 301
• Gender and Conflict in International Relations, PSCI 261
• Institutional Critique of Educational Institutions ARTS 129
• Social Ecology of Racial and Gender Inequity SOC 314
• Environmental Studies of Plastics, ENVI 329
• Environmental Economics, ECON 213