Courses | Innovation in Society co-major | College of Arts and Sciences

The curriculum for the Innovation and Society Co-Major consists of 24 credit hours (18 credit hours in the co-major and 6 credits generally double counted with the primary major) and is available to any student as a secondary major. The co-major cannot be taken as a stand-alone major. All students must be completing another undergraduate major within the university.

To add the co-major to your course plan please contact your academic advisor or you may also contact the program director Ben Lauren at blauren@miami.edu. 

 

ASG 201: Introduction to Innovation and Society

This course introduces students to interdisciplinary frameworks, design thinking and its critiques, action research, data science, and methods of doing research and design with individuals, organizations, and communities. As a result, students learn the complexities of innovation and interdisciplinary work. Students also learn about the Innovation and Society co-major and its requirements.


GEG 203: Global Challenges

This course analyzes 21st-century global challenges related to population growth, climate change, and sustainable development. Applies innovative solutions to contemporary challenges such as the sustainability of food, water, energy, healthcare, and security systems (among others) in a world of 10 billion people.


ASG 301: Foundations of Design Thinking

This course organizes students into interdisciplinary teams to learn different approaches for using design and design thinking to solve problems. Each student team engages in a series of case studies meant to teach and provide an intellectual space to practice current design processes and procedures as a problem-solving technique. As well, students present their ideas to the class and panels of experts for feedback. Topics covered include user experience design, design thinking, design sprints, participatory design, community-based participatory research, multilingual and cross-cultural design, speculative design, and more.


ASG 401: Scaling Design Thinking

This course extends the work of ASG 301 by scaling design thinking across organizations, institutions, and communities. Students learn to prototype interventions, technological and otherwise, to address broad-scale problems. Students also learn to practice models of scaling research and design with an assets-based mentality, attentive to cultural humility, psychological safety, race, class, linguistic practices, and gender identity.


Data Science and/or Analysis in Society Requirement (choose 1 of these courses)


APY 313: Data Science of Culture and Language

CSC 113: Data Science for the World

GEG 306: Geographic Research Methods

GEG 310: Geographic Information Systems I

POL 301: The Science and Practice of Political Research

PSY 290: Introduction to Research Methods

SOC 210: Introduction to Social Research


ASG 501: Innovation and Society Capstone

In this course students spend the semester on a team-based interdisciplinary research and design project that involves working on solving a global problem. As well, students learn best practices for sharing stories about the impact of their work and how it is designed to work with organizations and communities. Students do this work to prepare them for transitioning beyond your university learning experiences and into the job market.

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