Who? What? Where? When? Why?

  • CompassionConverge is a student-led virtual design symposium that centers care, inclusion, and community in design education. Hosted in partnership with the AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC), this annual event invites students, educators, and practitioners to explore radical hospitality, share inclusive design practices, and imagine more compassionate futures for our field.

  • The AIGA Design Educators Community (DEC) seeks to enhance the abilities of design educators and educational institutions to prepare future designers for excellence in design practice, design theory and design writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels while supporting the fundamental mission of AIGA.

    AIGA is the profession’s oldest and largest professional membership organization for design—with more than 70 chapters and more than 15,000 members—it advances design as a professional craft, strategic advantage, and vital cultural force.

  • CompassionConverge is a virtual event! Anyone, anywhere, can be involved.

    It is designed intentionally as a virtual event to allow designers to show up as they are and extend an invitation to students, educators, and creatives on a global scale. As this event continues, the virtual setting will allow the reach to continue to grow! This also helps facilitate dialogue with a more diverse group of people and perspectives from a greater geographic area.

  • This event has taken place in April for both the first and second annual events in 2024 and 2025. In 2024, the event took place in one 6-hour session with intentional breaks and reflection built in. In 2025, we adapted the event to allow more attendance options for our participants. Our 2-hour sessions on April 24, 25, and 26 allowed attendees to participate without the stress of having to clear a schedule or attend every session.

  • CompassionConverge serves as an invitation to contribute to a greater discussion about the intersection of inclusivity and design. With a focus on education and collaboration, this event strives to build up the design community and allow every designer to find their belonging within the field.

    CompassionConverge explores the question: How might we discuss social change issues in a politicized professional environment?

The CompassionConverge Mission:

CompassionConverge is an invitation to discuss the intersections of inclusion and undergraduate research in design. We believe in the power of emerging designers to dismantle cycles of oppression and to build a community of inclusive practitioners. Our mission is to create compassionate convergence—a space for voices to be heard, concerns to be raised, and experiences with inclusion in design to be shared in an effort to learn from one another, collaborate and explore together, and envision the future through intentional reflection.

Presenting at the Project Proposal and Networking capstone class event!

Where It Began!

CompassionConverge began in 2024. After completing a design history course, I observed a lack of representation when text and materials focused on a Western, white, male perspective. I value education and wanted to make a difference in the learning experience of emerging graphic designers. I worked with a student one year above me, Lorena Ianiro. Together, we conducted informal interviews and explored what we felt was missing from the design curriculum. In doing so, CompassionConverge was born to explore the intersection of design, inclusivity, and education.

This event has served as a space to facilitate dialogue and collaboration on tough topics that influence design as a practice and the people entering the field. We created the event in a virtual format to allow many people to participate. We conducted research and invited speakers to share insight on topics we found important to emerging designers. CompassionConverge has, at its heart, a goal to create belonging and community within the design world. I invite you to take with you these core values and explore how inclusivity and compassion support your creative journey.

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You’re Invited!

As a co-host of CompassionConverge, we created a short video to introduce ourselves and the event. Through this video, we hoped to gather interest and encourage viewers to learn more about the event.

Collaboration and Dialogue!

When our team discovered the lack of representation in design history curriculum, we strove to create a space to bring together people authentically in order to create a shared learning space. This served as a way to learn from others! It was especially powerful having both students and faculty present to reimagine what an educational experience could be in the context of academia.

While knowingly addressing topics like identity, politics, inclusion, and more, we focused on creating dialogue rather than debate. We did this by creating open-ended prompts, facilitating guided discussion, and setting a clear understanding that participation in our event was not determined by us, the presenters, but rather by the person participating and how they needed to show up authentically to get the most out of the experience.

We utilized Miro as a collaborative space during our virtual event! I was so grateful to have been able to build out the space for our three-day event. I was mindful of space and organization for the different contents of each session, as well as being thoughtful of bringing the whole event together.

Research: Literature Review

  • Creative Hustle

  • Design For Belonging

  • Feminist Designer

  • Racism Untaught

  • Politics of Design

  • Design for Identity

Supporting the Event:

We were lucky enough to meet with the AIGA design educators committee prior to our event both in 2024 and 2025. As students, we were able to present our plans for the event, partner with the committee, and receive advice on next steps, including additional ideas of speakers to invite. This experience allowed us to share our research with others and helped shape CompassionConverge into a successful event. I am grateful to have had this partnership with AIGA DEC.

In researching for the event, I was reintroduced to different research strategies. I utilized methods triangulation as I conducted a literature review, auto-ethnography, and unstructured interviews. As a life-long-learner I hope to continue discovering new perspectives and learning from others beyond my time with CompassionConverge.

  • Meet The Hosts

  • Co-Host Ashleigh

  • Co-Host Stella

  • Keynote Speaker

  • Meet the Panelists

  • Panelist - Eileen

  • Panelist - Lorena

  • Panelist - Molly

  • Panelist - Constance

Social Media:

For our 2025 CompassionConverge, we created an Instagram account! This was an incident we had to pivot and were able to create something beautiful still! We created a social media plan and utilized the platform to introduce our audience to CompassionConverge, its hosts, and our amazing lineup of speakers.

Our social media allowed the team of small students to create content within our branding and explore different media types. To our team, it was important to share more than information, and we made an effort to share tips for showing yourself care as well as ways creatives could address creative burnout. This became a way to utilize creative writing and communicate outwardly beyond our speakers.

  • 3 Days Counting Down

  • 2 Days Counting Down

  • 1 Day Counting Down

  • You're Invited

  • Designer Approved

  • I'm A Speaker

  • Mindful Moments

  • Breathing Square

  • Brain Break

Spreading the Word:

Through our research, we found that invitation is important when building community and facilitating belonging. We discovered that interpersonal communication is most effective when sharing about an event and asking people to attend and collaborate. We attempted this at several points throughout the semester. I even handed out invites to students at Design It Forward Kentucky early during the Fall 2024 semester as an invitation to join our leadership team!

Our most impactful experience of personal invitation was at Sparkfest. This is an event hosted annually in the spring semester by the College of Creative Arts. CompassionConverge was the first organization this year to sign up to table at the event. We sold Letterpress postcards that I made in the Miami University Letterpress studio. We had an activity that asked people our reflection questions from the event itself. We also were able to hand out flyers and verbally share more information about the event.

Letterpress Postcards:

  • Care is a Creative Act

  • You Belong Here

  • Radical Joy is Resistance

  • Belonging is the Blueprint

  • Uplift Every Voice

Moving Forward!

My goal is to work in event planning or coordinating so I can continue bringing people together in community with each other. The ideas of belonging and community will remain vital to how I approach my work. I hope to continue having conversations surrounding the intersection of inclusion and design. I will continue learning from others as I navigate the design world in the future!

As I develop my design philosophy and begin working in this politicized professional world, I aim to approach my work with an open mind and an open heart. I will follow my passions and challenge myself to grow beyond my current understanding of how design and inclusivity work. I hope to make a change in the world and sprinkle some positivity and compassion along the way!

Senior Design Capstone Exhibition: Reflection on CompassionConverge, a personal exploration of the event, its impact, and its influence on my design philosophy!

Visit our Instagram @CompassionConverge

Or our website CompassionConverge.design to learn more!

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