Engaged Philosophy and the Public Philosophy Network are partnering to present a special interview series that highlights the work of public philosophers who will be presenting at the 2019 PPN Conference Oct 17-19, 2019.
Danielle Lake is the Director of Design Thinking and Associate Professor at Elon University. Her scholarship bridges research on Design Thinking and wicked problems with the public engagement movement. She seeks methods that foster more inclusive, just, and resilient individuals and communities, especially surrounding issues of food justice, crime and community, and educational attainment.
What aspects of your teaching do you think of as public philosophy?
I teach engaged, interdisciplinary courses across the curriculum. Courses like:
“Design Thinking to Meet Real World Needs,” “Diversity in the United States,” “Dialogue, Integration, and Action,” and “Wicked Problems of Sustainability.”
As an instructor, my primary goals are to foster relationships across differences, build student capacities for addressing complex challenges, and support community resiliency. I see these as practices of reflective action and forms of public philosophic engagement.
My courses are situated in and across diverse communities. They are dialogue-driven, place- and action-based. They aim to generate spaces for transformative, collaborative learning. I seek to move away from education as the passive consumption of knowledge (as defined by others), towards a process of active co-creation. And I ultimately hope to inspire students to see themselves and others as philosopher-activists: as creative, self-reflexive practitioners and resilient change makers. Given these commitments, I see my role as one of liaison and facilitator.
What does this look like? In what ways do students projects benefit the wider community
One example of this commitment towards engaged teaching and learning can be seen through the Accelerated Leadership Program (ALP) at Grand Valley State University, my institution prior to summer 2019. The program fosters leadership skills and opens opportunities for returning adults students by using public engagement, philosophic reflection, and Design Thinking to engage in place-based, collaborative projects that address issues emerging within our surrounding communities.
Design Thinking is an iterative, project-based, and collaborative problem-solving process that fosters empathetic listening, observation, immersion, creative brainstorming, collaborative action and critical reflection. It encourages students to explore the real-world complexities that surround the course content. Grand Valley’s Accelerated Leadership Program has generated a wide-range of time-sensitive, context-responsive innovations, among them:
• A cross-institutional mentoring initiative,
• A reading translation application for the school library,
• Housing resource kits for local residents, and
• Teacher appreciation days.
In the fall of 2018, Design Thinking helped an ALP cohort uncover that the most prominent barrier to K-8 attendance and graduation in the Grand Rapids public schools was access to clean, fitting uniforms. In response, one team of students used the Design Thinking process and the leadership skills they were developing to prototype the Harrison Park Uniform Swap Exchange Program.
Their goal was not only to generate a sustainable, flexible program that addressed a current issue, but to work with school staff, students, and families. This team won a local innovation contest for their program, received funding and volunteer support from two local businesses, launched three internship projects, broadcasted their work through a Be the Change university podcast, and fostered connections through the Civic Engagement Showcase. They also completed capstone projects that yielded a business plan, networking research, and program review.
The flexibility and longevity of this pedagogy built relationships in the local community, allowing for the collective visioning and flexible ingenuity needed for implementation, revision, and next-step planning.
In an anonymous exit survey for the ALP all students said that this form of pedagogy pushed them to become active learners. They also all said they were able to positively affect their communities by consistently applying practices learned in the program.
What benefits do your students gain from doing public philosophy?
While there is a lot of evidence verifying engaged learning is generally valuable, there is less research on the particular merits and challenges of publicly engaged philosophy. Thus, much of my research has focused on exploring its impact.
In my current cross-disciplinary study, former students overwhelmingly reported they valued their CBL experiences and gained skills they are using in their lives now.
In fact, 95% of former students from the publicly engaged “dedisciplined” philosophy courses strongly affirmed their work caused them to reexamine their beliefs and attitudes about themselves. And 86% said their work in the course increased their confidence in their ability to make a difference and their willingness to engage others across differences.
In a post-course interview years later one noted that the course “challenged my perspectives, but then also expanded my over-all vision… it gave me a sense that like to be a part of something, to act, you really have to listen, you have to understand, you have to challenge norms and you also have to actually do something.”
Another student said “for me, the biggest thing is understanding what it’s like to work with other people on an idea, on something that’s intangible… to talk to people who actually address these problems. And then… to literally do that Project ourselves…”
This student went to say this work is “intrinsic to my professional career… I’ll take that with me forever.”
In contrast to assumptions about what is and is not valuable for our “real lives” after college one interviewee said, “for me, it was one of the best classes I took in college. I enjoyed my business classes a ton, but I feel like this one gave me the most practical life skills… I really wish that more programs, especially in the business school, got you out into the world and doing something. Actually doing something versus sitting in a classroom talking about doing something.”
What role does the Public Philosophy Network (PPN) play in your philosophical work?
It has been a joy and a relief to find philosophers interested in public engagement and community-based learning through PPN. These connections have informed and reformed my pedagogy and given me the opportunity to inform the pedagogy of others.
I am currently helping to serve on the conference planning committee. I am grateful I have been able to help bring the work of the philosopher-activist Grace Lee Boggs and the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership to the PPN.
To explore the impact of public engagement more fully I have recently helped to create a new book series, Higher Education and Civic Democratic Engagement: Exploring Impact, with Peter Lang Publishing. The series seeks to gather inclusive research on the impact of next-generation engagement from a diverse range of voices.
What motivates you to include a public philosophy component in your courses?
I am seeking to further uncover why so many collective problems get worse instead of better and enhance methods, strategies, and tools that help us meliorate our challenges. In order to address wicked problems—large scale, interdependent, “unsolvable” crises—we need more reflective practitioners and more action-oriented philosophers.
From my current vantage point, I can leverage change through the design of new programs, pedagogies, and policies across higher education and I can do so in partnership with diverse communities.
How does your institution support your involvement in public philosophy?
This fall I will begin a new role as the Director of Design Thinking and Associate Professor at Elon University. We have an Elon by Design university-wide initiative with a goal to deepen and broaden opportunities for learning and acting with our communities in order to tackle complex social problems and build collective capacities. The initiative and the center are generating pathways towards resilient and collaborative innovation across institutional divides. I look forward to working alongside other public philosophers in this new role.
EngagedPhilosophy readers: If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else for an interview, email us at info@engagedphilosophy.com.
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