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HONORS SELF- DESIGNED PROPOSAL

Complete this proposal prior to your experience’s start date and upload it in the UHP Database
(https://webapps.uc.edu/uchonorsstudent). Create an experience (“Add a new record”) in the “Tracking Project”
tab and upload your proposal document as an attachment. The deadline for submitting proposals is the 5th of
each month (excluding July).

Proposals are intended to be well developed plans for your experience. However, experiences are exploratory in
nature, and we are flexible with changes throughout the experience. If your experience changes after receiving
approval on your proposal, contact your honors advisor to verify the changes still satisfy the requirements of an
honors experience.

Basic Information
Full Name: Catherine Clarke
Title of Project: Design for American Leadership Studio 2017
Thematic Area(s): Leadership, Community Engagement, Research
Expected Start Date: August 3rd, 2017
Expected End Date: February 15th, 2018

GUIDELINES

1. Proposal submission timeline: Proposals should be submitted at least one month prior to the expected
start date of the experience. International experiences require at least two months’ notice. Contact your
honors advisor immediately for any exceptions.
2. Proposal length: While the quality of the proposal is most important, strong proposals are typically 3-4
pages single-spaced.
3. Proposal format: Please maintain the proposal format (e.g. headers, layout)
4. Time commitment: Experiences should consist of at least 75-90 hours of preparation, execution, and
reflection. This is approximately equivalent to the commitment of honors seminars and pre-approved
experiences.

REQUIREMENTS FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL

All self-designed international travel experiences require two months’ notice and must be at least one week in
length. You will need to provide a detailed itinerary (dates, locations and activities). If participating in
independent travel (not with UC faculty, staff or student group), you must also fill out a Worldwide: Honors
Experience application via UC International.

Additionally, the Student Travel Policy restricts UC-sponsored travel to countries under a U.S. Department of
State Travel Warning. Those who wish to visit a country with a travel warning must seek an exemption through
UC International. Students traveling without a faculty or staff leader must individually request an exemption.
We cannot allow you to count this travel as an honors experience nor can we give you a grant without an
approved exemption.
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1. Abstract

Briefly describe the experience. What makes this experience personally meaningful? What goals do you have for this
experience? What is your timeline for this experience?
*If you are proposing an international experience, provide an itinerary.
**If you are developing this experience from an existing opportunity (class with a study tour, campus organization, co-op,
etc.) that is not already an honors seminar or pre-approved experience, how will you differentiate your experience from
what is already required of other students?

When thinking about a self-designed honors experience I knew that I wanted to do something that I cared about
and get a lot out of. Starting off my first year, I quickly became involved in the Design for America (DFA) Studio at the
University of Cincinnati, a transdisciplinary student-led studio that focuses on using social innovation to create major
local impact. We do this by teaching studio members the design process and the importance it can have on us, not just as
designers but as active community members as well. One of the best parts of being a member of this organization,
however, is the national network. There are over 36 other DFA Studios with incredibly visionary students across the
nation who will be changing the world long after their time in college. I had the opportunity to experience this national
network over last summer while attending a leadership studio for all DFA Studios at the DFA Northwestern Headquarters.
There is no way to truly understand the impact this automatic network you join can have on your life and development as
a leader until you experience it for yourself. While talking with other DFA University of Cincinnati studio leads, I and my
peers knew we wanted to find a way to expose the importance of this national network to the rest of our studio members at
the University of Cincinnati, as well as expand the members we had. In order to continue on this mission, I am guiding
our upcoming leadership team at the conference this year, and want to use it in a more targeted way to help with a
persisting problem DFA has been experiencing since it was founded: expanding the diversity of students recruited to the
organization.
Because it was an organization founded by two members of DAAP and has the work “Design” within the title, we
naturally attracted a majority of DAAP students during our first two years. This past year only 7 of the total 45 members
were from majors outside of DAAP, which was an improvement from 2 the first year. Still, a major goal of Design for
America is to teach members how to use the design process in their everyday lives by exposing them to a diverse, trans-
disciplinary team with which to work. While at Design for America, I will have the chance to speak with leadership from
all of the other studios, many of which have succeeded at having very diverse studios. I will focus on learning from them
personally as well as professionally at mixers and round-tables. I will then come back and create a game plan including all
necessary deliverables for a recruiting team that will hope to attract students from across colleges at the university. Part of
these skills learned at Leadership Studio will also be used to help plan a recruitment event with another university student
group: Bearcat Launchpad. This game plan will be refined for the spring semester and then applied again. All take-aways,
design materials, and other findings will be put into a Google Drive Folder, the platform used by all DFA Studios, so our
materials can not only be used to help the future of DFA University of Cincinnati, but all DFA studios and other student
organizations at the University of Cincinnati facing similar issues.
The goal is to walk out of this experience as not only a stronger leader for having organized and run an event, but
a better bearcat community member by having students engage with people across the campus to expand our network and
teach as many people as possible about how influential using the design process can make students when it comes to
helping improve their communities. I have attached the itinerary for the weekend of the conference itself to this document,
as well as my timeline for the project itself and the follow-up work, in the section labeled “7. Budget.”

Advisor Feedback
Must Include: Required Revisions: Effective:

Brief description of the experience

Personal connection to the experience

Identified goals for the experience

Timeline from start to finish

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*Itinerary (international experiences only)

**Explanation of differentiated
experience from what is required of other
students

2. Experience Advisor

Identify an experience advisor and provide their contact information. Explain why you chose this person and how you
plan to utilize your advisor for this experience.
Note: Advisor(s) should have knowledge or expertise in an area related to the experience. Honors advisors, undergraduate
students, and family members cannot be experience advisors.

Name: Michelle Baverman

Title: Design for America Fellow
Office: Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center
2133 Sheridan Rd. G.302 Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: (847)-491-5839
Email: michelle@designforameria.com

Michelle Baverman was an architecture student at the University of Cincinnati who co-founded the Design for America at
University of Cincinnati Studio who went on to be a Design for America Fellows. Fellows are direct aids from DFA
National staff who aid studio leadership at colleges in their development, project success, and event planning, as well as
help to found new studios. As Fellow Coordinator for the Midwest, University of Cincinnati’s studio falls under her
purview. She struggled with recruitment outside of DAAP as well when she founded DFA UC but has since learned under
her position with DFA National better methods and different ways of approaching growth as a studio. I believe she will be
the best resource I could have for a project like this.

She is will be able to help me create a cohesive plan and deliverables for my studio to pass on to the next generation for
recruitment, as well as help me pass on our findings and projects to other studios so the help can be shared amongst the
national network. She also knows the DFA design process intimately and will help me use this to grow in my findings to
yield results as well as be able to share these results with others. Recruitment is an issue many student groups face and
should be not only made available, but be shown in an applicable way for others to learn and grow from.

Advisor Feedback
Must Include: Required Revisions: Effective:

Experience advisor name and contact

information

Description of why advisor was selected

Specific plans to engage with advisor

3. Connection to Learning Outcomes

List 3 learning outcomes from any thematic area(s). Provide specific activities you plan to engage in to help you make
progress towards the chosen learning outcomes. Describe how you expect each activity to help your progress. Include an
estimated time commitment for those activities.

1. Leadership: Motivate and collaborate effectively with others towards completion of shared projects or goals.
a. Description: This has to do with the design project for the weekend of the Leadership Studio as well as
working with other students as part of the recruitment team to successfully recruit a diverse group of
students to help add to the DFA UC Studio dynamic. While at leadership studio, I will have the chance to
once again collaborate with virtual strangers on an important issue that relates to all of the cities we
belong to. I will take the skills learned from this once in a lifetime experience and translate it into helping
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me work with the recruitment team to create a strong bond between members that will show to each of the
students we recruit. While at UC we will be working together to create a strong team dynamic between us
as the organizers of the recruitment process as well as between us and the other members of the studio to
keep everyone involved in a process meant to add excitement and energy to the start of the new semester.
We will want to let them know how much we appreciate their help as well as ensure they feel confident
about their roles and responsibilities while reaching out to students about the DFA mission and goals.
b. How this will help my progress: All this work helps to develop out skills as leaders and team members
as well as make it so we know we have reliable members of the organization who will be helping us
recruit new members who will have the same dedication to DFA UC as we do.
c. Estimated Time Commitment: 150 hours’ total including Leadership studio design sprint and planning
while at UC campus.
2. Community Engagement: Use the recruitment process to ensure DFA UC has a strong connection, not just with
the Cincinnati community as we already do, but with the bearcat community as well. Our primary goal is to do
this by recruiting members involved in other organizations and colleges to spread our impact and outreach, but
can also be made just by having stronger ties with other colleges and student organizations through the awareness
of DFA UC as a group.
a. Description: This has to do with the act of recruitment itself. While talking with other studio leadership
members at Leadership Studio, we will focus on how they maintain strong connections with their campus.
Most of our energy will be spent trying to recruit students themselves, but I also want to see if other
studios have some sort of system in place for different types of partnerships with other organizations. Our
ties with other student groups are currently pretty loose but we are looking for ways to strengthen these,
such as with the joint recruitment weekend event we will be coordinating with Bearcat Launchpad. By
enhancing our understanding of these two forms of outreach, we hope to create more of a connection
between DFA UC and the bearcat community.
b. How this will help my progress: I will be able to be a more socially conscious and active community
participant of the University of Cincinnati by understanding the need to be more involved in our student
organization cohort and using knowledge from other studios to help us grow in this way, not just
individually, but as a whole group.
c. Estimated Time Commitment: 50 hours
3. Research: Analyze and interpret the meaning of results.
a. Description: While not your typical type of research, a major way of actually accomplishing our goal of
becoming successful recruiters will be collecting results and analyzing their effectiveness so they can be
improved upon. We will be collecting answers to questions so we can yield qualitative and quantitative
data on our recruiting tactics (as mentioned in section 5. On-going Reflection). This will allow us to
reflect, reiterate, and test new tactics from what we did in the Fall Semester during the Spring Semester.
b. How this will help my progress: I will be able to properly measure the success of this honors experience
and use it to improve our methods so we can be giving the best possible advice to others when we create
our product deliverables (outlined in section 6. Sharing Your Learning).
c. Estimated Time Commitment: 20 hours

Advisor Feedback
Must Include: Required Revisions: Effective:

3 learning outcomes explicitly identified

from any thematic area(s)

Examples of activities and explanation of

how each will assist the progress towards
the chosen learning outcome

Estimated time commitment for each

activity
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4. Academic Resources Connected to the Learning Outcomes

List 2-3 academic resources you plan to use. For each, describe how it connects to your learning outcomes and how you
hope that it will contribute to your learning during this experience. You must have at least one resource connected to each
learning outcome; a resource can satisfy multiple outcomes. Please include the title and author/creator for each resource.
Note: Academic resources are professional/academic works that can be used to assist your understanding of the topic.
Some examples are books, research journals, documentaries, or videos.

1. Design Book: Innovating for People: Handbook of Human-Centered Design Methods by LUMA Institute
a. As suggested by my advisor Michelle, the design process for DFA can easily be applied to the recruitment
process in order to develop a system and refine it throughout the year using the findings we get from the
network at Leadership Studio. The LUMA book gives great ways to ideate, and more importantly in my
case, reflect on projects when you seem to feel in a rut. I will use methods from this book to help us
through that process of the recruitment phase.
2. Recruitment Book: Hiring for Attitude by Mark Murphy
a. This book explains how the hiring and interview process must change so that companies can weed out
candidates whose attitude will create failure. While this is geared towards businesses, I know working in
the field on co-op opened my eyes to just how much work culture matters to me. I don’t want to work at a
company where the people aren’t fun to be around and their attitude is less invested in the projects than I
am. The same goes for DFA Studios. The reason I and other members are so in love with DFA is because
we are a group of passionate, excited, innovated people looking to made a difference in Cincinnati. We
need to be sure no matter what college we go to, we are attracting students with similar attitudes, and this
book can show us how.

Advisor Feedback
Must Include: Required Revisions: Effective:

1-2 academic resources connected to the

learning outcomes

Title and author of each resource

Description of how resources will help

make progress towards learning outcomes
and execution of experience

5. On-going Reflection

The on-going reflection should help you process the experience and progress toward your chosen learning outcomes.
Describe your method for reflecting throughout the experience. Indicate specific reflection questions/topics you plan to
use to guide your reflective process.
Note: A variety of methods can be used for on-going reflection. Some examples are videos, drawings, blogs, songs, and
journals. Reflection topics to consider include your ideas/insights about the experience, connection to other areas of
involvement, and your progress towards the learning outcomes.

Quantitative: Throughout the experience I plan to have both a quantitative and qualitative on-going reflection of my
progress. On the quantitative side I will be keeping a spread sheet of the amount of students we recruited from outside of
DAAP and from various organizations, as well as what they noticed from the recruitment process to see which tactics
yielded the most results. I will also keep track of the amount of materials we have prepared for each recruitment tactic,
and which ones were most appealing to current DFA members. Time commitment, how excited they were about each one,
and how practical they were for members will be important to note as some may be worth extra work while others will not
be. These can be given a scale

Qualitative: I also plan to have a qualitative reflection where I can note my successes and short-comings, this reflection
will help me make any necessary adjustments. I will have my qualitative reflection in a journal where I can also track how
this experience is working for me and how I have grown throughout the process, both during the weekend of Leadership
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Studio and going through the recruitment process during the beginning of Fall and Spring Semester for this academic
school year.

Follow-up: I would also like to have students and mentors checking my folder with the resources to measure the user-
friendliness of it. This will include people from the recruitment team, my mentor, DFA studio leads, and leaders of UC
student organizations. I believe using this study group will ultimately determine the success of the deliverable.

Reflection Questions:
Total number of students recruited?
Number of students from outside of DAAP recruited?
Which recruitment methods are the ones that attracted the most new members?
Which recruitment methods left current members feeling the most engaged in the organization?
At what point in the recruitment and design process have I reached?
What goals and objectives have I accomplished so far?
What is going well and what is not going well?
What can be changed?
What is the next step?

Advisor Feedback
Must Include: Required Revisions: Effective:

Method for ongoing reflection

Reflection questions/topics clearly

specified

6. Sharing Your Learning

Describe how you plan to actively share what you’ve taken away from this experience with a targeted audience. Consider
signing up for the UHP Impact Forum held each April. Explain why you chose this specific audience.
Note: While social media can be an effective platform for sharing, only posting on your personal learning portfolio or
social media account(s) does not reach a targeted audience.

For DFA: My purpose for this project is to use the leadership and design skills learned at Leadership Studio, as well as
recruitment insights from other studios while meeting at roundtables, to attract a more diverse incoming class of DFA
members. However, the skills and tactics we use could be used by other studios from DFA and student organizations at
UC. I will be collecting my findings and tactics into a resource folder to be shared on the DFA UC account. Once these
resources and tactics are made user-friendly through thorough directions, contact sheets, and deliverables for others to use,
the folder can be passed down through the DFA UC Studio for the coming years. This will also be shared with DFA
National, who will be able to share the resources with new studios and other studios who struggle with recruitment.

For UC Student Body: This format will then be adapted to a format so it can be made applicable to other student
organizations, such as Bearcat Launchpad, a predominantly business school student group. The hope is that this would
ease the recruitment process for other student organizations and expose the bearcat community to the wealth of resources
our campus offers in the form of student groups, ones who will help students grow personally, professionally, and
knowledgably.

Advisor Feedback
Must Include: Required Revisions: Effective:

At least one method to actively share

take-aways/learning from the experience

A specific audience and why the audience

was selected
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7. Budget (if applicable)

Provide an itemized budget and indicate your source for cost information.
*If you are engaged in an unpaid internship or research, please indicate the number of weeks and hours per week you
plan to participate.
Budget

Monetary Breakdown
Conference Fee: $60
Housing: $137.20
Transportation: $335.88
Food: $45.00
Total: $578.08

Explanation
Conference Fee: This includes their payments for food (lunches, snacks, coffee, and water) and materials (users coming
in for user interviews, prototyping materials including 3D printing, facilities usage, flash drives with design information,
and a recruitment starter kit given to each studio at Leadership Studio).
Housing: After much investigation into Airbnb and hotel pricings, we found the cheapest and most convenient option was
the discounted hotel rooms provided by the Hyatt House Evanston. The cost reflects the amount I have to pay as we are
splitting the cost of 2 rooms between the 7 DFA UC students attending the conference. Breakfast is included with the
room.
Transportation: This is based off of the $0.54 business reimbursement per mile driven for a car time the 311 miles from
the University of Cincinnati’s campus to our hotel in Evanston and back (622 total miles).
Food: Last year, I spent anywhere from $5 to $13 on food for dinners so I took an average of $9 times the 5 days to get
the number above.

Time Breakdown

Before: We are currently planning a major recruitment event for the fall and spring semesters with fellow UC student
group Bearcat Launchpad. Planning will begin the 9th of July, when I will dedicate around 2 hours a week to preparing for
the event up until leadership studio.

During: I will spend the concentrate 110+ hours are the conference focusing on the project while expanding my
leadership skills and learning the design process. The itinerary for the conference is provided below.

After: After the conference I will be spending approximately 1 hour a week on developing recruitment tactics and helping
plan for our recruitment event partnered with Bearcat Launchpad. This will continue until school starts when this will
increase from 3-5 hours for the first 3 weeks either personally helping with recruitment or skyping with the recruitment
team (if I am out of town for co-op) to help with the process. We will then host our major recruitment event with Bearcat
Launchpad. If I am still in town, I will help with this which will likely be around 20 hours of dedicated time. We will
reflect on the success of recruitment and discuss how we can improve for the spring semester, where the process will take
place again leading up to our spring recruitment event with Bearcat Launchpad.

Total: The total hours for this project spent on preparation, learning from the Leadership Studio, revising tactics, actual
recruitment, and reflection will likely take a total of around or over 200 hours.

Itinerary

Focus: Leadership and Design

Concept: An important part of Design for America, asides from helping develop leaders and teach the design process, is
to invest in a national network of student designers who are passionate about making impacts in the communities they are
a part of. This network is meant to share resources, excitement, and a bond that will last far beyond college. To help
expose students to this network, as well as develop their leadership skills and knowledge of the design process, students
are given the chance to come to Leadership Studio. This event, held by DFA National, is a weekend long design sprint
focused around a central theme where students are broken up into groups of diverse students based off of college, age, and
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major to go through the design process steps together in the compressed time of just a few days before focusing on skill
development and leadership training. We will not only be able to grow as individual studios, but a network as well.
Because something DFA UC has struggled with in the past is recruiting students from diverse majors, that will be my
focus while at leadership studio.
- This year’s design theme is: “How can we expand accessibility in urban areas?" DFA teams will work to ensure
the inclusion of those with differing abilities into the fabric of our communities and the future development of our
cities.

General Itinerary:
-All activities will take place in the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center of Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois.

Thursday August 3rd

- 5:30pm Kickoff
o Move into hotel with team members and meet up with other students attending the conference at a mixer,
where we will be introduced to the project for the weekend, receive project preparation materials, and
receive speeches from DFA National Staff, as well as major benefactors.
o The goal is to be introduced to the theme of the weekend and meet the people we will be designing with.
Friday August 4th
- 9am-5:30pm Design Sprint
o We will meet our project team and begin the process of designing following the DFA design process.
This will include brainstorming, ideation, mock-ups for multiple ideas, and user-interviews to refine our
project for the following day.
o The goal is to bond with a group of leaders from other studios across the country and learn how to
immerse one’s self in the design process by jumping headfirst into an issue with a group of virtual
strangers and strengthening our skills together.
Saturday August 5th
- 9am-4pm Design Sprint
o Receive feedback on project from partners, refine project, go through final feedback sessions, and create
project deliverables with your design team while developing a project pitch for the Design Expo.
o The goal is to learn how to apply the design process and rapidly work with a team of students from all
over the country by centering on a common goal.
- 4pm-5:30pm Design Expo
o Create stand for design deliverables and pitch your project to community partners and investors as well as
learn how other teams went about tackling the same issue.
o The goal is not only to improve in confident while public speaking but also learn how there are many
ways to approach a problem, and a diverse array of solutions can result from these different methods.
- 6pm DFA Mixer
o Bond with leads from the national network of DFA Studio Leads and network with DFA Partners and
Alumni working in the field.
o The goal is to strengthen the national network and illustrate to DFA leadership how the network remains
invested while in and out of college.
Sunday August 6th
- 9am - 5:30pm Studio Leadership training and round tables.
o There will be a diverse number of up to 30 roundtables throughout the day focusing on different aspects
of leadership. All the members of DFA UC will split up the meetings we attend based on interests and
skills could be used to add value to the leadership team.
o The goal is to network with DFA Alumni and partners, learn leadership and technical skills, and bond
with other studios by learning who experiences the same difficulties and who we can learn from to
improve our studio. I will focus on roundtables dealing with campus relations, project partners, and
recruitment. We will then have the chance to meet up with our personal leadership team and reflect on our
findings for the weekend before creating a game plan for year as DFA continues to grow.
Monday August 7rd
- 9am-1:30pm Design Leadership Beyond DFA
o We will see many presentations from DFA Alumni who have gone on to create start-ups or businesses, as
well as some who use of employ people who use the DFA design process in their work. We will also have
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the opportunity to attend roundtables with DFA Fellows, Alumni, and staff to discuss opportunities with
partners for this upcoming year and persisting ones we can keep in mind for ourselves upon graduation or
mention to members for them to apply for when they graduate.
o The goal is to better understand how we can use DFA resources and teachings after college. We will also
be doing large group reflections with all DFA Leadership Studio Conference members to learn take-
aways and skills we can share with each other throughout the school year.

Advisor Feedback
Notes: Required Revisions: Effective:

Detailed budget of expenditures with

sources to justify budget estimates

*Indicates the number of hours per week

and number of weeks of participation
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THEMATIC AREA LEARNING OUTCOMES

Learning Outcomes for the Community Engagement Thematic Area:

By engaging in this thematic area, you will make progress towards learning how to…

 Identify and differentiate multiple ways to contribute towards the development or achievement of the community’s
goals.
 Develop a thorough understanding of the world view, beliefs, experiences, self-consciousness, or history of
community members through collaboration.
 Articulate the purpose of service on a social issue or public policy and how service mutually enhances individual
growth and the common good.
 Explain how education, advocacy, mobilization, or public policy can influence social issues and transform
communities.
Learning Outcomes for the Creativity Thematic Area:
By engaging in this thematic area, you will make progress towards learning how to…

 Discover new techniques to gain knowledge, consider options, make new connections, and ask questions.
 Explore a new creative competency/medium or seek new ways to engage an existing competency/medium.
 Understand and optimize the use of people, technology, physical resources or community in a creative process.
 Articulate the broader significance of a creative project and the value of its contributions.

Learning Outcomes for the Global Studies Thematic Area:

By engaging in this thematic area, you will make progress towards learning how to…

 Develop practical travel skills that promote safe, stimulating, and productive travel throughout your life.
 Summarize the interconnectedness of geography, history, cultural traits and world issues.
 Articulate the interdependence of professional fields to address current and impending global issues such as
technology, the environment, human rights, or politics.
 Demonstrate an understanding of cultural diversity by acknowledging the impact of their own identity and the
experience of social norms, customs, or beliefs that are different from their own.
 Demonstrate a sense of empathy, respect, and appreciation for others to build meaningful cross-cultural
collaborations toward mutual growth and prosperity.

Learning Outcomes for the Leadership Thematic Area:

By engaging in this thematic area, you will make progress towards learning how to…

 Formulate and manage a shared vision and develop goals towards its achievement.
 Motivate and collaborate effectively with others towards completion of shared projects or goals.
 Develop strategies to identify and respond to challenges and obstacles.
 Identify personal strengths and areas of growth and evaluate opportunities to maximize skills and abilities.
 Synthesize the current trends related to a specific issue or field and evaluate how thought-leaders are currently
addressing them.

Learning Outcomes for the Research Thematic Area:

By engaging in this thematic area, you will make progress towards learning how to…

 Demonstrate the ability to locate, interpret, and critically evaluate primary sources appropriate to field.
 Identify and apply appropriate methods to collect and organize data for analysis.
 Analyze and interpret the meaning of results.
 Produce dissemination appropriate to the field in order to share the results or impact of the research.
 Articulate the broader significance of the research project and its relationship to other fields, research and ideas.