MLK Design Seminar

The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. IAP Design Seminar (17.922) began in January 1999. Taught by MIT administrator Tobie Weiner (a 1998 MIT MLK Leadership Awardee) during Independent Activities Period (IAP), the course brings together MIT and Wellesley students to create artistic and political installations that have been placed in MIT's Lobby 7 and Lobby 10 to coincide with the university's celebration of Dr. King. Projects have included work with children and adults in the Cambridge Community Centers, original songs and performances, benefits for charities, various features in campus publications, and special projects.

[Lisa Witmer '07 and Ryan Richardson '06] helped to design a bus installation in Lobby 10. "We chose to make the focus of the installation a bus in order to commemorate Rosa Parks and her contributions to the beginnings of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama," Witmer said. "My group designed the exterior of the bus with recent newspaper articles about race-related crimes and injustices to serve as a reminder to people that the civil rights movement did not end decades ago, but rather is an issue that Americans are still dealing with today."

"Students honor Martin Luther King Jr. with creativity, open minds," MIT News, 12 January 2007