ABSTRACT
This chapter situates itself on a predominantly STEM campus (the University of Colorado Boulder), where traditional notions of expertise as domain content abound. Design thinking is gaining a foothold, but until recently without the participation of the arts and writing. The chapter opens by making the case (following David Kaufer and his book Rhetoric and the Arts of Design) that writing is itself a design art. This chapter argues that design thinking is fundamental not just to rhetoric and composition but to WAC/WID work with knowledge making across our technology-oriented campus. This chapter considers how implementing STEAM on campus requires a fresh approach to writing program administration. The chapter will likewise engage curricular design and classroom instruction by highlighting the potential of project-based pedagogy informed by design thinking and a maker-space ethic, and the transformative potential of situating writing courses at the intersection of traditional fields.
