DESIGNING ABROAD ENGINEERING AND INTERIOR DESIGN EDUCATION INTEGRATE MISSION AND WORDS Garrett White I I PHOTOS Ashe/ Parsons In May 2017, Dr. James Huff, assistant professor of engineering, led a group of four engineering students on a two-week mission trip to assist the people of the Peltan Church of Christ in Haiti by expanding their church. However, instead of building it themselves, Huff and his students helped empower the church members to design the expansion using local expertise and resources. The engineering group held a four-day workshop with 25 church members in order to allow the members to contribute to the design. According to Huff, his group wanted to challenge the members' thinking rather than just build the expansion themselves. "Our expertise is not in construction - it's in engineering [design]," Huff said. "So what we can do is walk beside t.hem and push their thinking to take their natural expertise in the context, refine and focus it so they can have a process where the whole church contributes to the design." Junior mechanical engineering major Julian Trujillo joined the 2017 trip and worked with Huff to facilitate a "community-centered solution design." Trujillo and his team spent time building relationships with the people in Haiti in order to further understand their specific needs. "It was really important to have this community-centered design to where you're not just designing around the problem," Trujillo said. "You have to specialize [the] solution." According to Huff, the first engineering trip to Haiti was in 2011, but the work was focused on the local school instead of the church building. He invited Dr. Todd Patten, professor of counseling, to bring some of his students. Since 2011, eight mission trips had been led by either the engineering group, the counseling group or a combination of the two. In 2017, Amy Cox, professor of art, joined the Haiti trip to see if her interior design students could contribute to the mission there in the future. For Cox, it was also important that they empathized with the people of the church. "Design is the perfect tool to be a learner," Cox said. ''When you design a human-centered design process, the very first phase is empathy. You have to just uncover and learn from the person you're designing for. It meant that we got to know them really well." For Huff, the most important aspect of the partnership was the relationship. "I'm getting to see a fuller version of who Christ is when I know my brothers and sisters in a different context," Huff said. ''And I think that changes my view of the Spirit. It changes how I think of the church and that's from go_ing fre9uently and developing this relationship." Engineering and interior design students and faculty help create a new design for a local church in Peltan, Haiti, on May 16, 2017. The students were able to combine their skills and faith in an effort to help the church. II Photo courtesy of Ashe! Parsons A local Haitian man rides his motorcycle through a pack of cows and alongside a truck as students and faculty travel into Peltan, Haiti, on May 13, 2017. Students and faculty spent time getting acquainted with the locals during their two-week trip in May 2017. I I Photo courtesy of Ashel Parsons Graduate student Braden Stevens, Professor of Art Amy Cox, graduate student Kimberly Stevens, Assistant Professor of Engineering Dr. James Huff and junior Julian Trujillo discuss building plans of the local church in Peltan, Haiti, on May 16, 2017. A group of engineering and art students and faculty traveled to Peltan to help a church expand its building to fit a growing population. II Photo courtesy of Ashel Parsons STUDENTS IN HAITI m z G) z m m JJ z G) ""'Cl I -< (f) 0 sn OJ m I )> < 0 JJ )> r (f) Q m z 0 m (f) :::::: .... 0 w
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