About D.J.

Right Now

Location:

I am privileged to live in the East Price Hill neighborhood on Cincinnati, Ohio’s West Side, with my lovely wife Megan, two street cats named Lady Legume (girl cat) and Taylor Swift (boy cat), and ten chickens: Loki x 4, Penny, Dolly, Buckeye, Chip, Snowball, and Richard the Rooster.

Professional title:

I am an Assistant Professor of Communication Design at the University of Cincinnati’s Ullman School of Design in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

What do you do?

I primarily teach typography, design research methods, and an introduction to design lecture. My research/practice revolves around the question, “How might we use design to connect people to their local ecologies?”

I also garden extensively in my yard and local community garden and hike wherever there are trails. Lately, I've enjoyed sitting under an Oak tree in the woods near my house.

Why?

I love teaching because college was one of the first places I experienced a dramatic transformation in myself. It’s a great honor to be near students as they experience something similar.

I love neighborhoods, and while work in them moves slowly, it’s achievable. I agree with Seth D. Kaplan that positive neighborhood changes have ripple effects beyond their boundaries. I dream of blocks and streets where neighbors volunteer their gifts for the better of the people around them.

Gardening helps me stay sane. “They” say that being outdoors, nearer to the earth, helps subdue anxiety and other mental health issues. I’m still anxious, but I trust it’d be worse without time in the dirt.

What am I reading/watching/listening to?

📚

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Braiding Sweetgrass
This Day (Poems of Wendell Berry)

🎥

The Penguin
Slow Horses
Bad Monkey

🎧

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

D.J.'s Teaching Philosophy

At the core of my teaching philosophy is the belief that teaching and learning are interdependent. The primary reason I pursue teaching is to be a student for life. My experience in the classroom reveals that I learn best when I share concepts and methods in exchange with other learners, be they students or fellow instructors.

The early days of the pandemic most vividly revealed what my values look like in action. When everything shifted drastically in the spring of 2020, I wrote the following five adaptable precepts from reflections. I was in the middle of teaching Design Methodologies III then and will share stories and examples formed during that class.

(1) Invite a range of under-tapped perspectives in design and beyond. 

The class, including myself, needed to hear stories about people facing unexpected life events with resilience. So, I invited a cross-disciplinary and cross-generational lineup to share during our final weeks of class. We heard from two designers, a poet, a jazz musician, and a thanatologist (one who studies death). They offered a panoramic view of design’s role in uncertainty, including creativity’s potential in crisis and adapting one’s internal purpose in ever-changing circumstances. Students face rapid and fluid careers ahead of them. This reality exists inside or outside of pandemic conditions. They need multiple pathways and possibilities – an expanded view of what it means to be a communication designer.

(2) Share opportunities to shape the classroom with students. 

Students spearheaded the dialogues mentioned above by researching and writing questions for each guest, leading the conversations in directions that mattered to them most. It can often feel automatic to structure a course solely around my vision. However, every time I invite co-creation, I see more students being formed in more significant ways. I see this play out time and time again. 

(3) Explore a variety of design, communication, and teaching tools. 

At the beginning of the semester, I set the course up with Slack, making communication faster and more direct than email. I also had the students write weekly reflections through a class Medium publication to keep up with each other’s processes and share their own in real time. Additionally, this platform allows a public presentation of students’ design thinking for future employers or admissions people to view. Because of these two tools, we were already operating in a hybrid format. Beyond preparation for a cataclysmic earth-wide event, staying current on knowledge, skills, and tools helps me build stronger connections with the students, meeting them in the most desirable context. 

(4) Care for each student as they grow to care for the work.

Priorities transformed after the lockdown. If it was not apparent, the pandemic revealed that students’ identities are rooted in more than their design work. While some students still sought succinct, constructive feedback, others needed a warm reminder of their agency to make decisions. Students’ needs are unique. Thus, I must do my utmost to personalize my approach to each student, caring for them first as a human being and second as a designer. 

(5) Create reflective spaces for both instructor and students. 

Our class met on Zoom for an impromptu graduation ceremony – we invited friends and family. I delivered an unofficial digital diploma and words of encouragement to each student. Some wore a cap and gown; I wore a suit and bow tie. It was as magical as online graduation could be. I believe that reflection times are vital to our student's development. Though not as grand as graduation, I create moments to pause throughout the semester for students to reflect on what they have learned and accomplished. They are helpful to me, too, as an instructor and fellow learner.

In summary, my values contribute to an elastic pedagogy. I strive for the most effective pathway for all students to meet their learning objectives. I perceive teaching and learning as a symbiotic relationship, mutually benefiting from each other.