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UW-Stout professor focused on making a difference
By KAY KRUSE-STANTON / CVBR
Fresh out of college in India, trained in advertising design, Ambica Prakash faced an ethical decision that would set her on a new life course.
“Growing up in India, I was exposed to a lot of people of different economic standards, people who are deprived and underprivileged and people who are working hard to sustain themselves and people who are really affluent,” she said. “Being exposed to that wide realm I started to question, do I really want to be selling shoes or toothpaste the rest of my life? I needed a job to sustain myself, and was really thinking about the moral foundation and ethics of advertising and the dilemma of how I was going to sustain myself.”
As a professor of graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, she’s found a way to earn a living while showing her concern for the state of the world. She incorporates service learning into her classroom, encouraging students to use their talents and skills to help non-profit and volunteer agencies improve life for others.
In recent years, her beginning graphic design students have designed new campaign progress signs for Dunn County United Way and created posters for a Virginia-based organization that seeks to reduce the number of date-rapes and sexual assaults on campuses.
Diane Simon, executive director of United Way in Dunn County, hopes to continue to work with Prakash and her students.
“It was a wonderful experience,” said Simon. “The way Ambica set it up we were involved from the very beginning. It was a learning experience for us and the students. I was able to share United Way philosophies and explain the services to them and watch what they developed for us.”
The resulting signs are in place in Menomonie and, Simon hopes, are just the start of the projects the students will be able to work on for United Way and its member agencies.
Prakash came to Menomonie via an indirect route.
After graduating with her first degree in fine arts, she took a year off her career path to complete a diploma in French and travel around India. She also applied for a scholarship to study art in France.
In time, however, she realized she had to return to her career plan, and accepted a position at an advertising agency.
“Then I heard from the French embassy that I got the scholarship,” Prakash said. “That was my ticket to a global perspective and getting a wider global view. I left home for three months, and six years later I’m here (in Menomonie) with a few more degrees and teaching full time. That’s not something I planned when I left home.”
In France, she studied, met new people from new cultures, and traveled as much as she could in three short months. The experience bolstered her confidence and opened her eyes to the world, she said.
A paternal uncle then offered her a place to stay in the United States so she could continue her art education in yet another culture. She earned a second undergraduate degree at the Bloomington campus of Indiana University, then a graduate degree. That’s when she returned to her questions about how graphic design could be used to better the world.
“What else can design be good for?” she said. “We can use design to sell services and products, but we can also use design to encourage social change, and that’s what I became more interested in. Design is a really powerful vehicle to cause social change.”
She was able to teach at Indiana University, where her colleagues supported the concept of service learning. When she learned that UW-Stout was looking for someone to teach graphic design, she investigated the university and surrounding communities and applied for the position.
“The program looked strong to me in the graphic design area,” she said. “The kind of work that was coming out of the art department looked interesting to me, and I was drawn to that. The proximity to Minneapolis was also a factor, because Minneapolis is a big design center.”
Colleagues at UW-Stout also welcomed the idea of service learning, and Prakash has made the concept her particular area of investigation and development.
“When I’m in the class, I talk about service learning and try to give students a perspective of the range of opportunities available,” she said. “I want them to understand they can use design to sell things, and that’s important because you do have to sustain yourself.
“But I want them to also understand that they could volunteer to help a non-profit organization, or they could consider working for a non-profit organization. It may not bring them as much money, but they might find it more satisfying as a designer of using design in a manner that is important to them, as citizens of a community.”
She contacts a non-profit group before the semester to find out what the client needs and expects, and frames the project for the class. Students work together to come up with and develop their ideas and solutions to the design problem.
“It’s professional practice early in design education and the students appreciate that design experience,” Prakash said. “They’re all working on the same project, and I’m there to help, and we’re working together as a group.”
Students present their solutions to the client toward the end of the semester. Prakash encourages them to dress and act in a professional manner. Some of the student work may also be displayed in a gallery on campus.
In the case of the United Way project, the organization held a reception for the students to recognize them for their efforts.
“It was the middle of finals and we didn’t expect a very good turnout,” Simon said. “We were surprised we had so many students there. They stayed and talked.”
One of the more common topics of conversation was what they’d learned about United Way, she said. Many expressed an interest in doing more to help the organization or member agencies.
“None of that would have taken place without Ambica,” Simon said.
In the Virginia-based project, students were unable to travel across the country to make their presentations in person.
“We were able to do a web conference with the director of the organization,” Prakash said. “The students presented their posters to the director through long distance technology.”
The posters are now on the organization’s web site. Host colleges and universities can download the posters, write in when speakers will be on campus, and put the posters up on campus.
As the fall semester progresses, Prakash is teaching, working with non-profit groups for the next service learning project, continuing her investigation into how service learning can be incorporated into the classroom, and sharing her findings with others, including writing a chapter for a book on service learning. She’s also working on her own designs, her own visual suggestions for how people can improve their communities or help others.
“To me, it’s more than teaching about design,” she said. “It’s more teaching about life so when we are working with design, we understand how our work fits into the world. I want students to be exposed to world issues. I want them to have a sensitivity to cultures and world aesthetics. I want them to be civic and social minded, if they can be, as citizens of their community or the world — because they can make a difference.”
Kay Kruse Stanton is a freelance writer from Menomonie. Reach Chippewa Valley Business Report at 715-723-5515 or through www.chippewavalleybusinessreport.com.
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