Design Educators Conference

When: May 30th, 2024
Where: Vancouver Community College

Organized in collaboration with Vancouver Community College, our 2024 conference theme is Compassion, Creativity and Community.

This year's Design Educator Conference will address fostering student resilience and well-being, agility in design pedagogy and holistic, human-centred design education.

The conference takes place immediately after the RGD's DesignThinkers Conference at the Vancouver Playhouse on May 28 and 29th.

Pricing

Pricing is in Canadian dollars.

Members: $157.50 (After May 3: $204.75)
Non-Members: $210 (After May 3: $262.50)
RGD Member Combo of Design Educators Conference & DesignThinkers Vancouver 2-day in-person pass: $498.75
Non-Member Combo of Design Educators Conference & DesignThinkers Vancouver 2-day in-person pass $698.25

Email any questions to Programs Manager, Abdul Omar, at programs@rgd.ca.

Keynotes

Ellen Lupton
Ellen is a designer, writer and educator. The all-new third edition of her best-selling book Thinking with Type launched in March 2024. Her other books include Design Is Storytelling, Graphic Design Thinking, Health Design Thinking and Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers. She teaches in the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she serves as Design Chair. She is Curator Emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, where her exhibitions have included Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master and The Senses: Design Beyond Vision.

Dr. Elizabeth "Dori" Tunstall
"Dori" is a distinguished design anthropologist, celebrated author, visionary organizational design leader, consultant and coach. As the renowned author of "Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook," she is a path-breaker of progressive approaches that challenge conventional design paradigms that exclude and harm cultural communities. Formerly Dean of Design at OCAD University, and the first Black dean of a Faculty of Design anywhere, Dori's profound commitment to making an expansive impact beyond academia has led her to establish Dori Tunstall, Inc., a firm dedicated to decolonizing and diversifying institutional processes for companies and organizations through corporate education, executive coaching and strategic consulting.

Speakers and sessions

• Representing Risk: Radical Collaboration in a Design Classroom by Angela Norwood RGD, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Design, York University, and Yaqing (Helen) Han, PhD Candidate in Education at York University 
• Learning Human-Centered Design Principles through Practice by Rupsha Mutsuddi Provisional RGD, Designer, Research and Educator 
• Design for Good: Gen Z's Multi-Sensory Takeover by Xiaojun Huang, Assistant Professor of Graphic Designer at Bowling Green State University
• Bridging the Arts and Sciences: Using Design for Transdisciplinary Collaboration by Joshua Hale, Associate Professor of Art + Design; Chair, Department of Art + Design at Trinity Western University
• From Struggle to Success: A Conversation on Navigating a Return to Student Workplace Readiness by Jan Ballard, Senior Instructor, Design Department, at Texas Christian University, and Erica Holmen, Design Educator 
• Ungrading Unlocked: One Educator’s Experience with a Completely Self-Assessed Course by Diana Varma RGD, Design Educator and Podcaster
• Design Engaging with Indigenous Languages by Leo Vicenti, Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Emily Carr University of Art + Design
• Design Hacks and Strategies for Teaching Immersive Media by David Hardy, Associate Professor at James Madison University