Why are women designers important contributors to the discourse on global change?

Women designers must be heard loud and clear as we push through the noise of discord towards positive change in the world. In a world where the patriarchy often only values profit and power, women can be a force to be reckoned with. Women designers offer an intensely fierce yet quiet strength. As women designers, we offer a form of emotional and intellectual intelligence capable of seeing clarity amidst chaos, deep pain within still waters, and underlying connections where others see only broken threads. As designers, women can and do design solutions where none were previously thought possible.

Women are working in teams, in communities and with governments to find ways to collaborate and have an impact. What was the last project you worked on to improve your community?

I just completed a 92-page full color cookbook/food memoir in collaboration with my colleague Debra Gibes, English faculty and Faculty Director for Experiential Learning. The project, titled Making Memories from Scratch: Home Cooking and Dining to Celebrate Culture & Family Ties, was created as a cross-campus experiential learning project, and incorporated written and visual arts submissions from faculty, staff, students, and alum from a wide range of disciplines at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan. The book was created to launch festivities for the newly expanded Mott Eats campus food pantry, a project meant to address the food insecurities of a large portion of our students who come from both urban and rural poverty and low-income households. In the multicultural communities in and around the Flint metropolitan area, the stories and recipes serve as honest reflections of the comfort found not only in eating food, but in the memories that surround the family gatherings around food that happen daily or, perhaps, only on special occasions. Proceeds from the sale of the book will support the Mott Eats Food Pantry.

Name a woman designer other than yourself, living or deceased, that you think made an impact on the world.

Ellen Lupton has always been someone who has inspired me in my work as both a designer/practitioner and an educator. Her accessible approach to teaching design provides a framework for encouraging the recognition that design plays in daily life, from the mundane to the amazing. Her work as both a practitioner and educator has impacted generations of designers.