Assistant Professor Christensen will discuss designing with community archives at the 17th annual UCDA Design Education Summit (Theme: Agency)

Assistant Professor Christensen will be presenting her paper "Co-Designing with the Community Archive: Tactics for Student Engagement within the Politics of Display" at the 17th annual UCDA Design Education Summit. The 17th annual UCDA Design Education Summit is a national summit for design educators, chairs, and students, and continues an ongoing community created specifically for graphic design educators with opportunities for professional participation and development.

The theme of the summit this year is Agency. As we face all possible futures, design educators are expanding the pedagogical methods, institutional norms, and cultural roles of design education. Today’s design educators are interpreting, developing, and activating responses within their design courses, research and practice. Design educators are asking how learners will bring their lived experiences, positionality, and plurality into the classroom. They are asking how learners will define equity in historical, cultural, and societal narratives — redefining a professional discourse. They are asking how learners develop an awareness of their material choices and environmental impact. They are asking how learners will act independently, make individual choices and activate their personal agency to effect change in their life and practice.

May 22–24
East Tennessee State University