Graduate Students Design New Accessible Podium for Riggs Library

Last fall, a group of graduate students was set loose in Georgetown's Maker Hub, a grown-up playground for woodworking, designing and crafting in the basement of Lauinger Library.

They sketched ideas, sawed wooden legs and duct-taped pieces of cardboard for a semester-long project: designing an accessible podium.

"Podiums are not one size fits all," said Amy Kenny, director of the Disability Cultural Center.

Kenny, who uses a mobility scooter, found her view was often obstructed behind a lectern when she was presenting and she'd have to speak next to it. She asked graduate students in Georgetown's Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) programto create a prototype for a podium that any speaker could use.

A year later, students' cardboard prototypes would be transformed into a gleaming brass podium installed in Riggs Library, Georgetown's 135-year-old historic library and flagship event space.

Follow along on the year-and-a-half journey to see how they did it.

Dreaming Up a Design

Before creating prototypes, students in the Methods of Learning and Design course learned about universal design, a framework for designing an environment that strives to meet the needs of all, and met with Kenny to discuss the project. They thought about how to incorporate Braille, sensory tools, captions and a button to adjust a podium's height during events.

Afterward, they gathered in the Maker Hub to start building a mock-up.

For graduate student Sarah Craig (SFS'23, G'26), the project presented an interesting challenge. For one, the School of Foreign Service alumna didn't have a formal design or engineering background. Second, a podium for Riggs Library required a certain scholarly aesthetic and its own portable technology.

However, Craig did know how she wanted the speaker to feel.

"We tried to create a podium that allowed presenters to show up however they needed to and feel a sense of comfort and empowerment that would allow them to deliver the best presentation or speech possible," she said.

The prototypes all looked different. One was like "a martian with three legs that crawled up and down," Kenny said. Another group created wings that could swing out on either side of the podium for privacy. Another designed a desk-like podium that could slide up and down based on the speaker's height.

"Our students have so many brilliant ideas and creative solutions," Kenny said. "The goal isn't just the product, but the process of learning, unlearning and reimagining how things can be more accessible for everyone to thrive."

Pitching Their Designs

At the end of the semester in 2024, the students presented their research, designs and prototypes as their final project.

Their ideas would be combined and incorporated into the final podium the furniture manufacturer Steelcase would build.

For Michael Pasimio (SFS'22, G'26), the project raised more questions about how an event is designed, how many people can speak at the same time and the best way for the audience to receive and process information.

"If you're in Riggs, you hold important people at attention," he said. "With that in mind, who deserves to be heard and who deserves to own the room? We have all these constraints about who can own the room, not just in terms of physical accessibility.

"The idea that it's static and that there's a single front of the room, those are all assumptions that don't need to be true. The podium is the first step in expanding who's in the conversation."

Kenny said that is exactly the point of the project.

"Our podiums and platforms signal who we learn from, and - even without meaning to - we often exclude disabled people from the stage," she said. "My hope is that this is not just a podium but a paradigm shift of how we co-create spaces to include everyone in our community."

A Communal Approach to Design

After the presentations ended, Kenny, Pasimio and Craig, along with Maggie Debelius, the course professor and director of faculty initiatives at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS); Yianna Vovides, also the course professor and senior director of Learning Design and Research in CNDLS; and former Maker Hub Manager David Strout, began to meet with Steelcase to finalize a design.

Kenny also worked with Georgetown's visual identity and events teams, the President's Office and the accommodations office to ensure the podium was ADA compliant, aligned with Georgetown's visual brand and fit the needs of the event space.

"This project represents what can happen when students, faculty and staff across campus bring together their expertise and experience to create something for the whole community," Kenny said.

The Final Design

In early January, Craig walked into Riggs to see the podium for the first time. She had begun the project her first year of graduate school. This May, she graduates.

"It felt really rewarding to see this project that started with students at the center of it," she said.

Craig, who also works as a communications specialist in the Red House, Georgetown's educational design and research hub, said the project pushed her to apply classroom theories to real-world design, to work with clients and to create a product that's accessible and realistic. It also meant something to her personally.

"Georgetown was the place that I really came into my identity as a disabled person," she said. "With this podium, it allowed me to explore disability in my career as a graduate student, which is very important to me. I feel really lucky to have learned a lot from spending time in spaces that work on cultivating access."

The final design represented an amalgamation of all the students' designs.

The accessible podium has a built-in battery pack and buttons to adjust the height at any time - an example of a "curb cut effect," Kenny said, when something designed to meet the needs of disabled people supports everyone.

The podium also has a built-in light, storage space and wheels so it can be moved around. It's now available in Riggs for any speaker to use.

Kenny said the project represents a starting point for what other inclusive designs are possible across campus.

"It's not just about making wheelchair accessible furniture, but inviting Hoyas to reimagine what else we can create in the name of co-flourishing. Imagine what else we can create together," she said.