Design Your Life Lab

Research Summary

The Design Your Life Lab is an innovative initiative that brings design thinking into life and career development for students. Grounded in proven frameworks from Stanford’s Life Design Lab, the project equips students with practical tools to navigate uncertainty, build resilience, and approach their personal and professional paths with creativity and confidence.

The project will pilot accessible classes through the Kraemer Family Library, opening these skills to a broad student audience. By combining curriculum, workshops, and hands-on learning experiences, the Lab creates a scalable model that empowers students to tackle complex (“wicked”) problems and design meaningful, adaptable futures.

The Problem: Students are navigating increasingly complex and uncertain career pathways but often lack structured tools to explore options, adapt to change, and build resilience. Academic models that provide practical, human-centered approaches to life and career design help student prepare to respond to disruption and opportunity.
The Innovation: This project applies design thinking to life and career development, transforming how students approach decision-making and personal growth. Through a combination of coursework, workshops, and pilot classes, the Design Your Life Lab creates an accessible, hands-on learning environment where students can experiment, reflect, and build skills for lifelong adaptability.

Hear from Dr. Markel!

Community and Industry Impact

This project strengthens the community by equipping students for enriching lives, service, and careers in our broader community. By creating new learning opportunities related to wholistic life design, it ensures that students from diverse backgrounds can develop skills in resilience, problem-solving, and career navigation.

Student Engagement and Mentorship

The Design Your Life Lab fosters meaningful engagement by connecting students with faculty, facilitators, and peers in collaborative learning environments. Through courses, workshops, and pilot programs, participants engage in guided reflection, shared problem-solving, and mentorship experiences that support both personal and professional growth.

Increasing UCCS Visibility

By introducing an innovative, design-based approach to student development, this project positions UCCS as a leader in forward-thinking education. The Lab increases awareness of new models for career readiness and student success while elevating the university’s visibility as a hub for innovation, applied learning, and student-centered solutions.

Timeline

DELIVERABLES

Design Your Life Lab program model and framework
Library-based pilot classes open to all students
Student-facing tools and resources for life design
Training completion (Design Your Life Lab certification/immersion)
Final report and recommendations for scaling

Training and Exploration

Spring/Summer 2026

Attend in-person Design Your Life Lab training
Conduct site visits to institutions with existing labs
Develop initial Lab framework and implementation plan

Content Planning

Fall 2026

Develop library pilot class structure and content
Build partnerships with library and campus stakeholders
Begin awareness and recruitment efforts

Pilot Implementation

Spring 2027

Run Design Your Life Pilot Class in Library
Develop final report with recommendations for growth
Position Design Your Life Lab for long-term integration at UCCS
Share outcomes with campus leadership and broader audiences

Professional Bio

Karen Markel is a Professor of Management at the College of Business at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). Her experience includes serving as Dean of UCCS College of Business as well as serving as Dean of the College of Business and Public Policy at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she led all college academic programs and the Institute of Social and Economic Research. Markel was previously at Oakland University of Rochester, Michigan, from 2001 through 2018. While at Oakland, she held a variety of leadership positions including chair of the Department of Management and Marketing, Inaugural Provost Faculty Fellow for Diversity and Inclusion as well as Director of Strategic Initiatives and Business Programs.

Dr. Markel earned a B.S. in Business Administration and Management from Washington University in St. Louis, a M.S. in Sociology from SUNY at Buffalo, and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences - Human Resource Management and Labor Relations from Michigan State University. Markel has been widely published in leading management journals and has made significant contributions to human resource management and business practices. She holds SHPR and SHRM-SCP human resource certifications.