By Liese Zahabi

Central to the word belonging is the word longing. As social creatures, most humans long to be part of a group, to be understood by people with common perspectives and values, to have the support of others. The concept of belonging also suggests a sense of inside and outside: when you belong you are part of a group of some kind, whether a small circle of friends, an extended multi-generational family, a school full of students, a company full of employees, or a town
full of citizens. Either you are within this circle, inside, or you are on the
outside of these designations.

Putting ideas, objects, and people into categories is a fundamental human tendency: this is a spoon and it belongs in this drawer, this is an aeonium succulent and it belongs in this classification of plants, this is an idea that does or does not fit within my value system and therefore does or does not belong in my worldview. Academic disciplines and fields of practice perform categorization in even more refined ways, taking in new or unfamiliar ideas and slotting them neatly into an understanding of the world. Design is certainly no exception. One design might remind someone of works from a particular time period or designer, the use of a color might be reminiscent of a specific style, the particular use of language might suggest a specific audience. The ideas of a designer might be so incredibly different from what we typically see in the field that we reject them, or try to art-direct
them, demanding they change to fit the status quo, because they just don’t seem to belong. This categorization, this sense of what belongs and what does not is necessary for making sense of the world, but it is also fraught and tends to reinforce stereotypes, tropes, cliches, and the ossification of monolithic perspectives.

Finding my way

My own journey of finding a sense of belonging was a long and winding one. The earliest feelings of belonging were centered within my family; these are usually our first experiences of feeling inside or outside of a group and are often the most deeply rooted. My experience of the world then spread out to school classrooms, friend groups, activities on the playground at recess, athletic teams and music ensembles, the cast and crew for school plays, identity markers and labels (am I a freak or a geek or a jock or an artsy weirdo), fields of study and majors in college, job titles, and then later to apartment buildings and neighborhoods, geographic locations, status symbols and social class distinctions. As we move through life we are constantly shifting our sense of where and how we belong, both in our own perceived understanding of our place in the world, as well as how we believe others perceive and treat us. As an awkward, weird, and sensitive child I spent much of the beginning of life feeling left out, outcast, and misunderstood. Like many teenagers, my sense of self was in opposition to the groups and structures I saw in the world around me, my identity was wrapped up in defining myself outside what was normal and accepted.

In college I spent two years as a very undeclared major (the problem was that I was interested in everything), taking classes in psychology and poetry and acting and writing and history. The summer after my sophomore year I worked part time as a receptionist for a credit union and was determined to figure out a direction for my studies. While flipping through the enormous printed course catalog (easily a thousand pages…these were the days before this content was published online), I discovered this thing called “graphic design.” Wholly unfamiliar with this term and the field itself (this would have been in 1997) I excitedly read about what designers do. From the description I understood design as a marriage of things I enjoyed and had some skill with: visual arts, creativity, writing, and computers. I began my junior year as an art major, started wading through the numerous pre-requisites and associated art classes, added a fifth year to my undergrad experience, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art with a concentration in graphic design (and a minor in writing) in 2000.

While I was a creative child, engaged with the visual aesthetics of the world, my small rural high school required students to choose between studying music and studying art (I would have loved to do both). Rather than taking advanced level art classes throughout high school, I played the clarinet in marching band and concert ensemble (although I did take journalism for four years and served as the co-editor of our yearbook, an activity that absolutely shaped my novice understanding of design.) This meant that when I decided to major in fine arts, I didn’t have the same training or artistic confidence many of my classmates had. Some of my professors did a wonderful job of trying to make all students feel welcomed and supported, but the majority didn’t seem to know how to work with students like me, who lacked the advanced vocabulary, who didn’t already have a baseline set of skills, who couldn’t immediately comprehend all the ways they were unable to see their own work clearly and objectively. While I absolutely felt that design was the right field for me to pursue, I never felt a sense of belonging while I pursued my undergraduate degree in design.

After college, I worked as a designer for eight years, for two different small design agencies. These years were full of trying different things: learning about video production, instructional design, branding and promotional design; attending and directing photoshoots, going on print-checks, working on catalog designs, managing backup tapes of client work, figuring out how to function as a team member within a small creative office, tackling ways to deal with overwhelming feelings of imposter syndrome and how to deal with crappy co-workers and fickle bosses and clients. Working for a smaller firm meant wearing a lot of different hats and getting to see every project go through the process of being produced. Just as in college, I knew design was what I wanted to do, but I still struggled with feeling like an outsider. In the third year at my second position, I knew it was time to move on, but I wasn’t sure what to move on to. During a dinner party with friends, one of them was talking about their job teaching graphic design at a local university, excitedly sharing what it was like to work with students. Like the proverbial lightning bolt, it struck me that teaching might be what I should pursue next. I spent the next year researching graduate programs, designing work for a grad-school-worthy portfolio, writing and re-writing and re-re-writing my letter of interest, and applying to a handful of programs. The day I found out I was accepted to the MGD program at NC State was one of the best of my life, and I will never forget the sense of achievement, pride, and excitement. 

Graduate school was overwhelming in the beginning: moving to a new state, settling into a new apartment, hoping my spouse would successfully find a new job, getting to know an unfamiliar school, new classmates, and professors. I was thrilled and terrified in equal measure. After a bumpy first semester, I began to find my place and gain confidence in my abilities to think, write, and make design at the graduate level. This was the place where I finally started to feel like I belonged in the field of design, and this sense was reinforced every time I was able to work with students, as I had the chance to learn from and collaborate with some of my classmates, as I researched and wrote my thesis project, and as I conducted the search for an academic job. I have been teaching on the tenure track for 12 years (at three different institutions in very different parts of the U.S.) and have never
looked back.  

Making way for others

As a design educator, I constantly think about creating inclusivity within my classroom. Having felt like an outsider many times in my life, and certainly within the world of design, I begin with belonging as a core value. The ways we structure our classroom activities, our syllabi, our projects, our lectures, our curriculums, our programs, our spaces, and our design communities can have an enormous impact on whether new designers and students feel welcomed. These choices and practices can encourage new designers and students to become and remain engaged with design, or they can shut them out and throw up invisible barriers. Over the years I have experimented with different ways of creating a sense of belonging with my students, and have continued to refine and revise these approaches for different programs, institutions, types of students, and changing student expectations and values. It is certainly work, and the work will never be finished, but it is work well worth doing.

In the summer of 2021, as part of the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC), I organized a panel of design educators to speak about issues connected to inclusivity and accessibility in the design classroom, entitled We Belong Together. This panel was recorded virtually, and served as asynchronous content published as part of the SHIFT{ed} Summer Summit. The panelists for this discussion included: Gaby Hernández (University of Arkansas), Meena Khalili (University of South Carolina), Dave Pabellon (Columbia College Chicago), and Gabi Schaffzin (York University, School of Arts, Media, Performance, and Design, Toronto, Canada). The recording for this session can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/5Y-YHsw03f0

The panelists discussed their thoughts about:

• The different kinds of students they have worked with.
• How differences in background, culture, economic means, as well as cognitive and physical differences affect student experiences.
• How educators can ensure that we communicate and integrate otherness into the classroom and the design canon.
• The importance of educators talking about diversity and inclusivity within not only the educational space but also the design workforce and the discipline itself.
• How educators can try to ensure there is a path forward for different kinds of young designers and students.
• The fact that academia as a whole is not accessible for disabled designers
• The role of vulnerability in the classroom.
• The importance of active destigmatization to create inclusive spaces.
• Ideas around assessments and grading, and valuing the quality of ideas and a student’s ability to articulate individual design processes.
• Ways we can course-correct when it is clear things aren’t working well
• The importance of doing this work as a team effort that includes students, faculty, staff, and administration.

The session also offered some tips for educators, including:

• Think about what to include in your syllabus that can enhance inclusivity.
• Consider creating a flexible syllabus.
• Consider using a mechanism for students to have a back channel for discussion and collaborative note-taking during class.
• The use of closed-captioning can make a huge difference for many students
• Make your critique sessions more inclusive and accessible.
• Explicitly check in with students. (“Do you have what you need to keep going?”)
• Consider flattening your class structure, use non-hierarchical structures in the classroom.
• Use Zoom as an option for student meetings and office hours.
• Try not to rely solely on official accommodations letters for students, but instead try to offer accommodations (as appropriate) for all students, and consider giving students flexible options.

As the design discipline seeks to bring in new voices and more diverse perspectives, it is imperative that design educators create equitable, inclusive, and accessible spaces for students. Young designers and design students face many barriers to learning about design, seeing themselves as designers, becoming part of our discipline, and feeling like they belong, I certainly did during my journey. It would be impossible for any of us to do the work of creating welcoming classroom and workspaces perfectly for everyone all of the time, but if we want to affect change within our field, it is imperative that we do the best we can to put ourselves outside of our own experiences and perspectives, to engage students and young designers where they are—to actually meet them there as much as is possible—and to help them feel seen, heard, supported, empowered, and welcome.