Strategic Priorities & Core Values

Dear College, Colleagues,

Has anyone here other than Ray Anderson
and maybe Margo Flood figured out how
the fact of twitter, facebook, myspace,
youtube iPhone, palm pilot, video phonics,
google, bing and old-fashioned e-mail etc
might have impact on the way we do our
educating? Our strategic priorities &
core values? The [counter] intuitive mind
is a sacred gift, and the
rational mind: a
faithful
servant.

We have created a society
that honors the servant
and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein

“We can't solve problems by using
the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them.”

Ray Anderson has come and gone.
Jeanne Summers’ Call for A
Transformational Consideration
of Higher Education: mere blip on
the April radar screen. Evan Wantland’s
concern re Ivory Tower: stone tossed
into a deep well. Gary Hawkin’s 2
Economies: a profound distinction that
would tear this program in half & back
together like a 2’s day weld: Will of the
whisperer

Our universities... continue to teach and
operate in the system that is destroying the
biosphere. Adherence to the old mind-set,
the old curricula, obsolete pedagogy, and
shortsighted planning are producing graduates
who are trained to perpetuate the destruction
of the biosphere.



I didn’t see in our Strategic Priorities or Core Values
any thing that evoked these concerns of Ray Anderson
and Albert Einstein and didn’t know if they should be
or could be added to our list of salutes.

Putting IT in Play
Toward a Virtual Workshop For Pedagogical
Creativity in these Troubled Turbulent Times
Where Busy-ness-as Usual is, if not Bankrupt
as our Graduation Speaker says: somewhat
Obsolete and Part of the Problem—that’s what
he wrote; you can check that speech that Margo
Flood sent out if you missed it or don't believe me.

I have entitled this speech:
“A Call for Systemic Change.”
That’s what I am presumptuous
enough to call on you to create
in education. I do not ask you
to do anything I am not trying
to do in industry. Unless
somebody leads, nobody will.
Why not you?" Ray Anderson
(this year's graduation speaker)

Get them ready for a different future. Paradigms
are shifting. The folly of the prevailing paradigm,
represented by the “modern” industrial system,
stands exposed in all its errors. A new paradigm
is taking hold: waste-free, renewable, cyclical,
resource efficient, benign, socially equitable,
in harmony with nature.

Get it into your curricula, pedagogy, research,
operations, and supply chains now. There is no
time left for pondering, much less denial.

Did any of our strategic priorities or core values
reflect this, our Graduation Speaker’s chief concerns?
Am I obtuse? Missing something?

I need a 12-step program to
get me out of my box: my
retro Fred Flatland teacher-
centered textual addiction:
my 80-minute classroom
contact hours plus alternate
Fridays, regulatory on-task-
quiz-&-exam-grade-gun-driven
-keeps-em-down- on-the-farm
-after-they've-seen-Paris
sustainable habit tattoo

External Affairs (The liberal arts) :

Those of you who wake up in the middle of the night,
semi-panicked, sweating, bed sheets awry because of
environmental concerns: peace in the near east, sexual
predation, teenage suicide, immigration policy, home
land security and stuff like that: gather over on the
west side of Canon, next to the cafeteria. You’re
playing for the liberal arts team.

Internal Affairs (The Liberal Art):

Those of you who wake up in the middle of the night
in agony over relationships, family concerns, personal
esteem and effectiveness, liability & performance
anxieties, weight, health and stuff like that:
gather over on the east side of Canon
with the view of the rope swing
and Carson. Your team is
called Liberal Art. There's a difference.

xxxooo, Presbyter