In the face of challenges across higher education, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is steadfast in its mission to serve Minnesotans as a welcoming and inclusive community where all can thrive.

Terresa Hardaway, associate professor and director of Design Justice for the College of Design (CDes), is using design to create spaces, policies and practices that uplift underrepresented groups through a justice-centered lens. She does this by incorporating design justice into the CDes curriculum, along with leading programming in the Twin Cities that models it outside of the classroom.

At the intersection of design and social justice

The framework, known as design justice, seeks to challenge how design processes and outcomes often reinforce existing power structures and inequities. These design decisions extend beyond visuals, such as branding, to the organization of experiences and systems. It considers not only what is being designed, but who benefits, who is harmed, and who has a voice in the process. 

Hardaway applies design justice in CDes and other educational spaces by building strong relationships with communities to support equity, teaching through multiple perspectives and in ways that reflect diverse learning styles and supporting equal opportunities in the design field. 

“I think that initiatives like Design Justice are a mirror to traditional ways of knowledge,” says Hardaway. “It sharpens us, evolves us, and it creates a deeper understanding and a more empathetic understanding with materials and with our students.”

Across workshops, student-led initiatives and collaborative policy development, engaging individuals from diverse backgrounds in shaping the campus experience results in a learning environment that better supports everyone’s success.

Putting principles into practice

One of Hardaway’s highlights for the initiative is the CDes’s hire of five faculty members focused on learning and teaching design justice. Hired over the last three years, these faculty serve as liaisons for design justice and exist within a cohort to boost retention and diversity. 

Other faculty-focused approaches include Design Justice Dialogues, where Hardaway leads the CDes faculty and instructors through different exercises to help them understand how their positionality, or their place in society, shapes their worldview. These insights can then be integrated within their curriculum — from forming a syllabus to approaching lectures and class content.

Design Justice also hosts a mix of programming — both for the CDes and the wider community — that models the framework outside of the classroom.

Hardaway has organized an annual Juneteenth event in Minneapolis in past years that eliminates barriers to entry for vendors by removing registration fees and, in turn, gives them incentives for meeting deadlines, like arriving on time. 

The Design Justice Symposium, open to the public, brings scholars together for interactive workshops that forge new relationships and opportunities to increase scholarly and community work.

In these ways and more, Design Justice is “designing a space that is vulnerable enough where folks can dive into something about their lives and understand their positionality in a way that actually creates change,” says Hardaway. 

Designing a better tomorrow

Hardaway is fueled by her ancestors to continue this work, by understanding her positionality in predominantly white and formerly exclusionary spaces, to author and center Black voices.

“Knowing that there will be generations after me that won't have to work this hard to be seen, to be accepted in a place that doesn’t serve them, they will also be able to reap the benefits of their hard work fairly and equitably,” says Hardaway.

Design Justice is in the process of planning a Design Justice Center where program initiatives can formally take place. Hardaway also has plans for a Design Justice Lab where graduate students can work with design justice. 

“We're trying to correct, repair, and reimagine the ways that we are and the ways that we can be,” she says.

Learn more about Design Justice.