Purpose in gloom (day 172)

Another day of strategic planning.  Not as exhausting today.  Just like yesterday the facilitator led us through a visualization to get us in the right frame of mind to think about what things might be like in five years.  I came face to face with my pretty gloomy view of the future.  In my vision, the air was more polluted, people were more worried, and there was a general sense of urgency to do something.  The good part is that people were doing something.  So it was gloomy but purposeful.  The new campus had lots of green spaces including gardens, it had big open sunny studios, and there was more interaction between faculty and students as a matter of life on campus.  

Something that came up a lot during discussion is the distinction between research and teaching and how much they can be brought together before each are compromised.  I come from a system where the distinction is quite stark -- research is done by Faculty and graduate students, outside of teaching in sacred research spaces.   Sometimes undergraduate students are brought in as Research Assistants.   Now I'm being nudged to see if things could be different.  The issue is that teaching has to do with breadth and research has to do with depth.  They have different goals.   And there is also the issue of numbers.  There are many more undergraduates than there are Faculty and grads.  It's unclear how they could be integrated without decreasing the quality of the research.   And let's face it, not every undergraduate will want to go into research.  Perhaps the scenario of research in pedagogy is the most obvious one to think about.  This type of research needs a willing student body to experiment with and greatly benefits from their input.

Tomorrow, no strategic planning. 

A song for this post.