Considerations for Community Engagement in Design Education

The Future of Design Education working group on community engagement identifies the active involvement of design students and faculty with community groups as valuable co-design and participatory research op-portunities. These kinds of participatory engagements are important for professional development of designers, preparing them to transition from the role of expert to facilitator. The working group on community engagement provides overarching principles for the professional conduct of designers who are working in communities and proposes guidance for the management of community-based student projects. The principles specify that the goal of community engagement is to share knowledge and power, with the intention of enhancing the community's autonomous decision-making about the community's future. This article provides a matrix titled A Spectrum of Community Engagement in Design Education to illustrate how the types of work in which students, faculty, and researchers engage imply a continuum of participation that enhances autonomous decision-making in the communities they work with. The article closes with a discussion that acknowledges the challenges designers experience because these engagements differ from typical individual studio projects. This discussion offers insights drawn from experiences in other service sec-tors to contextualize the successes of community engagement programs. The article uses short descriptions of cases to illustrate key concepts.