INNOVATE
About Me
My name is Denise Holder, and I am a senior student in Health Sciences. I am originally from Jamaica, and have been living in the U.S.A. continuously since I was 18 years old. Me and my family have lived in Colorado, New Jersey, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, and Virginia. Prior to living in the U.S.A., we lived in Barbados, England, and Scotland. We also travelled to different countries during the summer.
I am currently pursuing a degree in Health Sciences with an emphasis in public health management (Health Services Administration without Licensure).
In the past, I have worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant and I have spent a lot of time with Alzheimer's patients. I wish to learn more about this disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions. I believe this course will help me with searching the literature on topics involving Alzheimer's disease as I would love to open my own nursing home that specialized in Alzheimer's disease and dementia care. In doing so, I really need to know the process for ethical decision-making and medical ethics in caring for patients with Alzheimer's disease. Ethical dilemmas often arise as a consequence of having dementia or caring for a person with dementia which are difficult to resolve, even with patients who have Alzheimer's disease. Sometimes problems seem insurmountable and it is difficult to decide what to do because it is not clear what is right or wrong, ethically speaking.
My hobbies are as follows: Travelling, corresponding, modeling, meeting people, and many more. I do like to meet positive and hospitable people.
INNOVATE Monarch Experience
During my time in the program, our CONSTANT team focused on how might we design a better university for African Americans and Latinx learners. We have a very diverse population of undergraduate students at Old Dominion University, most of whom are underrepresented individuals. The main question we asked ourselves was as follows: How Might We Design a University Ready for African American and Latinx Learners?
Through our engagement with faculty and students, we found out that the problem is one not only African American and Latinx students can relate to, but can be greatly universalized for the entire student body. In order to establish factual information, we needed to send out a survey to students, and that is how the design thinking process started!
During our defining phase some of the major themes that arose during the Design Thinking Process were as follows: (1) advocacy, (2) fine tuning,(3) publicity inclusivity & communication, and (4) cultural diversity.
Our research regarding the empathy process required us to ask African American and Latinx students to complete surveys on diversity and inclusion at ODU. On analysis of the data, we found that Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) prepare students not just to get by in the world, but to truly overcome challenges and become great leaders.
Overall, such data can help us define the challenges that African American and Latinx students face at ODU.
The themes that emerged, along with the ROOT Issues were as follows:
1. Finding resources/tools at ODU (Monarch Groups, Announcements, etc.)
2. Opportunities for students to be transparent and speak up about issues
3. Publicity for minority groups/communities at ODU
4. INCLUSIVITY problems at ODU or ignoring the real problems
5. Not having enough Latinx/African American faculty or instructors lecturing courses in all departments
6. Lack of spaces the promote inclusivity and provide opportunities for Latinx/African American students
7. Lack of communication of resources that are available to Latinx/African American students
8. The root causes were that students and faculty are lack of information that are available to the students because the communication was lacking. Faculty to student and student to faculty communication needs to be improved. Also, cultural communication of asking for help needs to be addressed.
Root causes:
The root causes were that students and faculty are lack of information that are available to the students because the communication was lacking. Faculty to student and student to faculty communication needs to be improved. Also, cultural communication of asking for help needs to be addressed.
Our beautiful website can be found here by clicking the following: Website
Mindsets of a Human-Centered Designer
I practiced the Innovation is for Everyone mindset when I had to begin exactly where I was, with whatever tools and knowledge I had in my cabinet to get started. I found out that releasing any form of apprehension of having no rules or parameters was a part of the process. As soon as I focused solely on the Design Thinking process, followed by its implementation, I began to notice that I was becoming an innovator. This taught me to become confident in nature with positivity while learning as I went along with the process.
I practiced the Know Your Why mindset by staying confident and motivated throughout the entire process. There were definitely times when I tried to stay motivated as I found things were really confusing with lack of direction, all calamity. Trying to balance my academic work with so many deadlines, along with me thinking why I wanted to be in this program to assist African American and Latinx students, who do face the same challenges as me.
I practiced the Show & Tell mindset when I assisted in the creation of the website during our process. I have never assisted in the creation of a website.
I practiced the Radical Collaboration mindset when we worked on the survey, along with its distribution, followed by analyzing the data. I tried to get the team to gel, and to remind each team member that communication is crucial, along with the notion that we all have family commitments, hence we have to balance our time, set priorities, make better plans, no procrastination, and to work effectively, but not at short notice. The main point is respect of one’s valuable time, especially during the stress of studying during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I practiced the Empathetic & Human-Centered mindset when I had to remind my team members that we all have family and that along with this program, our studies are also priority. I wasn’t a leader, but I was a team player, who seek assistance from other team members who know the concepts better than I do. I must say that I wished that there was some training for the who team on carrying out the tasks, but with careful assistance.
I practiced the Embrace Ambiguity mindset throughout the entire experience. During our process it there was plenty ambiguity every day as the team members, like me had unanswered question. This taught me that even as I develop my sense of calmness in coping when things were changing at short notice.
I practiced the Iterate, Iterate, Iterate mindset when I had to think about what type of survey we had to develop of the program. In the end our team came up with some excellent questions for our survey after careful revisions.
Applying Innovate Experiences in the Future
This program opened up my eyes as I really saw issues in education disparities that do affect African Americans and Latinx at ODU and in the U.S.A. This program complements my studies in Health Sciences. As I have management as a minor, I know that Design Thinking is not about turning future managers like me into a designer, but to help me become better design thinker, whereby I will have to literate in the tools and processes that great designers use, thus enabling me as a manager to use those processes to solve my business problems. In that respect, design thinking is a way or a simple process that can make innovation a part of every day of my daily life.
The powerful learning moments are based on education disparities as a spin off from healthcare disparities in the U.S.A. As such , healthcare disparities may reflect a societal lack of empathy for disadvantaged persons in general.
My greatest goal as I continue to work with Design thinking is to focus on the EMPATHY phase. Promoting empathy really addresses education and racial/ethnic health disparities and works to achieve education and health equity, hence that is a concern that I need to alleviate those problems here in the U.S.A. by working with my colleagues.
In closing, I learned that my Caribbean culture of working in an orderly fashion was different to the norm, but overall, the diversity and inclusivity of the team showed me that we exhibited the Jamaican national motto is 'Out of Many One People', based on the population's multiracial roots.