Leveraging Multiculturality
Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has a 23 percent international student population meaning that multicultural experiences are constantly taking place in different classes, programs and buildings. The community within Gulfstream Center for Design, as part of SCAD, presents similar conditions with a 26 percent of international students. A focused look into how multiculturality is present at Gulfstream can, therefore, provide different options on how to addressit.
Research
Secondary Research Ecosystem Map
Primary Research
"My biggest frustration is probably when people don’t appreciate or don’t take the time to appreciate other cultures. I have probably more difficulty with people who have blinders or don’t wish to spend energy understanding other cultures."
The initial research question was confirmed by the primary research results. However, the approach to generate successful work across cultures was changed. Instead of using the individual’s own culture as a tool, the final solution uses understanding cultures within a group as means to bring people together and break stereotypes.
Synthesis
Mapping Insights
The findings-at-a-glance map was created to visualize and synthesize all the insights gathered from the different primary research methods. In this visualization various factors that impact the learning process positively, negatively and situationally aremapped in order to determine their overall effect on the multicultural team work experience at Gulfstream. The sizes of the circles denote the quantity of insights gathered from primary data.
Since many opportunities were realized through the research matrix, the design team decided to refine them by mapping their positive and negative impact on the Gulfstream community and their relevance to the umbrella research question. The map below was created to visualize the impact ofthe opportunities on the Gulfstream community on a scale of short to long term. In this visualization various opportunities are mapped in order to determine their positive and negative impact on the multicultural team work at Gulfstream.
Prototyping and Testing
Final Solution
Team Up
Team Up
Team Up evolved after examining numerous ideas, developing a series of prototypes and testing with stakeholders at Gulfstream. Team Up leverages multicultural experience at Gulfstream by:
Providing an opportunity to discover more about individual cultures present at Gulfstream.
Creating a premise to discover more about individual personalities and behaviors.
Providing a medium to break the ice in a new team or group working together for the first time.
Breaking the stereotype images of people from different cultural backgrounds and discovering things beyond the obvious.
