Charlie Michaels is Director for Experiential Learning at the Center for Socially Engaged Design and a Lecturer in Undergraduate Education. He leads C-SED’s experiential learning programs including serving as the instructor for C-SED’s fieldwork course which places students with global, cross sector partner organizations. Charlie actively works with faculty from across the university to build socially engaged design thinking and processes into curricula, leads C-SED’s team of graduate student facilitators, and manages the C-SED Prototyping Lab.
Prior to joining the Center for Socially Engaged Design Charlie was Coordinator of Social Engagement programs at the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design. At Stamps, Charlie managed a suite of courses and partnerships with Detroit schools, including an Artist & Designer In-classroom Residency Program. Charlie has designed and taught community engaged arts & design courses with partners nationally and internationally in Ghana, Indonesia, Ecuador, Bangladesh, and India.
Charlie is a Creative Community Fellow at National Arts Strategies and the Center for Social Impact Strategies at University of Pennsylvania and has been awarded grants and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Vermont Studio Center, and The Ragdale Foundation. Charlie holds a MFA from the University of Michigan in Interdisciplinary Art & Design and a BFA from Bradley University.
Outside of C-SED, Charlie is a Curator of the Prison Creative Arts Project’s (PCAP) Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, one of the largest exhibitions of art by incarcerated artists in the world.