Emergent Emergencies

Dear Colleagues Across the Curriculum

"If one is willing to accept
that a system supervenes
on its components…, "

that the WHOLE ( environmentally
as transparentas all-wet to Joe Fish:
solvent & full of solutions,songs and
furry re Absolut) has it’s sneaky and
subtle way with its parts, parties, &
participants ….

The kind-of-thinking that made the
mess can not clean it up. You got a
problem with that? (Kurt Goedel-ish)

The Association of American Colleges and
Universities invites you andyour colleagues
to submit a proposal for our
2010 Annual Meeting
“The Wit, the Will . . . and the Wallet:
Supporting Educational Innovation,
Shaping Our Global Future.”

Today's economic uncertainties
challenge all of us to be creative in
meeting our commitments to students.
These uncertainties also make even
more urgent the need for us to prepare
all students to thrive in a turbulent and
fluid world... Colleges, universities, state
systems, and other partners are using
this moment to engage the public and
the larger academy with core questions
about what really matters in college.



Generating Emergent Values & Phenomena

Sally Sustainability on the one hand
Peter Prodigality on the other:
Sound of 2 hands clapping.

Imagine if you can:

An Environment Conducive to Free Play
wherein not-knowing is as much a part of
the game as knowing, uncertainty & stunned
stupidity: mothers of invention, along with

maybe
as-if
sort-of
kinda &
something like

all prerequisite to good sense, non-sense &
the no-sense-at-all necessary to encourage
emergent phenomena, fishing the River
Random & how can I know what I’ve
caught till I see myself hauling it out?

Consider if you will:

The Prevention of Free Play

The dead hand of tradition in which one
watches one’s words, makes sure ducks
are in order before quacking: bite your
tongue or at least hold it till you have
thought-through what you have to say,
or write: called Being Academic & the
sound of one hand schepping.

One might not be too overcautious to suggest…
At the risk of doing injustice to
Ah, er, um, let me um say…
If I might venture…
Without further
ado it goes
without
saying
be
that
as
it
may
&
not
with
standing
as it were,
so to speak,
in manners of
speaking even as we speak

The Sounds of Muse-ic: an Academic Clearing
My Throat about to profess in all modesty a tid
bit nearing the borders of frontiers yet unknown
perhaps or just playing it safe, accustomed to
lecture on the well-lit side of discreet, not
the wild side. Accuracy uber alles.
Footnotes in my mouth & I’d
rather be safe than sorry.




PS

Represent if you are inclined

Motivation:

paying students to get good grades.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-01-27-grades_N.htm

paying girls (a dollar a day)
to not get pregnant
http://www.higheredmorning.com/paying-girls-not-to-get-pregnant

“The University of North Carolina’s come up
with an unusual incentive in hopes of encouraging
teen girls not to get pregnant. In an attempt to reduce
the number of teen pregnancies, UNC at Greensboro
is providing classes in abstinence and the use of
contraceptives to girls ages 12 to 18 — and paying
them a dollar a day not to get pregnant.”


emergent properties
due to lack of compensation