Since Manhattanville College launched its Center for Design Thinking in 2019, it has prided itself on the extraordinary success of the students who have been involved in the program. Kaelei Lewis ‘23 has exemplified this. In April 2022, Lewis received the Sara Little Turnbull Endowed Scholarship in Design for her exemplary work in design thinking and involvement within the program. This scholarship is awarded to female-identifying individuals in creativity, design, and leadership roles.
Design Thinking is a progressive process that follows the procedures typically used by designers and applies it to all disciplines. This curriculum is hallmarked by a five-step process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The Center for Design Thinking is one of the only centers of its kind on the campus of a liberal arts institution.
Lewis is pursuing a degree in Computer Science but sees a natural connection between her work in technology and design thinking. According to her, “when you’re working on a solution, even when it’s something very personal, eliminating pre-existing biases and coming out of what you know is very helpful. When you assume something, you could be missing a level of knowledge that’s incredibly important.” Professor Jonathan Munson, head of the Computer Science program at Manhattanville College, helped to build the connection between the two. Many of his classes followed Design Thinking teaching methodology and project approaches, so much of the work, both tangible and theoretical, within the two programs mirror each other. This was able to manifest itself in Lewis’ well-received presentation on data visualization at last spring’s Day of Design, which was a component of her Design Thinking-focused internship.
While the direct connection to Computer Science certainly proved beneficial, Kaelei also loved the collaborative environment the empathy-based process it creates:
“I really enjoyed how it’s so interdisciplinary and you get to work with a lot of different departments on campus. I also liked that as you’re working with the clients, there’s an observable need to help out your peers and classmates more than you would with any other program. You really feel like you’re making actionable change because you’re working with people who actually want to make those changes.”
In addition to pursuing her Computer Science major, Kaelei is also completing a Certificate in Design Thinking. This certificate program was approved within the last year at the College and requires students to take all three core Design Thinking courses, an internship, and 2 electives related to Design Thinking in other disciplines. Kaelei had completed many of these requirements prior to the announcement of the certificate and will be among the first to receive the certificate when she graduates in May.
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