Communication is a key to forming, sharing, and acting on design. Strategists, in particular, must learn agility in communication, learning how and what to share complex ideas with a range of stakeholders, including clients, project teams, community members, research participants, investors, policy makers, and the public. In this class, students will practice three core communication skills: writing, editing, and presenting their own work and the work of other designers. For their own work, they will practice writing for and sharing with clients, internal teams, and the public, including on the page and as oral presentations. Perhaps even more importantly, they will practice the art of editing their own and their peers’ work, learning how to revise their writing for clarity, while also using the editing process as a way to engage in dialogue, criticism, and collaboration with their peers. The final deliverables in the class will be two written artifacts for the page, one recorded presentation based on a written script, and an edited document annotated to evidence their reflections on the process.

How are communities governing themselves beyond the state and the market? Democratic institutions across the globe are failing to address the converging crises of climate breakdown, housing financialization, platform monopolization, and social reproduction. This course examines how communities imagine and build other ways of living together, connecting utopian thought to territorial autonomy, collective ownership, and the everyday work of self-government. A focused historical introduction connects Indigenous, cooperative, anarchist, and Marxist traditions to collective organization in practice, including the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and the United Farm Workers. Anticolonial perspectives challenge students to learn from movements' own political practices. Contemporary cases include municipalism, confederalism, tenant organizing, mutual aid, digital commons, and cooperatives. Students ask whose futures guide these experiments, who controls resources, and whose labor sustains them. Each weekly meeting combines discussion with a practical workshop. Students map decision-making structures, compare organizational rules with everyday practice, and test how governance arrangements distribute authority, responsibility, and risk. In small teams, students select an existing organization, cooperative, or community initiative and propose a way to address one of its governance problems. They explain how a workable decision process serves an emancipatory purpose, examine its contradictions, and specify how members could review and revise it.

Traces of Artificial Intelligence can be found in nearly every facet of our lives. While champions of the technology point to evidence of its contribution to societal progress, critics highlight cases of harm and caution against its unfettered development. This course will, in part, focus on AI's impact on society, the potential risks and benefits of using it, and the responsibilities of AI developers and users. Students will interrogate topics such as the accuracy of algorithms, the impact of automation on jobs, how AI affects privacy and security, and how to achieve greater technological transparency and openness. We will learn about the torrent of guidelines that organizations and governments publish to support AI's effects. Students will gain a deeper understanding of these topics through experimentation with AI tools, field trips, and workshops complemented by visiting lecturers and critical resources that provide windows into the world of AI. Students will leave the course better equipped to collaborate on AI projects, navigate the ethical dilemmas that arise in the development and use of AI, and make informed decisions in future jobs or positions. No programming experience will be required, and all disciplinary backgrounds are welcome.

This course offers a design driven approach to examining the intersection of community engagement and the arts with a focus on the New York City cultural landscape. In order to remain relevant, arts organizations must now use their arenas in part for causes related to social justice, as well as civic and community engagement. In a world with an ever changing cultural and socio-political landscape, can art and design induce social change? Students in this course will be exposed to a variety of foundational civic and community engagement programs in the arts that have been designed over the last 20 years. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to hear from arts leaders and cultural activists in NYC, who will share strategies for building relationships and working with various communities toward leading engagement efforts that incorporate a multidisciplinary artistic landscape. Students will be exposed to artistic leaders in the field and will experience community based artistic public programs. Over the course of the semester, students will research a select group of arts organizations in NYC which are currently deploying civic and community engagement programs. Based on findings, students will select one organization to focus on and will then design a civic or community engagement program in alignment with the organization’s mission. As a culminating project, leaders from each selected organization will attend class so that students can pitch their newly designed engagement programs to a slate of artistic leaders.

Digital technologies have been transforming and disrupting multiple facets of businesses, societies, and policies, from individuals' perceptions and practices, to organizations' structures and cultures, to local and global communities, to industry ecosystems and regulatory landscapes. This course investigates the strategic impact of different established and emerging technologies, such as online streaming, e-commerce, mobile computing, fintech, and artificial intelligence, on both private and public organizations from diverse sectors and economies worldwide. Taking a strategic perspective on digital technology and design, the course encompasses a portfolio of case studies, articles, and discussions on strategic decisions in diverse real-life scenarios. The goal of the course is to equip students with the analytical frameworks, concepts, theories, and mindsets for strategically analyzing, conceptualizing, organizing, managing, and leading technology- and design-related projects and initiatives in today's complex and ever-changing global business, social, and policy environments.