What does being a designer mean and how did we get here? We have all witnessed or experienced varying levels of awareness and value placed on design as a practice from other disciplines, both in institutional education and professional industries. These experiences have highlighted a lack of literacy about the true potential and impact of design beyond the conventional aesthetic or craft of design.

We invite you to think through the following questions with us:

• What has contributed to the public perception (students and/or other professionals' ideas) of what design is, and how it contributes to the world? How has that impacted design education and/or students' perception as they pursue design?

• “Design Thinking” Controversy:  Has design thinking helped or hurted design as a practice?

• What responsibility does design as a discipline, or designers as professionals,  have towards demystifying design and advocating for increasing design literacy among students and or other interdisciplinary professionals?

• Future design education: How can design help design? If you would like to name one or two skills / knowledge / abilities that near-future design practitioners should hold, what would they be?