When he first arrived on campus in October 2009, Dr. Lorne M. Buchman said one of his first tasks as Art Center’s new president and chief executive officer would be to listen to students, faculty and staff to hear their thoughts on a future direction for the College.
“We must first come together as a community to envision our opportunities, to imagine new possibilities, and to enter into a bold, habit-breaking conversation about our educational future,” wrote Buchman in December when he announced a comprehensive planning process for the College.
To get the conversation rolling, Buchman invited the entire community to attend two back-to-back events: an evening kick-off panel discussion in the Ahmanson Auditorium featuring provocative national thought leaders (for a recap, see yesterday’s post); and a brainstorming session the following day to tackle key issues derived from Art Center’s mission statement.
On January 14, approximately 300 members of the Art Center community—faculty, staff, students and alumni—gathered in the Student Dining Room for the daylong brainstorm. “I want to encourage you all to imagine without limit,” urged Buchman to the larger-than-expected group. “Imagine without limit what Art Center has always been, or what an art and design college ‘ought to be’.”
After a brief rundown of what the day’s activities would entail and an imaginative warm-up exercise (involving wrapped candies) led by Product Design and Transportation Design faculty member Fridolin Beisert, the group split up into five different taskforces.
Each taskforce was assigned one of five major areas relating to the College, as derived from Art Center’s mission statement—Students and Student Life; Curriculum and Pedagogy; Outside Partnerships; Governance and Community; and Future Trends and Global Context.
By the end of the day, each taskforce would need to identify and present to the larger group the major questions that their team would focus on for the remainder of the term, while bearing in mind opportunities for innovation and the College’s shared values—Diversity and Inclusion; Access and Affordability; Academic Excellence and Assessment; Professionalism and Research; and Human-Centered Education and Citizenship—also derived from the mission statement.
Armed with Post-it notes, markers, pens and no shortage of opinions, the teams moved into five separate classrooms and began throwing out ideas big and small. Each taskforce was as unique as its participants, but new introductions, frank discussion, passionate debate and even laughter occurred in each session.
Four hours later, the teams reemerged from the classrooms—some with Powerpoint presentations, others with ideas scribbled on butcher paper—and presented their findings.
Dozens of thought-provoking questions were presented: How do we maintain intimate student/teacher relationships while also embracing technology? How should “professionalism” be defined in the 21st century? How do we create a culture of generative passion? Can we become a beta site for innovative companies? How do we break down territories and integrate the departments? How do we help our students and faculty “learn how to learn?”
For more details on the findings of the individual taskforces, and to share your ideas for the future of our College, please visit A Vision for the Future of Art Center, the College’s official blog for the planning process.
And of course stay tuned to this blog for all the major developments.
