In 2026, after nearly 90 years, the Institute of Design was folded into Illinois Tech's School of Design & Society.
This website is an archive of the impactful and inspirational work produced by the ID community before that transition.

László Moholy-Nagy opened the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937, treating design as a discipline that was teachable, testable, and consequential. Nine decades on, its scope had widened from the things people use to the systems they depend on: hospitals, government agencies, classrooms, supply chains, digital platforms. Along the way, ID community members developed the published research, methods, and frameworks that designers rely on every day.

Chief among them is human-centered design: close attention to how people actually live, and advocacy for what that research reveals. It shaped designers who are comfortable with complexity and ambiguity: curious, rigorous, inclusive, and stubbornly optimistic about design's ability to change the systems that shape our lives.

To every one of them, who taught, studied, built, critiqued, and stayed late in the studio: thank you, and keep designing.

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ID Partners to Evolve the Nation’s Report Card

Applying Our Human-Centered, Systems Design Approach to Modernize the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

February 9, 2026

The Institute of Design at Illinois Tech is honored to partner with the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on Next Gen NAEP—an initiative to modernize the Nation’s Report Card.

“
The Nation’s Report Card is widely considered the gold standard in assessments. It is to education leaders what the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is to economists. But, like the CPI, it is complex and hard to change, even when that change is a sign of progress. To modernize thoughtfully, we need to prototype and evaluate potential solutions.
—Lesley Muldoon, Executive Director, National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB)
National Assessment of Education Progress logomark

The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) is an independent, nonpartisan panel created by Congress to set policy for the Nation’s Report Card, which provides information about student learning for the nation, every state, and 20+ urban districts, with trendlines going back 30+ years.

ID will use its human-centered, systems design approach to help modernize how we understand student learning across the US. Through collaborative design sprints, rapid prototyping, and iterative testing with real users, ID faculty Jeremy Alexis, Anijo Mathew, Zach Pino, and Ruth Schmidt will bring together policymakers, educators, researchers, and assessment experts to explore how technology and AI can deliver faster insights, modernize infrastructure, and make data more accessible—all while maintaining the program’s gold-standard quality.

Portrait of Jeremy Alexis

Jeremy Alexis, Vice Provost for Academic Strategy and Associate Professor of Innovation

Portrait of Anijo Mathew, Dean of the Institute of Design in Chicago, standing in a bright green room.

Anijo Mathew, Dean and Professor of Entrepreneurship & Urban Technology

Portrait of Zach Pino

Zach Pino, Assistant Professor of Data-Driven Design

Portrait of Ruth Schmidt

Ruth Schmidt, Associate Professor of Behavioral Design

What these stakeholders discover together can serve not just this initiative, but assessment programs nationwide facing similar challenges of modernization and scale. The initiative will produce an actionable roadmap for NAGB and NCES to guide future policymaking, as well as public reports sharing lessons learned for the broader field.

“
For more than 85 years, ID has focused on the kind of challenges that shape the lives of our children—and their children. Evolving the Nation’s Report Card is the kind of work that echoes forward for generations. We can't wait to get started.
—Anijo Mathew, Dean, Institute of Design (ID) at Illinois Tech

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Transforming Educational Decision-Making

Deutsche Welle Explores How Bauhaus Principles Live On at ID