Enhancing Student Creativity in Colleges and Universities: The Organizational Perspective

1. Enhancing Student Creativity in Colleges and Universities: The Organizational Perspective William J. AshbyProvost,College of Creative StudiesUC Santa Barbara University System of Taiwan, 2005

3. Conditions necessary for organizational change • Support for change from external environment • Awareness of problem to be solved • Resources available(financial and people) • Organization’s members see advantage to change • Established structures to support change

4. Alexei V. Filippenko, Professor of Astronomy, UC Berkeley CCS ‘79 “The College taught me early to have an open, inquiring, and creative mind, but at the same time one that is logical and critical. This had a lasting and positive influence on my development as a scientist.”

5. Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University • “Learning is based on discovery guided by mentoring rather than on the transmission of information.” • “Faculty can learn from students as students are learning from faculty.” • “The ideal [is to] …turn the prevailing undergraduate culture of receivers into a culture of inquirers…”

6. UCSB College Organizational Structure

7. College of Creative StudiesEmphases Art - Painting, Sculpture, Bookarts Biology Chemistry Computer Science Literature Mathematics Music Composition Physics

9. College of Creative StudiesEspecially for freshmen • Biology colloquium • Accelerated and intensive courses in: • Chemistry • Computer science • Mathematics • Physics

11. College of Creative StudiesGeneric Courses with Variable Content • Biology 101 (Models and Experiments): • Evolutionary Medicine • Systematics of Seed Plant Families • AIDS: Transmission and Society • Conservation Ecology in Action • Sex and Evolution

12. College of Creative StudiesGeneric Courses with Variable Content • Literature 113 (Subjects and Materials) • Demons in Early Western Literature • The Fantastic Short Story • Shakespeare and Theory • Japanese and Chinese Poetry

13. College of Creative StudiesCourses with Variable Content • General Studies 120 (Advanced Group Interdisciplinary Studies): • Creative Thinking, the Magic of Ideas • Religion and Contemporary Art • What’s Bugging You? (painting and entomology) • The Physics of Musical Sound • Music and the Related Arts • Flowers (painting and botany)

14. Pass/No Record Variable Units Late drop privileges College of Creative StudiesThe non-competitive grading system

15. Angela Belcher, ChipmanAssociateProfessor of Materials, MIT (CCS ’91) “So I went to the professor and he said, “We don’t let undergraduates take this class –besides, you don’t have the prerequisites…It was in that class that I really fell in love with molecules and proteins…”

16. College of Creative StudiesStudent colloquia: recent examples • Modern Scottish Literature • How Science Works: The Nature of Discovery • Virtual Machines and Language Translation • How Learning Works

17. Alexei V. Filippenko, Professor of Astronomy, UC Berkeley CCS ‘79 “All scientists should be able to communicate difficult concepts to the public, and I got a great head start through CCS.”

18. College of Creative StudiesWhat is it? “The formal structure [of the conventional curriculum] is valuable, but as a means rather than an end…the Media Lab starts by putting [students] in interesting environments that bring together challenging problems and relevant tools.” Neil A. Gershenfeld, When Things Start to Think.

20. College of Creative StudiesSupporting Undergraduate Excellence • Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) • Budget for lab supplies • Support for special projects • Student-edited publications (Spectrum, Into the Teeth of the Wind) • Gallery for student exhibitions

21. UCSB Income 2003-04

22. College of Creative StudiesSupporting Undergraduate Excellence • Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) • Budget for lab supplies • Support for special projects • Student-edited publications (Spectrum, Into the Teeth of the Wind): • Gallery for student exhibitions

24. Grants Poster Session Showcasing Student Work Faculty Research Assistance Program UCSB Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity

26. College of Creative StudiesBuilding the CCS Community • All College Meeting • All College Barbecue • Weekly Coffee Hour • 24-hour Access to CCS Building • Student Lounge • Student Mailboxes • Student Listserv • CCS House at Manzanita Village

27. The Social Matrix of Creativity • “…traditions feed the need for a connection with place, a unique campus character. The rituals create an aura for a community of learners…”Boyer Commission report

29. College of Creative StudiesWhat is it? “The College basically is a place where an idea can flourish, whether the idea comes from the faculty or a student. There’s no authority, there’s no hierarchy, there’s no social strata which will affect the evolution of an idea and the birth and development of it.” Ian Ross, Professor, MCD Biology, in Mudrick Transcribed.

30. Where is Creativity? “Important ideas rarely come fully-developed from the brain of a single individual…When students at every level…join with faculty in common inquiry, the opportunities for ‘accidental collision of ideas’ is optimized.”Boyer Commission.

31. Structural Modes of Faculty Involvement • Buy out • Incentives • Permanent faculty

32. UCSB Freshman Seminar Program • The Iraq War as History • Case Studies in Medical Ethics • Language and Brain • Networks in the Chinese Immigrant Community • Food and Religion

33. Structural Modes of Faculty Involvement • Buy out • Incentives • Permanent faculty

34. How to Identify Appropriate Students • Grades and Test Scores • Student Statement of Intent • Letters of Recommendation • Portfolio • Interviews • Prize Competition

35. Grades (and test scores), A Poor Measure of Creativity “Students with perfect grades almost always don’t work out…they’ve spent their time trying to meticulously follow classroom instructions that are absent in the rest of the world.” Neil Gershenfeld, Director, Media Lab of MIT

36. How to Identify Appropriate Students • Grades and Test Scores • Student Statement of Intent • Letters of Recommendation • Portfolio • Interviews • Prize Competition

37. Student Statement of Intent “I have always been a hands-on, independent learner, and I am excited to think that even as an undergraduate I would be able to do original research…My love for the oceqan is expressed in everything I own…I am sometimes called ‘Octopus Girl’ at school, due to my well-known interest in these remarkable cephalopods.”

38. College of Creative StudiesThe Essential Elements • Make research-based learning the standard. • Construct an inquiry based freshman year. • Build on the freshman foundation. • Remove barriers to interdisciplinary education. • Link communication skills and course work.

39. College of Creative StudiesThe Essential Elements • Use information technology creatively. • Culminate with a capstone experience. • Educate graduate students as apprentice teachers. • Change faculty rewards systems. • Cultivate a sense of community. • --Boyer Commission