Faculty
Faculty Member Susan Spencer Develops Course in Design Thinking
Susan Spencer is fast becoming a recognized expert in the field of Design Thinking. She developed a course in Design Thinking for the Bachelor’s of Apparel Technical Design program, and teaches it. Selected as a semi-finalist for a fellowship at IDEO CoLab, she will be traveling to Cambridge in March to participate in a “Make-a-thon” focusing on the Circular Economy. We recently chatted with Spencer (pictured above with FIDM Experience Summer camp students), who has taught at FIDM for nearly 18 years in the Merchandise Product Development and Merchandise & Marketing programs.
Where were you born/raised? How did you come to teach at FIDM? I was born in Long Beach, California, and raised in nearby Seal Beach. I went to Cal State Fullerton and Chico State. Although I am a Southern Californian through and through, I lived in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago before we came back to So Cal to raise our family. I am grateful for the opportunity that I had to work in the fashion industry outside of California—and particularly for the time I spent working in New York. As someone once told me, “Stay in NYC as long as you can, because you can learn things here that you can’t learn anywhere else.” For me this proved true on both a personal and professional level. I came to FIDM after we moved back to Southern California, and after having held positions in buying, product-line merchandising, brand management, and trend forecasting.
What are your favorite things about teaching at FIDM and why? Categorically, my students. I derive great joy from seeing them spread their wings and fly. I often have students in their first year, and then again in their final year of our four year program. I love seeing their growth.
Tell us about the course you developed and teach in the senior year of the Technical Design Program. I’ve developed two courses for the fourth year of the Bachelors in Apparel Technical Design. One is a sustainability course that focuses on how to reduce the environmental impact across the apparel lifecycle, and the other is a course called Design Thinking: Research and Ideation. The Design Thinking class is part one of a two-part course that I co-developed with instructor Louise Wallace. In my part of the two-part course, I essentially integrated the method of Design Thinking into the Apparel Technical Design’s Innovation/Entrepreneurship course. The students are charged with bringing a new product innovation to market in these courses, and use design thinking methods to brainstorm, prototype, and iterate their products ideas forward.
We heard you're participating in a nationwide competition in the field of Design Thinking. Can you share more about that? Last Spring, I completed an online course offered by IDEO University, the global design firm. After the course, I was contacted by the course facilitator to join a pilot program of IDEO U called the IDEO Community of Practice (CoP). It consisted of only 127 participants globally, so I was truly humbled by this honor. For six months, we used Slack and Zoom technology to share ideas and hold meetings with global participants to work through various design challenges. We also had the opportunity to be assistant facilitators (“coaches”) in the IDEO U program. I will be coaching my first IDEO course in May.
Recently, the IDEO CoP Director put out an invitation to apply for a fellowship at IDEO CoLab, the think-tank arm of IDEO. I applied, and have just found out that I have been selected as a semi-finalist. I will be going to Cambridge in March to participate in a “Make-a-thon” focusing on the Circular Economy—which dovetails nicely with the research that I do for the Sustainability class that I teach. I am very excited about this opportunity—and of course about what I can bring back to our students here at FIDM.
Anything else you'd like to share? My best days at work are when I host one of my former students as an industry guest speaker in my classroom. I can’t think of anything more validating in the workplace.
Categories: Apparel Technical Design Merchandise Product Development Merchandising & Marketing Alumni Faculty
