Audience: CMU Student Body
Duration: 6 weeks
Team Members: Mihika Bansal, Evelyn DiSalvo
A resource to guide and empower student activists enacting systemic change.
Project Summary
Student activism is an important catalyst for transformation and social change. However, it can be difficult for students to navigate the complexity of collegiate bureaucratic systems in effective ways. In order to support student advocacy, we conducted in-depth research on the structure of Carnegie Mellon University, different types of activism tactics, as well as ways to care for oneself throughout the process, which was compiled into a detailed guidebook for student use.
Skills
Qualitative Research, Systems Thinking, Interaction Design
Our Process
We conducted interviews with two groups of people:
i) Undergraduate and graduate students, professors, and staff members involved in DEI initiatives on campus. The goal of these interviews was to understand their processes, pain points, and considerations of "success".
ii) Members of upper administration, student government, and faculty government to understand the current system and potential channels to create change on campus.
Beyond primary research, we also conducted secondary research about theories of change to understand different types of activism.
Research Outcomes
There were two primary ways people successfully enacted change on campus:
i) Using what we call "Contained Tactics" by leveraging the specific powers of certain people and/or governing bodies within the university to support initiatives. This tactic is usually the initial method used for advocacy efforts.
ii) Using what we call "Disruptive Tactics" by using subversive techniques that pressure higher administration to meet demands. This is usually a last-resort method, but can be an effective catalyst in lethargic systems.
We set out to design an interactive guidebook that facilitated students in navigating both tactics.
Our Design Solution
The guidebook is separated into four primary sections: i) Introduction, ii) Contained Tactics, iii) Disruptive Tactics, and, iv) Mental Health. I will go over each section below.
i) Introduction
The introduction states the purpose of the guidebook, explains how we gathered the information, and provides definitions and advice to students to begin their activism work.
ii) Contained Tactics
We created an interactive map that highlighted all of the major people and bodies within the university. With this map, we show the organizational structure and the people who work closely together both within and across bodies.
Each part of the map expands to provide further details of each person, their job, as well as the advantages and limitations of working with them. This allows students to find entry points into the system and potential allies for their work.
iii) Disruptive Tactics
Sometimes, Contained Tactics do not yield results, and activists must turn towards Disruptive Tactics to influence change. In this section, we provide guidance as to when it is time to change tactics and examples of ways to implement disruption. The examples include "Challenging Existing Dynamics", "Inserting New Actors", "Manipulating University Values", and "Influencing Campus Life". We included case studies of successful campus activism with each example.
IV) Mental Health
A major pain point of many of our interlocutors was the emotional burden and sheer amount of time involved in activism. We wanted to acknowledge this and put a gentle reminder to students that maintaining their well-being is imperative.
