Design leadership forum organizers seek proposals

LAWRENCE — This spring the University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design & Planning is hosting the Design Futures Public Interest Design Leadership Forum. Its organizers seek proposals from KU faculty who may be interested in giving a workshop or posting an exhibit. The event will take place May 29-June 2 at Marvin Hall.

Public Interest Design (PID) is an emerging multidisciplinary subfield within the design professions whose participants use design as a tool to create social equity and positive change in underserved communities. The Forum is intended to help student leaders, design professionals and university faculty develop leadership skills, seek opportunities and network with each other.

KU is one of 10 universities and allied organizations that sponsor the annual event.

“We’re aiming to build the next generation of leadership in PID,” said Shannon Criss, associate professor of architecture, who is one of the Forum’s organizers. "We hope to continue to diversify its ecosystem in terms of discipline, background, race, gender and scale, and to elevate the rigor and critical capacity of PID curricula.”

“If we can begin to curate a national network of thought leadership drawn from participating universities and practitioner-faculty committed to the advancement of the field, we will have gone a long way in fulfilling our goals,” she said.    

For more information please see http://dfstudentforum.org/. Proposals are due Feb. 20.