Luis Garcia on advancing systemic change through design

IUPUI recognizes 50 graduate and professional students each year for their achievements in areas such as campus leadership, scholarly work, and community engagement.

The Elite 50 are the best of the best, embodying everything that distinguishes our campus. This year's honorees include Luis Garcia and Leena Dobouni, both of whom will graduate this spring. We are very proud of them and will feature their work in Q&As. 

Today we learn about Luis Garcia, a graduate student in Herron's visual communication design program and a Fulbright Scholar from Ecuador whose work focuses on human-centered design.

HERRON: How did you react when you learned you had been named to the 2021 Elite 50 list?

LUIS GARCIA: I was surprised! Needless to say, 2020 was an extremely challenging year, and 2021 has been no exception. When I learned that IUPUI included me in the Elite 50 list, I felt it was a nice reminder that I have something to offer and that I am moving forward regardless of the circumstances. Also, it was a great feeling to be on the same list as so many outstanding students, some of whom are friends from other disciplines whom I admire a lot.

HERRON: What is the driving force behind your work?

GARCIA: A true motivation to learn. When I came here, I was genuinely motivated to use every opportunity to learn, make mistakes, and deliver the best possible work. I like to see my work as an ongoing learning process that I hope to continue in the future, wherever that may be.

HERRON: How has the Fulbright Scholar Program helped you expand your knowledge in human-centered design?

GARCIA: The Fulbright experience has certainly been the most enjoyable part of my journey in the U.S. Meeting people from all over the world and from so many different disciplines and universities has been phenomenal. Also, having met people with varying ways of seeing and understanding the world (even when I disagreed with some) has helped me grow as a person, and it is something I will keep in mind for my professional and academic practice.

HERRON: How has human-centered design influenced your approach to achieving meaningful change?

GARCIA: Human-centered design is a way of building a better world if it is carried out with responsibility and a willingness to hear and work with those affected by today's problems. However, I think it is also important to consider that human-centered design also raises additional tensions because any design intervention creates other issues or affects other beings in our world.

Perhaps what I am most grateful for over the last few years is that I have engaged with other design communities, practitioners, and academics that have challenged my understanding of design and made me recognize that not everything we do is always positive. If I ever achieve meaningful change, I believe it will come from working with and for those who need it and promoting ongoing efforts rather than isolated, one-time design solutions.

HERRON: What has been your most rewarding design project to date, and how has it impacted your graduate experience?

GARCIA: My cohort worked on two major projects. During the first year, we aimed to understand people's experiences in public spaces in order to contribute to Indianapolis' ongoing efforts to build a world-class city. And, in the second year, we engaged with different stakeholders to determine how we could help increase public interest in health and wellness.

Both projects were rewarding because they allowed me to navigate an intricate "problem space." Each project presented challenges in terms of engaging with people and developing something that could genuinely contribute to ongoing efforts by city authorities or communities that deal with these situations on a daily basis. 

The projects made me reflect on how my expertise and knowledge can play a role in systemic challenges. It also demonstrated how difficult it could be to engage and hear from the people who are the most affected by the issues we were studying. In the future, I hope to be able to work more closely with those who don't always have the opportunity to speak or be heard. 

HERRON: This spring, we understand you will be presenting at the 17th Annual Bringle and Hatcher Civic Engagement Showcase. Tell us more about this and what it means for you.

GARCIA: Yes! I will be presenting alongside [IUPUI faculty members] David Craig and Pamela Napier, and [fellow Herron graduate student] Amrita Datta. The project, "A New HIP Public," aimed to increase public interest in the health of low-income Hoosiers as well as the shared responsibility of supporting continuous health coverage.

"A New HIP Public" is a community-engaged project selected for the 2020 Charles R. Bantz Community Fellowship. "HIP" is the acronym for the Healthy Indiana Plan, Indiana's Medicaid expansion program that provides Medicaid coverage to low-income Hoosiers. This research project was conducted to engage members of the urban Indianapolis communities and document their attitudes and experiences with the Healthy Indiana Plan.

The project was an exciting opportunity to show how designers can contribute to the community by understanding people's experiences and envisioning a preferable future. As designers, it is sometimes challenging to show how we can go above and beyond what is expected of our profession. I believe opportunities like this help to position our discipline as a positive contributor to society.

HERRON: Tell us a little about your thesis project. What is the topic of your research, and what do you hope to achieve?

GARCIA: I am researching the designer's role in Latin American public sector innovation labs (PSI labs). These units are characterized by a direct connection to the public sector and were created to tackle complex public/social problems that more traditional governmental structures fail to resolve. I wanted to delve deeper into this topic and the work of designers in proposing ways to experiment with and reform the way governments operate.

By the end of this project, I hope to have achieved something similar to a learning tool for both designers and public servants that will allow them to inform each other's work in PSI labs. I also hope to outline the challenges and opportunities for designers who want to get involved. 

Of course, due to the nature of a master's thesis project, I will not cover everything that this topic should cover, but I hope to lay the groundwork for a more profound investigation in the future during a Ph.D. I'd like to thank Pamela Napier and Sofia Bosch Gomez for being excellent guides throughout this journey. 

HERRON: You are a part of the Emerging Scholar of College Instruction Program, which offers three semesters of training to IUPUI students in preparation for college-level teaching. How has this program helped prepare you for what comes next? 

GARCIA: I've always appreciated instructors who truly care about their role in the classroom. The teachers I remember the most are the ones who had clear goals and provided a high-quality learning experience. Sadly, this does not always occur, and as someone who aspires to be a professor one day, it was important for me to learn how to be better prepared for the challenges of teaching.

The program has enabled me to develop and practice disciplinary evidence-based teaching strategies that foster students' learning, to continually reflect on my teaching through peer discussions, to construct a teaching philosophy, and to learn from a great group of graduate students from different disciplines at IUPUI. I have to thank both Jessica Alexander and Anusha Rao from the Center for Teaching and Learning for running such a fantastic program.

I love the university environment and that it allows you to be a professional student. I think I have a lot of things to put into practice as a result of what I learned in this program and at Herron.

HERRON: What was the most influential class or professor for you?

GARCIA: I think every professor I had at Herron and IUPUI contributed to my growth in some way. I appreciate what I learned, and the feedback provided by Brandon Cockrum and Bryan Richards during the Design Methods for Framing Problems and Ideating courses. I also enjoyed working with Youngbok Hong during my first year in the Collaborative Action Research in Design course, which is the core of the MFA program. It was one of the most challenging experiences I had as a student, but it taught me how to navigate ambiguity during a design research project. 

I also took two classes at the Paul O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI with Dr. Marlene Walk and Dr. Cullen Merritt, both of which I enjoyed, owing to their genuine passion for teaching.