University of Michigan-Dearborn was founded in 1959 through an innovative partnership between the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Company, with Ford providing an initial gift of just over 200 acres of land and $6.5 million. UM-Dearborn is a regional university, committed to excellence rooted in strong academics, innovative research and scholarship, as well as accessibility and affordability. The university has nearly 8,800 students pursuing more than 100 bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral and professional degrees in liberal arts and sciences, engineering and computer science, business, education, health and human services. A top-ranked university with an inclusive campus community, faculty devoted to teaching and students committed to achievement, UM-Dearborn has been shaped by its history of partnering with industry and community leaders, and is committed to finding solutions for today’s most pressing challenges.
Human-centered design is growing in popularity and is becoming more desired in the engineering field (among many other fields), We are interested in giving families, high school, community college and undergraduate students (in two parallel workshops) a head start on design thinking to prepare them for a career in design. With the development of our new Human-Centered Engineering Design program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, four faculty from this program would lead an exciting workshop to introduce attendees to design thinking: Georges Ayoub, DeLean TolbertSmith, Feng Zhou, and Sarah Nesbitt. In session 1, we will present some design thinking skills and we have invited students to demonstrate some of their exciting design work! In session 2, student’s families are invited to work with local organizations in the Detroit community to use design to help these organizations meet their mission. Not only do we hope that the participants would be familiar with our program, and thinking about college in a non-intimidating way, but also to have them more connected to and familiar with their community, to see that they can affect their neighborhood, and to prepare them on succeed on the design career paths!