Abstract
Community and academic partnerships (CAPs) represent a dynamic interplay of stakeholders, including students, faculty, and community practitioners, who act as creators, connectors, and catalysts in the design education ecosystem. These partnerships can be mutually beneficial by providing experiences for students to engage in real-world learning while creating impact within the community served. Design courses within higher education build skills for innovative problem-solving and offer opportunities for community partners to collaboratively tackle design challenges alongside students. While the impact of design courses on student learning is well-documented, little is known about the impact on community partners. In this statement of pedagogy, educators from two nationally ranked higher education institutions adapt survey evaluation tools to understand the impact of university design courses for community partner organizations. We describe two examples of graduate-level design courses, each housed outside of design schools or programs: one interdisciplinary course at UNC-Chapel Hill and the capstone experience at Duke University, which is delivered through a three-course series that builds toward a culminating project. While the disciplines and timelines differ amongst these courses, the community partner engagement process is the same. Through these classes, community partners engage in design thinking activities facilitated by students to address real-world design challenges. Both courses integrate CAPs for design-explicit projects and emphasize the pressing need for tools (e.g., surveys, instruments) to conduct process and outcome evaluations, especially from the viewpoint of community partners. We present our findings and provide recommendations for future design courses seeking to build CAPs within their curricula.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.027
Citation
Mikush, C., Leos, C., Elsner, J.N.,and Chen, L.(2025) Evaluating Community-Academic Partnerships in Design Projects, in Clemente, V., Gomes, G., Reis, M., Félix, S., Ala, S., Jones, D. (eds.), Learn X Design 2025, 22-24 September 2025, Aveiro, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.027
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Statement of Pedagogy
Evaluating Community-Academic Partnerships in Design Projects
Community and academic partnerships (CAPs) represent a dynamic interplay of stakeholders, including students, faculty, and community practitioners, who act as creators, connectors, and catalysts in the design education ecosystem. These partnerships can be mutually beneficial by providing experiences for students to engage in real-world learning while creating impact within the community served. Design courses within higher education build skills for innovative problem-solving and offer opportunities for community partners to collaboratively tackle design challenges alongside students. While the impact of design courses on student learning is well-documented, little is known about the impact on community partners. In this statement of pedagogy, educators from two nationally ranked higher education institutions adapt survey evaluation tools to understand the impact of university design courses for community partner organizations. We describe two examples of graduate-level design courses, each housed outside of design schools or programs: one interdisciplinary course at UNC-Chapel Hill and the capstone experience at Duke University, which is delivered through a three-course series that builds toward a culminating project. While the disciplines and timelines differ amongst these courses, the community partner engagement process is the same. Through these classes, community partners engage in design thinking activities facilitated by students to address real-world design challenges. Both courses integrate CAPs for design-explicit projects and emphasize the pressing need for tools (e.g., surveys, instruments) to conduct process and outcome evaluations, especially from the viewpoint of community partners. We present our findings and provide recommendations for future design courses seeking to build CAPs within their curricula.