By RON FANFAIR
The Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCAD U) was already on Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel’s radar when a recruiter contacted her last fall about an opening for a dean in the Faculty of Design.
About a decade ago in Raleigh, North Carolina and at the Hue Design Summit in Atlanta in 2019, Noel met Dr. Elizabeth ‘Dori’ Tunstall, the first Black dean of a Design Faculty, who left Canada’s oldest and largest art & design education institution last July.
She was aware of some of Tunstall’s groundbreaking work at OCAD U as part of her commitment to decolonizing the space and making it more diverse and equitable.
She had also collaborated on a few projects with Dr. Renata Leitao who taught in OCAD U’s graphic design program and completed a postdoctoral fellowship under Tunstall’s supervision.
Not surprisingly, Noel did not hesitate to apply for the role when the opportunity arose.
“I was not planning to move, but these opportunities do not come up daily,” she said. “I decided to throw my hat in the ring and see where the conversation goes. Renata told me how good OCAD U will be for me and Dori’s legacy meant a lot.”
At the start of this month, Noel joined OCAD U as the Design Faculty’s Dean, following Tunstall as the second Black Dean to hold the position globally.
She comes to the university after three years as an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. Before that, she spent two years at Tulane University as Associate Director of Design Thinking for Social Impact.
The Trinidad & Tobago-born educator is well positioned to lead OCAD U’s Faculty of Design in enhancing studio-based learning, promoting entrepreneurship, securing additional design collaboration and advancing decolonization and equity to enrich the student learning experience.
The Board of Governors approved her five-year appointment last March.
“Dr. Noel is the kind of interdisciplinary design practitioner needed to support our students and faculty now,” said Vice-President, Academic & Provost Dr. Caroline Langill who chaired the Search Committee. “We believe she will be inspiring and forward-thinking in her new role as the Dean of the Faculty of Design.”
Reporting to Langill, Noel will be responsible for the faculty’s educational and research leadership, development and supervision.
“I see OCAD U as a very vibrant and diverse space with so many interesting areas of design,” she said. “I think that is part of what the appeal is. This university is an exciting place to be. I also find it as a place that is challenging and that is redefining the way design is done.”
Noel made her first visit to Toronto last November to meet the selection committee.
“I was shocked at how familiar it felt,” she said. “I messaged a few people to let them know I would be in the city. It was a busy three or four days as I met folks I attended high school with and some I worked with in various capacities. I felt quite comfortable even though the weather was cold. Also, the diversity was evident as I walked around the city. I brought my husband and son and we loved the intentionality of the Indigenous culture messaging and the other experiences.”
It was Noel’s second visit to Canada after spending two weeks at the University of Montreal in 2011.
One of the people she did not meet was close friend Michael Lee Poy who is an Assistant Professor of Design at OCAD U.
The Trinidadian, who was among five new permanent faculty hires in 2020 in recognition of the International Decade for Peoples of African Descent, was busy at the time.
Lee Poy met Noel two decades ago when he was an academic liaison for Trinity College Global Site under the supervision of Trinidadian actor/playwright Tony Hall.
In 2014, Noel – then the Visual Arts Coordinator at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Department of Creative & Festival Arts – hired him in the undergraduate design program and later in the Creative Design Entrepreneurship graduate program as an adjunct professor.
“During this time, we recognized the lack of support for the design industry in Trinidad & Tobago and the region and organized the Ministry of Design Colloquium,” said Lee Poy.
The Moko Jumbie advocate also assisted Noel in the UWI/Stanford University-hosted Design Thinking workshop five years ago.
“Dr. Noel is bringing her wealth of experience in the design fields and academia,” he said. “She is at the forefront of the discussion on design, equity and social change/justice. Most importantly, she will bring her Black Caribbean woman magic to the Black ecosystem that was established by Lillian Allen (she has been teaching Creative Writing at OCAD U since 1992) three decades ago.”
Believing that everyone can design, Noel strives to ensure that students understand design is practiced in a lot of places and it can be done in many different ways.
“I think design is as fundamental as eating and cooking,” she said. “We all go through the kinds of questions designers go through daily. But some of us do additional training in design. Coming to OCAD U, I would like students from such diverse backgrounds to understand the way you practice design will depend on who you are, your identities and the kind of questions that interest you. There are many situated ways of asking design questions and then answering them through research processes.
“OCAD U is already a place where people are doing design in many different ways and I am going to highlight some of the diverse design practices that people already have while encouraging them to dig deeper and create new ways of doing design so that we have a discipline that reflects the diversity of the world. In that way, people will feel much more empowered to celebrate design practices that are relevant to the communities they are from.”
Noel’s research interest focuses on individuals traditionally excluded from research, design-based learning and design thinking. She practices primarily in social innovation, entrepreneurship, education and public health.
Always aiming to bring underrepresented voices into everyday design education through social innovation, inclusive community-led research and public health solutions, she created ‘The Designer’s Critical Alphabet’ and ‘Who Am I Positionality Wheel’ to make conversations around race and bias more common in classrooms and work environments.
‘The Designer’s Critical Alphabet’ is a deck of cards to help introduce designers and design students to inclusive concepts.
“While doing my doctorate and a lot of critical theory reading and trying to figure out how to bring some of the concepts I had learned about my reading to other designers in a way that they would understand, I came up with the Alphabet which is a micro-sample of some theory and I end with a question to make the theory relevant from a design perspective,” said Noel who has honorary doctorates from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the University of the Arts London.
“A lot of that work is about getting people to understand multiple points of view which has been a theme throughout my work and to get people out of their heads and just understand there are other questions they have to consider in the design process. Starting as my project, I am surprised how this Alphabet has evolved and the interest people have taken in it.”
Noel, who has also lectured at UWI and Stanford University, created the ‘Positionality Wheel’ to replicate a research method she learned in her PhD program.
“I learned this way of doing research which was about thinking and reflecting on who you are and your positionality,” she said. “In my PhD research, I learned to write a three-page essay about myself before I did the work I was doing.
“I was trying to figure out how to make this accessible to designers who might not want to sit and write a three-page essay but could benefit as well from this whole thing of reflecting on their own identity.
“I created the wheel as a visual way of reflecting on the identity rapidly and made it available to the public.”
Noel also designed ‘Empathy Games for Children’ which is a deck of cards with activities to assist children in empathizing with each other.
With books being important for research, she authored ‘Design Social Change’ in which she shares essential design strategies for making a lasting impact and co-edited ‘The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection’.
Turned on to design at age 11, Noel expanded her design education in Brazil because there wasn’t an undergraduate degree program in the field at the time in T & T.
She did undergraduate and post-graduate studies in Graphic and Industrial Design at the Universidade do Norte do Parana.
“After applying to schools in North America, I quickly realized there was no way I could pay for tuition,” said Noel who co-founded and co-chaired the Design Research Society Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group. “Somewhere along the process, I met someone from the Brazilian embassy in Trinidad who suggested I apply to a program that allows students from Trinidad & Tobago to study in Brazil. My parents (Kenty & Sonia) supported me, saying I could come back home if I didn’t like it. I have always had that support in my life that I can take risks and know that failure is an option and I could start over if things don’t work out.”
After six years in Brazil, she returned to the twin islands republic and completed a post-graduate diploma in Arts & Cultural Enterprise Management at the UWI St. Augustine campus, an Executive Master of Business Administration at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business and a University Teaching & Learning Certificate at UWI before pursuing a PhD in Industrial & Project Design at North Carolina State University.
Her PhD research focused on teaching and learning design through a critical lens at a primary school in rural Trinidad & Tobago.
“An emancipatory theoretical perspective guided the study, one aim of which was to challenge the current primary education paradigm in Trinidad & Tobago and to present a viable alternative that builds on the pedagogical style and content of design classes,” said Noel, who enjoys gardening, kayaking and walking.
Before relocating to the United States, she spent two decades at UWI in various capacities. She taught Portuguese at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business and was a Visual Arts lecturer.
Her students included T & T product designer/photographer/curator Arnaldo James.
“Dr. Noel was my design lead lecturer from 2009 to 2011 and, to date, she remains a trusted critical advisor to my academic and professional career,” he said. “Impeccably professional as an instructor, her teaching approach equipped me very well as a multidisciplinary designer and academic. She continuously motivates me to invest my best in what I attempt and has been instrumental in propelling my growth during my time as a student and well after graduation.”
Married in May 2023, Noel has a son who completed Grade 10 this semester.
