OACS 2/1 Updates

Posted by leachdp on Thursday, February 1, 2018 in DOS News.

D.I.V.E

The month of January kicked off the Spring 2018 cohort of Local OACS DIVE. Fourteen students attended the Local OACS DIVE Bootcamp, Community Partner Presentations, and Meaningful Service Institute facilitated by OACS staff with the help of Design for America students and two graduate student mentors. Through these introductory seminars, the 14 students in the cohort had the opportunity to learn the human-centered design process, service-learning pedagogy, the proposed design challenges from the community partners, and engage in critical reflection of what meaningful service looks like in practice.

Bootcamp

Focusing on the design challenge of improving recycling efforts on campus, three groups prototyped processes and products that would address barriers to the challenge of recycling on campus. In addition to having a better understanding of the tool itself, some of the main takeaways from this Bootcamp were understanding the power dynamics inherent in language when working with community partners, the emphasis of designing with and not for communities, and the importance of this iterative process driven by community voice.

Community Partner Presentations

Catholic Charities and Nashville International Center for Empowerment joined the DIVE cohort to discuss some of the most urgent design challenges ranging. Some of these design challenges include engaging refugee youth in Nashville community experiences, developing advanced job training opportunities for adults, engaging more community and youth volunteers in after-school programs, and many more. Students had the opportunity to engage directly with community partners to hear more nuanced detail about each challenge and which skills would be preferred from members of the design team. Students are currently in the placement process where community partners select student volunteers based on resumes and students’ preferences for design challenges.

Meaningful Service Institute

The final introductory seminar of the DIVE program was the Meaningful Service Institute. In this seminar, the cohort reflected on their past service experiences to define what meaningful service looks like in theory and practice. Students learned a model of sustainable community development, engaged in activities to sharpen their root causes analysis and reflection skills, and identified meaningful ways to engage with community partners.