1G is a collaboration of students, faculty, & administrators leveraging storytelling to create spaces for more equitable design in higher ed.

We believe in the power of counterstorytelling (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) and networked communities (Jackson & Foucault-Wellles, 2015) to:

• foster and exercise cultural capital,

• reshape the role of social capital within higher education and the workforce, and

• rewrite the narrative being told about individuals and communities who are pushed to the margins of their colleges & universities.

Our values.

Our perspective.

We believe design — led from the edges of higher education — will provide the most innovative perspectives for equitable change.

To guide this belief, our work builds around three main points of view:

The edges need space to lead.

The margins are the most powerful space for creative insight, restorative innovation and transformational change.

Yet those on the margins remain the most undervalued, underestimated, under-utilized and unappreciated resource in our society.

Networks change lives.

Social capital is the single-most important force influencing the voice, power and influence of those on the edges of higher ed.

Stories hold power.

Stories are the conduit for transferring and developing social and community capital.

And storytelling is a key process for owning and building one’s power.