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Dignity Dialogues
Dignity Dialogues serves as an extension of the learning that happens both inside and outside of our school walls at Beaver Country Day School, allowing community members and outside experts to share their experiences, stories, and personhood.
By sharing the beauty and diversity of human experience, this podcast delves into the power of empathy, listening, patience, and openness as tools to honor and amplify the value of each member of our Beaver community and beyond.
Dignity Dialogues
Designing Social Change: Cultivating Change-makers and the Future of Design with Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel
On this episode of Dignity Dialogues, we're thrilled to welcome Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel, the brilliant author of "Design Social Change." Listen as we delve into her impactful work, from her roots in Trinidad and Tobago to being the second Black woman as the Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art & Design University in Toronto, Canada.
Dr. Noel's journey is a testament to the transformative power of design in shaping identity and belonging. Through our conversation, she shares how her experiences have molded her understanding of identity and the importance of representation and leadership, particularly within academic circles.
As we explore the nuances of multiculturalism, Dr. Noel provides a compelling comparison of Canada's "tossed salad" approach to the U.S.'s "melting pot" mentality. Through this lens, drawing inspiration from Paulo Freire's concept of critical consciousness, we dive into Dr. Noel's concept of critical awareness as an ability to recognize the issues around us and act to impact positive social change
Emotions play a crucial role in our dialogue, highlighting the balance of anger and joy in driving social change. We emphasize the power of imagination in envisioning equitable futures and the vital role of empathy in design.
Discover stories of young changemakers using agriculture as a platform for broader social impact. These stories showcase the potential of food to catalyze climate justice and healthier living. Join us on this inspiring journey as we celebrate the agency of youth and the transformative potential of design in crafting a more just society.
MORE ABOUT DR. LESLEY-ANN NOEL
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel is a designer, researcher, and educator. Her research interests focus on those traditionally excluded from research, design-based learning, and design thinking. She practices primarily in social innovation, entrepreneurship, education,n and public health. In her research, she highlights the work of designers outside Europe and North America.
She is the co-founder and co-chair of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society. She is the author of Design Social Change and a co-editor of The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression and Reflection.
Dr. Noel has a BA in Industrial Design from the Universidade Federal do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil, and an MBA from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. She earned her Ph.D. in Design from North Carolina State University, where she was most recently a faculty member focusing on Design Studies in the Department of Media Arts, Design and Technology.
She has been awarded honorary doctorates for service to the design field by the University of the Arts London (2023) and the Pacific Northwest College of Art (2021).
Source: https://www.ocadu.ca/news/dr-lesley-ann-noel-joins-ocad-u-new-dean-faculty-design
All righty. Welcome to this episode of Dignity Dialogues. Today we have Dr Lesley- Ann Noel with us here. Welcome, welcome.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Thank you for this warm invitation to join.
Delonte:I'm so excited to have you here. I feel like today is yet another moment in my life. We're here to talk about your book. We're here to talk about in my life. We're going to talk about your book. We're going to talk about HackFact. We're going to talk about how your work has influenced our work here at Beaver Country Day School as it pertains to our belonging initiative that I co-leave my colleagues. But I want to share how this book, design Social Change, came into my life, which you are the author of.
Delonte:I was originally reading Designing for Belonging, which is part of the Stanford DSchool series, and then I was going through the series and I listened to a lot of audio books and I came across your book and then the way I read it actually I listened to it on Audible and your voice captured me, and I was on the flight back to DC, back to home, actually, and I was like I am in church right now I'm on this plane about to get up Because it was so affirmational, it was so good, it was so like, yes, this is the work that I want to be doing as a professional and as just as a person. And so, before we dive into any more. I want to ask you how do you identify? Tell us about yourself and who you are as a person.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Okay, so that could be a very long conversation. I talk a lot about positionality and thinking about who we are in position to the world and the work that we do. So I am a Black woman from the Caribbean. I'm from Trinidad and Spago in the Caribbean, and I could even get more granular than that and say I'm from DeRomance. People in Toronto would get that I think of myself as a clueless, which may be a grand kind of way of thinking about the world, but I am from the Caribbean. I studied in Latin America, I did undergrad in Brazil, I've worked in East Africa, lived in the United States for nine years and I just moved to Canada. So that's a kind of complicated thing, but it means that I've actually had to change. Or it's not that I've changed identity, but the way I show up in the world has changed in the different places that I've lived, comfortable with the fluidity of our identities.
Delonte:Yes, I love that. I love that I spent some time abroad a lot in America myself. As a college student. I studied abroad in Argentina. I just completed my master's in Spain. I went to a summer program in Costa Rica, so I definitely get it right. The way in which I show up depends upon the context in which I'm in, and I think especially being a Black American trying to search that freedom right or coming across that freedom and the liberation of being able to understand how our enemies can be through it in many places across the world is liberating. It's exciting. You get to kind of play with who you are and the differences we don't oftentimes get here in the US, and so I want to also talk about why you're in Canada now for exciting professional experience. We'll get to that in a moment.
Delonte:This is Dignity Dialogues, and so I want to ground this in thinking about two particular things. Can you share a time, tell a story in which you felt your dignity was stripped? What emotions did you feel and what were those lasting effects on you? And then, conversely, with whom slash? Where do you feel the most dignified? Let's start off with that story of when you felt you genuinely were stripped as an individual, as a person.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:So, as somebody who travels a lot, who has changed country, you know, changed country of residence quite a few times, I think that there is something in the immigration process. Something in the immigration process I mean, you know, at borders, at airports, at you know different places where you have to confront immigration officials I think that there is something about that experience that can sometimes strip your dignity, maybe, depending on what your identity is or how strong and quotes your passport is. You know, even today, as a middle class, maybe upper middle class, um person with a phd and what you know, I, I still feel uncomfortable sometimes going through immigration gates, right, and and I think that these scenarios or these cases are designed to sometimes strip our dignity, right, you know, I've had innovation officers ask me all kinds of questions, right, and I think that that's yeah, that's one place where I I think that there could be some service design work that make people go through that process in a less undignified way.
Delonte:And what were those? So let's walk kind of in that, take us back to that moment. What are some emotions that you felt going through that immigration process?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Sometimes, with the questioning and I mean it's been, it's happened at different times in my life right when, somehow, the way the immigration official asks me about why are you here, there's something about that question that sometimes strips away, you know, strips away my confidence, strips away my sense of identity, sense of self, you know, because what do you mean? Why am I here? I'm here because I'm a person and I'm, you know, I have something to share with the world. And why are you asking me this question? Sometimes that's how I've felt, and very often they're just doing their jobs, but there's that interrogation of who are you and why you're here. You kind of explain yourself that I think can be undignified. You know the process.
Delonte:You mentioned two things there. You mentioned well that that key question of understanding who am I as a person. You say that is a really that's kind of the impetus of this work, the starting point of design, social change. I think the way I can connect with the second piece there is like why are you here? I can say for myself. I think to me it might be kind of like that I'm going to take a leap here, but it might be some.
Delonte:How do we grapple with that internalized self-talk? My example, I would say, is when I am in a Spanish speaking country, I speak fluid Spanish. Is when I am in a Spanish-speaking country, I speak fluent Spanish. But when people ask me, why do you speak Spanish so well their intention, right, is not their intention, it's a compliment they say wow, I'm really surprised that you're able to do that. However, I think with my racialized American identity, it is do you not believe that a Black person is competent enough to learn this language? And so it's like it's that grappling right with ourselves and trying to understand. Are they asking what is the intention of it? And then, why am I receiving that message? What is it doing within me to kind of trigger that phase and I'm like, oh, it's a fill rate to me.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Exactly so, like in my last years in the United States, I had something called an O visa. Now an O visa is considered a genius visa. In quotes that's what people say. You know people call it a genius visa. And even with that O visa, when the immigration officer would ask me, what are you doing here? I would feel self-conscious, the same way I did when I had a B1, you know, a student visa. You know the same way. And I remember one interaction where really the immigration officer was very respectful and says oh, really you're a university professor. But I was remembering all of those other interactions from earlier on and still carrying around maybe my own fear from back then what am I really doing here? You know, it's so. It's our own sometimes things in our own heads that that are sometimes playing some games with us. You know, like, like you probably think people are asking well, why does he really speak spanish?
Delonte:um, my thing is like am I am? Do I not have the capacity at something we all do? Right, we all do. People speak four or five, six, seven languages as polygons. But why is it that you're asking me that question? I have and not somebody else yeah, is it because how I look right? Is it because what you presume of me to be by looking at me? We could spend all day on that.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:No, we could. We could actually spend all day on languages as well. I'm going to take you off track just a little bit, because I think I have interesting conversations with people who speak different languages about who are they in each language, because I'm sure, without you telling me, that you are a very different person in spanish than you are in english, right, because everyone I speak with in languages says actually, in each language they have a different personality.
Delonte:So and I'm sure there's some research behind that. I think that the language of spanish is much more rich in vocabulary that is able to explain and give life to emotions through idioms, through sayings, through words, right, if you think about the impact of colonization and how language has shifted throughout the world. Right, I might be incorrect, but I do know this that Spanish is more widely spoken than English across the globe. And thinking about the number of countries in which Spanish is actually spoken, the different variants, the dialects of such, and so there's so many ways to say one thing, right, I actually often communicate in English, and so I love the diversity within the Spanish language to communicate myself that I can't often find, sometimes, in English. It's just, it's fascinating, right, especially as a second language learner.
Delonte:It was a challenge of like hmm, how can I say this in five different ways? Exciting, exciting, and I find myself to be a little bit more emotive and joyful, I might say, when speaking Spanish. I want to shift this now back to where and with whom do you feel most dignified? Where is your value, your worth? Are they amplified as a human?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:I had thought about it when you asked me the first time.
Delonte:I gave you time to think about it.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:You did give me time to think about it. Where do I feel most dignified? I guess at home in Trinidad, where I don't have to explain. Well, there are different places where I don't have to explain myself a lot. You know, I don't have to explain who I am, why I speak their language, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right. So I think definitely in Trinidad, in Port of Spain, I feel most comfortable, most dignified, and it is related to me not having to really explain myself. I can just be Press, do yes.
Delonte:Yes.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Whereas in a lot of places I have to just give a lot of, I have to explain why I'm there, and you know so I've lived in and out of my home country many different times. You know, I live in Trinidad for some time, I leave for some time, and I remember somebody asking me once well, why are you coming back home? At one point, when I was coming home, and they said, why are you coming back home? And I said I don't have to explain that. Home is home, right, and that's so. I think, yeah, where do I feel most dignified? It is in Port of Spain, trinidad. I might even be more specific and say around, when I'm walking around the savannah in Trinidad. Yeah, in the evening, just having a good time.
Delonte:Where you can just be.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:I can just be. No explanations needed yeah.
Delonte:I want to shift this now into your professional journey and I think it's so important to like highlight this major accomplishment of yours You're the second Black Dean of a design faculty, not just in Canada, but in the world.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Is that something? Well, I mean, I don't mean, it's not something for me specifically, but it's big. And then I also am surprised. I'm like okay, we're in 2025, how could I only be the second? But yes, it is what I thought.
Delonte:You're at the Ontario College of Art and Design, which is Canada's oldest and largest art and design education institution, and your predecessor, dr Elizabeth Tunstall, also paved the way for you, as well as the first, and so there's two Black women occupying this post. I think that's major Like to me. It's like it raises the ceiling of possibility and we'll get to the point of imagination, right, but it makes it that much. It stretches the imagination of what's possible in one's professional career, particularly in the space of academia, where you're like, hmm, is this a possibility for me? But it is, and you made it.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:It is. It is definitely, you know, and I really thank Dory, dr Dory Tunstall, for the work that she did ahead of me. I thank other Black leaders in academia, you know, for making us know that it is possible. And then I will definitely say that OCAD and Toronto are Toronto, as local people say really special places where things like this are possible.
Delonte:So I'm happy. So I'm a leader here at Beaver and you might call it work of equity here and I think that Canada provides a great example. There's a lot of work to be done, but I think Canada's a little bit ahead of the curve here in the States. What do we have to learn from Canada's approach? You might see it kind of your own local work as a dean of faculty, but or maybe countrywide. What can we adapt and adopt?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:from Canada's approach to this work people talk about their identity in Canada is that many Canadians have hyphenated identities and don't feel the pressure to give up the first part of the hyphenation. So they'll say I'm Caribbean-Canadian, I'm Jamaican-Canadian. Sometimes they'll even say I'm Jamaican and then when I ask, well, where were you born? Say oh, I was born in Toronto. I'm like, okay, so you're not actually Jamaican.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:But you know, I think that there is such a richness of identity in every single space in Toronto and people aren't pressured to give up that identity and that's I think that is different to the way that diversity initiatives happen in the States.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Right, and when I was doing multicultural education, I actually did a few courses in multicultural teaching when I was in the United States and I remember we discussed that Canada is like a salad, tossed salad, and America is more of a melting pot, and I think that there's a lot of benefit to that tossed salad approach, where we do get to keep our identities right. One other thing I would say that I have learned or seen in the approach here in Canada that is different to what I saw in the United States is the reflectiveness all the time and this response I'll have to say. I don't know if it is specifically where I am at OCAD or if this is Toronto or Canada in general, where people are always reflecting on consequences, always reflecting on consequences on impact on the way that they show up in spaces, in a way that I really hadn't seen in some of the other spaces that I to approach in our work.
Delonte:I want to really get into the crux as to why we're going to talk about design, social change and how that relates to our work here at Beaver and beyond at Hackback. I think this is a guide that really informs us all. It's very easy to read and you really break it down. Here is a step that you can do in your practice with people. You start off the book by saying knowing who I am informs what I want to change. Why does that matter? Like it's a big duh? Obviously right, but how does knowing who you are inform that next step? To say, huh, I see this and I want to make an impact on it.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Yeah. So it's like if you could start to really identify where do systems not work for you, where do systems not support you? You know, I'll even go back in a second to that immigration example, right, if you can start to see the things that don't work in systems, you could start to figure out where you want to break things down and then, I mean, you could take that how you want. You know, if it's break things down in a revolutionary way, if it's break things down and break things apart to understand them better. But you know, like I have thought about, I've lost.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:I think I've lived in four or five different countries. So I think a lot about immigration systems, right. And so I know, you know, if I think about who I am, I am a person who changes place of residence, who has changed place of residence fairly often. I've seen these systems not work for me as someone who is kind of migratory, and so that helps me to know that I know that that needs to change. You know, I'm not going to go into any country and say, oh, everything is fantastic around your immigration system, because I know of my own experience in these systems and I know that there might be challenges there.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Right, if you think about who you are as a Black man, or, you know, as a Black person, that's going to make you look at systems in a particular way, and it really I'm asking people to start to think about things that might not have been designed for us and think about where some change might be needed. Right, because I do want people to sometimes disrupt the status quo, right, not think that, oh, everything is hunky-dory, it's, you know, it was perfect and they could just stay the way that they are. And thinking of yourself and your own experience as one lens to help you interrupt the status quo. It's not the only lens you know you could think about, it doesn't even have to be yourself that you're using as the lens, but you know, it's that thing of you starting to see the systems around you and how they serve the people, or just designs in general, and how they serve people around you. So that's that's the idea of knowing ourselves.
Delonte:We're going to give some language to it. You call that being a city critical awareness.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:You should know my own language, but actually I should say not even only my language. You know, this is the language of Paulo Freire. Right, being as critical yes, critical consciousness and building a critical awareness of the world. Right, and so, really, in the book, in the classes that I teach, I'm asking people to see the world around them and ask questions of this world. You know, don't just take the world at face value and know that we play a role in this world, Creating it. Yes, we create it, we impact the world, right, and we kind of we shake things up just by being so. We have to see this world to know how we want to shape it.
Delonte:I think that gives such life to what we try to do here at Beaver. We have a research and design center, and so we'll focus on the design piece right now, like we're teaching young people how to be designers. I would say one can you give us a brief, short definition? What does it mean to be a designer? What is this field of design? You think about it right. We're talking about interior design. No, probably not this build and design. What does that mean?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:So you know okay, no-transcript a vague definition of what we do as designers. That actually could be applied to everything, and I believe it was said by Herbert Simon where we are trying to get to desired futures, that's really what we're trying to do as designers. So all designers are futurists, right? Where we are thinking about what exists and we're imagining a desired something, right? So I mean, even if it's that you're designing a chair, you're thinking of what is you know, what does the person have to do, and all of that. Then you're imagining the desired state of where you want them to sit.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:If you're designing a law, it's the same thing. If you're designing a program, if you're designing fashion, it's always the same thing. That we're kind of projecting into the future about the desired states, a preferred state, in the context of the problem that we're looking at. And so some people get very specific about what do we do as designers. Are you a graphic designer? Are you an industrial designer? Are you? And then other people are actually really broad and like me and you say that you are a designer in that you are trying to get to these preferred states and you can design anything, because it's about you being critical enough to see what are the problems in a current state, and then you just being able to project what you think this desired future is. And then you just being able to project what you think this desired future is, and then you design whatever is needed to get to that desired state.
Delonte:So let's apply this to what we do here at Beaver right, I would say, for our students is teaching them that skill right. Maybe see the issues around them and say how can you design X thing as it pertains to the belonging initiative? Here at Beaver Country Day School, we've adopted your process for designing social change, so one framing the issue, understanding the issue, having empathy with others, planning the work, generating ideas, testing your ideas and reflecting, and I think you might lay it out on paper, right, but it actually kind of all happens. It's actually a really messy process. It doesn't happen, step one through five. You go back and forth in trying to figure it out, and I'm really excited to have applied this to our knowledge because we're trying to figure out. How do we design a community in which all people can thrive, right? How do we design, I would say, a dignified community even, in which faculty and staff and students like they can show up as their best selves and their dignity will be amplified and honored here at school? That's a hard task.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:It is a hard task. I mean, I love that you can talk about the steps. I mean, yes, I put the steps in the book. You know, there are these organized steps that we have to follow to get there. What you may not have realized is also that the three big sections of the book are like almost another way of of looking at the process, where the first big section yeah, yeah, so the book is is recipes right, recipes and that's a big metaphor in there right cooking yes, cooking, yes, cooking it up, cooking it to that, no, but, but no but.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:the first set of recipes are about building the critical awareness. You know, seeing the world around you, and you could think of that as understanding the problem, framing the issue All of that is us building the critical awareness. The second is about emotional intelligence, right, understanding that you don't actually do this work by yourself, right? So it could be. It's not actually there in the design process explicitly, but it could be about forming your teams, it could be about feedback, it could be. You know, it's really about bringing our emotions into the process.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:And then the last section is about imagining equitable futures. I guess that's not the end of the process, you know, in a design process, maybe that's in the middle, but it is about dreaming about what could be possible, what is possible, and so these are like the big messages that I'm asking people to remember from the book. You know, what's the world around us that you can see, who you're going to work with, right? And then what's this future that you're going to dream about? And I want to encourage people to challenge themselves and challenge other people, to dream big. You know, dream of futures that maybe people don't expect us to have. They don't expect you to be speaking Spanish, they don't expect me to have a PhD, right, you know we can, we could dream about these big things and we can talk about these big things and get other people on board our journey with us.
Delonte:And that ties so beautifully into our theme of HackBAC this year, which is change makers, and we talked on our last episode with Dr Liza Talusan about how her work of building skills right and moving to action also informs the theory. I would say your work of building critical awareness right, seeing the issues around you, and I would say what we want to really impart on young people is when, recognizing their agency right, you can see the issues, but you as a young person actually can make impact, change world change right and, most importantly, for positive social impact. Yes, um, as you think about that theme of change makers because you'll be speaking to our, to our youth in a couple weeks what are some examples of youth acting as change makers in the world that you've come across in your own work?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:So I, you know, strangely I meet a lot of young people doing exciting things in agriculture. I think the most interesting work I've found recently is there's a guy, a young guy in Trinidad called Xenon, and he has a whole initiative about bringing young people into agriculture. So he has a youth project where he created like a superhero farmer and he goes to schools and tells people stories about, you know just the excitement of agriculture and you know he has a whole lot of initiatives about that. And then recently I met a young Nigerian futurist I'll find the name for you to put in there A young woman who's a futurist.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:And conversation around food and growing your own food and understanding agriculture and food as viable places for you to thrive, that people didn't think about before.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:And so I think that these young people are making a change by getting people into an industry that was never seen as exciting, right, they're getting people to change their cultures around food, so they're getting people away from fast food and you know, and then even getting people into activity through the actual making of food, you know, and really promoting healthy lifestyles. So I'm excited they're drawing me more and more into food and agriculture. But I think the most exciting work that I've seen recently about change making has been there, because food affects everything, so they're able to talk about climate justice and climate change and healthy lifestyles and so many things through the work that they're doing with food. And these are really young people in their 20s who are taking on these projects. I'll find the links for you so that you could share them with your audience. But you know it's young people can change the way that we think about a lot of things. Right, and so those were just like two brief little examples.
Delonte:I'm really excited for you to come back. I keep I really because it gives I think you're an example, right. I think part of it is to talk about it and then actually show someone, like I say, go back to that, to that piece of being the exemplar, being the second black dean of of design the world like it raises the glass ceiling of what's possible. I mean particularly for our youth, right, showing them a roadmap of how to do this. I want to make that link now to you talked about it earlier right Part of this recipe. You implore us to deepen our emotional intelligence and empathy you talk about is part of the core of that and empathy is one of these core dispositions of dignity. What role does empathy? It might sound intuitive, but role, what was empathy play in design? I would say what, what might the limits of it be right and how does it you've mentioned inform the team we create and then tap into the experience of that design team.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Yeah, so empathy is really important because we have to be able to understand and I'm treading carefully as I say it, because empathy is challenging as well right, so we have to try to understand the experience of people who are experiencing phenomenon X, right? So if we are designing for people who are unhoused, for example, we have to be empathetic to their needs as we design the work. Right, and we can't do good design without trying to get to that place of understanding the context, that people's needs and all that. Where it's problematic is that there are, in fact, limits to what we can, how much we can feel for other people, and and so actually in the design wheel, there's always a lot of discussion about what are the limits of empathy, and different designers have tried to figure out ways of working around these limits, working past these limits. So one way of dealing with this is of really getting closer to the people who are experiencing the phenomenon and either designing with them um, sometimes handing over Co-design, co-design, right Sometimes completely handing over the design process, so that they are designing and maybe the designer is outside of the process. But you know, if I've never been unhoused, so maybe I'm not the designer who can design a home, a shelter for people who are homeless, right?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:However, I actually have worked on a project where we designed with people who were unhoused and then we got to a different kind of design outcome and then they you know, there's the other experience that we did where we designed some, we designed some solutions, and then they gave us feedback on the solutions that we did, because we can't sit by ourselves and come up with magical things for other people, right?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:So you know, like even um, part of that recipe of, uh, deepening our emotional intelligence is also about knowing that we don't do things in isolation. We have to form connections with other people, deep connections and relationships with other people to move through the world. We don't change out the world by ourselves. You have to change the world with other people. We need other people on this journey with us, and so empathy also allows us to work with the other people. We often only think about the empathy for the person we are designing for, but there's empathy for the people that we're working with and understanding that these relationships are really important, and these relationships are sometimes difficult and we can just kind of continuously work on them to get to the things that we need.
Delonte:On the tip of difficult, you know maybe, relationships sometimes. I love this quote that helps talk about more broadly about emotions. And you say emotions also make it easier to communicate and bond with others. When we don't bring our emotions into the design process, we miss vital information about the world around us. We miss cues that can lead us to make better decisions. Emotions are always present in our work and we should get good at working with them. And you go on to talk about the emotions of actually anger and joy and juxtapose them right About joy being this antidote. We call it the anger but, curiously enough, like what role does anger possibly play? You know this thing about kind of that negative emotion. What role does anger play in trying to recognize that and how does joy serve as an antidote to that?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Yeah, so I've spoken so much about anger. That's the thing that people have reacted to so much in this book. Anger is actually really important, you know, especially if you want to change the world. Right, you have to figure out what are the things that have made people angry, and then how do we respond to them, you know, so we don't cover over people's anger, right, we try to see. Can we respond to the? I'll use a design, but I mean we respond to the pain points'll use a design, but you can maybe respond to the pain point that caused the anger. So it's like if the anger is kind of shining a light on where the real issue is, you know, or can we dig deep and find the root of the anger and then again the thing that we have to respond to, rather than just saying, oh my God, these people are always angry.
Delonte:So the anger I'm hearing the anger illuminates where a possible solution could be.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Yes, I need to have you as a ghost writer, so that's that. But the anger illuminates the issue. And then the other thing that I talk about is anger is also the fuel, right? So the thing that makes us angry also, that thing could be actually pushing us to do more, right? So when we get so angry about an issue, you know you say, oh my god, I came home and I was so angry. Sometimes that's the fuel that we need. You know, we want to change the world. Let's take that angry energy and continue to do something. Right, say, I'm gonna actually write to explicit and I don't know, start a petition. I'm gonna design something. You know that we can use that as a fuel to get us going to make the change that we want, and then enjoy, oh okay, yeah, I was gonna say I think that that's a that is a good message to young people of like how do you res reshape right?
Delonte:How do you repurpose to your point that energy and use it in a positive way once again to impact the change you want to see?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Yes, yes. And then the joy, I think, is to create balance, because we can't just be angry all the time. You know we'll burn out, right. We have to find these moments. We have to find joy in this life around us, find joy in the relationships that we have with people, and that kind of that can sustain us, that can help us carry through, that can help the movements to make social change. Even I'll use more food language, make it juicier, right, because we need that joy to sustain us as well.
Delonte:I want to end this on this piece. And you talk about using critical utopia, utopian action, research as a method that you used to adopt to your work and to spark conversations around social change. And you say I love this, oh it's so rich. A focus on utopia opens up the frame around social change. And you say, and I love this, oh it's so rich. A focus on utopia opens up the frame for people to dream and imagine without the constraints of the current times. And let's focus on that word imagine. It's a kind of powerful word, right Like the power of imagination helps us design new worlds and new features we didn't think was possible at once, and so I'm curious to hear from you. To end this off on a note, how do we employ this imagination, how do we employ this um, you might say utopic mindset to imagine a more just world?
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:we have to get people to move beyond thinking of what exists or what's possible, because sometimes they have to remember what exists and what we think is possible is tied to old realities, right, and if we get them to imagine I really like to focus on equity right, and so if we imagine fairness and equity in the future and really kind of challenge, where some of the things that people have access to today and say, well, okay, what's an more equitable vision of this in the future, that I think create open spaces opens people's minds up a little bit.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:But the thing is that people have to remember that the world is malleable and that's why we have to imagine bigger and better and fairer to get people to move, and we have to even talk about these things that we're imagining a lot to make a lot of these ideas more mainstream and so that people are more comfortable with equitable ideas, right, equitable ideas, right, and, and so that you know we need to sometimes nudge people to dream bigger, because we all have the, the right to bigger and better and fairer, and you know, so let's, let's nudge people to get to those spaces let's do it.
Delonte:There's so much more to unpack. You might just have to schedule a part two to have you. I I'm really excited to have back this year happening a couple of weeks down in DC. I hope to bring you to Beaver actually in person know that your work is here right In the hallways and in spirit and in the space, but to bring you physically to speak with our faculty and staff about how do we design the community. I think so much of it is. I'll end on this piece about communities. Right, it's like you are also creating the community and are part of that that you want to see. So I'm going to say thank you and we'll see you soon.
Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel:Yes, thank you. Have a great day, take care. Bye-bye.