EPS4515 Design Justice Studio
(Formerly Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE))
4 General Credits
Students must be Juniors or Seniors to take this course
This course engages students in community-based, participatory design and action. Teams partner with communities and organizations to achieve positive social and environmental impact with a strong justice framing, working for change in areas like air quality, community development, food processing, global health, and rights and privacy (addressing mass incarceration) over several semesters.
Note that the name of this course was changed in Spring 2025 from Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE) to Design Justice Studio, reflecting a growing emphasis and interest among our students, community partners, and the joint Babson/Olin teaching team in integrating and building skills and practices related to equity and justice into the context of entrepreneurship.
Utilizing the longstanding approach utilized in the Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship course, teams are guided by an experienced faculty advisor, and make change through design for impact, social entrepreneurship, community organizing, participatory research, political advocacy and other practices. All teams practice social benefit analysis, theory of change, assumption testing, cross-cultural engagement tools, dissemination of innovation methods, and ethical norms.
Students regularly engage stakeholders in inclusive processes, in person and virtually, to observe, strategize, plan, co-design, prototype, test, and implement approaches supported by a significant project budget and student fundraising. There are often opportunities to travel locally, nationally, or internationally to work with partners.
Students are exposed to mindsets and dispositions for working with integrity and responsibility in their stakeholders' contexts through guided exercises, case studies, guest speakers, readings, and reflections. Students learn and apply changemaking practices through project work and gain essential experience building relationships across difference and developing their own self- and cultural awareness.
This course is part of the BOW collaboration, offered jointly between Babson and Olin, and open to
Wellesley students.
Prerequisites: FME1000, Junior standing (students must be juniors or seniors to take the course) or permission of instructor.