Envisioned and organized by graduate students in the Department of Design at The Ohio State University, The Stir Symposium seeks to provide an opportunity to collaborate, think about, and discover new ways to approach global issues. Participants will bring their own areas of expertise to the table, from disciplines such as Business, Architecture, Engineering, Design, Agriculture, Geography, and more.

Inspired by Design thinking and process, the outcome of the weekend will be an exploration of methodologies around ways of working together. Participants will collaborate in hands-on workshops to address topics such as education (Learning), conservation and sustainability (Conserving), food production and agriculture (Eating), transportation (Moving), and community or city planning (Living).

Registration
Faculty and Professionals (Attendee) $250
Graduate and Undergraduate Students (Student Attendee) $75

Please address inquiries to: Beth Benzenberg, symposium chairperson, benzenberg.2@osu.edu

Keynote speaker

Elizabeth B.-N. Sanders, Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Design at The Ohio State University
President of MakeTools, LLC

Liz Sanders’ focus is on providing learning experiences in human-centered design thinking and co-creation practices for addressing the significant environmental, social and cultural challenges we face today. She has practiced co-designing across all the design disciplines. Liz is also the founder of MakeTools, a company that explores new spaces in emerging design landscapes. She is a visionary in pre-design research, having introduced many of the tools, techniques and methods being used today to drive and/or inspire design from a human-centered perspective.

Call for involvement

Provocateurs – Position Statement and Pecha Kucha Presentation – Submission deadline: Friday, July 1st, 2011 11:59 EDT

Provocateurs will help set the stage for the weekend during the Frame session on Friday evening. Each Provocateur will present their position statement in a Pecha Kucha style presentation. The short presentations of accepted position statements will help introduce the topics that are explored in the Saturday activities. The goal with this format is to give all the participants brief and varied exposure to areas within the Stir topics. Provocateurs will also take part in the Stir sessions as participants.

Consultants – Paper and Roundtable Discussion – Submission deadline: Friday, July 1st, 2011 11:59 EDT

A Consultant is a person whose work is complementary to one of the conference themes. Through this call, they have been identified as someone who will motivate and inform Stir participants as they approach new ways to address these issues. During the conference, Consultants will participate in roundtable discussions during the Collect sessions on Saturday morning, and act as one of the guides for their specific topic. They will also take part in the Stir sessions as participants and serve as a content reference point.

Visualizers – Communicate Workshop Results in Symposium Monograph – Submission deadline: Monday, July 11th, 2011 11:59 EDT

Each Stir session will include a Visualizer who will summarize and visualize the process and outcomes of that session. Responsibilities will include visually communicating the results and discoveries from an assigned workshop. Applicants should display enthusiasm about the mission of the weekend. Post-Symposium, your visualizations of these processes will be published in our Symposium Monograph. Visualizers can be students or professionals, and should have excellent traditional or nontraditional visual communication skills.

The Stir Symposium
October 7-9, 2011
Hosted by the Department of Design at The Ohio State University
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