Convocation Book awards, Critical and Creative Thinking Program
2008
"My CCT training taught me that, while we can't always control the circumstances in our lives, we can take charge of how we think about them."
Indeed, Sheryl Savage had ample opportunity to apply this principle to work and personal life, at times requiring time out from her CCT studies. During these times, which extended the timeframe for completing her program, Sheryl was actively applying strategies for how to think about problems. This resulted in effective solutions to professional and medical concerns. And to healing after a seemingly insurmountable painful loss.
Sheryl views the CCT Program as life changing, equipping her with indispensable thinking tools. She developed confidence and competence as a risk-taker, realizing that,"Because I can think a situation through, I can handle it - and that, if one possibility or solution doesn't work, I can generate another that will."
This transformational process took root in the creative thinking course. One of the exercises was to reproduce a famous drawing by turning it upside down and viewing each part as a pleasing arrangement of shapes and lines. "This surprisingly successful outcome struck a sensitive nerve within that, when I think I can't do something, to step back, take a different view and break a circumstance down into manageable aspects."
Sheryl first came to CCT during her tenure with the UMB Office of Institutional Advancement where she helped raise millions of dollars in contributions. Through this work Sheryl formulated a capstone synthesis project on how to add humor to an organization's culture to enliven people's creativity. As it turned out, humor provided a resource for her own challenges. A boating accident resulted in fracturing her back and the possibility of never walking again. "Twenty four hours later, lying in a hospital bed, I was thinking solutions for moving ahead with my life based on different surgical outcomes. Fortunately, I emerged whole from the surgery."
Shortly after, Sheryl lost her infant grandson to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). This devastating circumstance brought her CCT capstone work to an indefinite halt. Clearly, it seemed impossible to continue writing about humor in the workplace - or any level. What limited strength she had was needed to help the family cope and learn about SIDS through support programs and research.
However, in what undoubtedly was one of the most powerful challenges to her thinking strengths, Sheryl shifted her synthesis focus to humor as a means of promoting healing from loss. "Again, my CCT training helped me take a different view, grasp what questions I needed to ask and answers to seek. Sheryl's courageous capstone work shows a journey in understanding how to transform pain and anguish to SIDS prevention programs. In the process, an intellectual and emotional resilience that had been stretched to the limit was recaptured.
In Sheryl's words, "My CCT training was invaluable. Equally invaluable was the faculty's dedication to guiding and supporting me throughout this extraordinary transformative learning process, especially during difficult times."
Sheryl, we the CCT faculty and students want you to know how much you have inspired and supported us throughout your studies, and now as a graduate of the Program. We now think, "is there any situation so serious that humor cannot help?"
2007
As a librarian in a relatively small community college in Whittier, California, the students Jan Coe serves range from knowledgeable adults who may not have stepped into a library in years to recent high-school graduates who are technologically savvy but information illiterate. Her desire to help them succeed in college and in life led her to pursue her own late-career education in the CCT Program during summer courses, then a full-year sabbatical, and finally as a long-distance student (nudging the Program into the era of skype and wikis). In her own words, she wants her "students to understand that the research process is not linear - there are many dead ends, shortcuts, and wrong turnings... that research is exciting; and that research matters [and] that when conducting research, they have a responsibility to examine their own assumptions and opinions as well as those propounded in published sources, by their friends, and in the media."
This spirit of reflection on assumptions and excitement of finding out new things emerged wonderfully in Jan's own CCT studies. She used every project as a chance to investigate and synthesize-always in well-organized papers and presentations-what is known about a topic, drawing not only on her librarian's skills, but her curiosity to see issues from all sides. Through the sequence of courses in the Program she grew in self-confidence, taking more risks over time in presenting her own ideas and exploring new domains. Most notably, she discovered a passion for citizen input to debates about new developments in biomedicine.
Jan's interest in investigating and communicating the different sides of issues is mirrored in her ability to listen attentively in group discussions and to do the patient work needed to help a group cooperate despite differences in opinions and work-style. This was especially clear during a group "problem-based learning" project that developed a plan for a yearlong multi-disciplinary symposium on death and dying. It was also evident in her administrative assistance to the Program and her participation in CCT courses and activities, which are as much about group process, participation, and "reflective practice" as they are about thinking. Jan always contributed responsibly and generously to the learning of fellow students and, indirectly, by gently nudging faculty members to reflect on their own practice. The CCT faculty and students were privileged to witness and contribute to, in Jan's words, her "intellectual re-awakening and professional reinvigoration."
2006
Karen Crounse
2005
There's a brief pause then Matthew Puma's eyes twinkle with excitement as he describes the kind of thinking he likes to do best: "I get immense joy and satisfaction from the process of connecting things up, from pairing seemingly disparate or oppositional ideas to find common ground among them." Indeed, Matthew, who holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy, revels in getting his hands on a whole lot of "stuff", findings way to connect it, and teaching his adult learners to do the same. He attributes his significant strides as a thinker and successful application of this in the classroom to his CCT training.
As an educator, Matthew serves unique populations. One of his tasks is to serve as the curriculum developer and primary teacher for the Computers for the Office Training Program for unemployed adults living in an urban housing project in Worcester, Massachusetts. His aim: to train these adults to become fluid, flexible thinkers who gain success and satisfaction in their lives and work through connection making. Through familiar content he teaches them to identify paradoxes embedded in oppositional thinking such as open vs closed, reason vs. emotion, male vs. female and good vs. evil which Matthew describes as "loaded oppositions that become hindrances to thought when they are held too rigidly as dichotomies". In the process this special adult population, many of whom have little prior educational advantage, learn to free up fixed or rigid ideas and think fluidly which is essential to effective critical and creative thinking.
This powerful method of learning to learn is the basis of Matthew's CCT capstone project in which he translates themes from academic philosophy into practice in the adult basic education classroom. The result is a set of instructional strategies and a guide to help teachers use paradoxical and oppositional thinking as rich metaphors for enhancing students' development on many levels.
Training students to identify common ground in the face of split or oppositional thinking, to think in terms of degrees and possibilities, prepares them to be effective in life. At the same time, Matthew's course projects have been "training" his CCT instructors to think more deeply about our classroom strategies because he often translated tools and themes we introduced into clear and detailed instructional guides for his adult learners. Intelligent, insightful, compassionate, Matthew Puma has achieved one of the highest goals of the CCT program. He is an effective, inspirational agent of change in the lives of others.
2004
Ivy Frances' growth and development throughout her CCT program has been an inspiration to her classmates and instructors. Ivy models curiosity and questioning, receptivity and openness to ideas, fair-mindedness, adventurous, flexible thinking, and empathy and understanding for others.
Ivy chose the CCT program to help her make changes in the direction of her life. Her quest for deeper self-realization and personal fulfillment has resulted in extraordinary transformations. Over the course of her journey in the program she has come a great distance from her primary focus as an agent for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). She has discovered an exciting new sense of self and of place as a thinker and photographer-artist-essayist.
From childhood, Ivy loved taking pictures but as an adult doubted her talents as an artistic photographer. She wanted her photographs to tell stories, convey ideas, capture nature, and represent truth, but could she succeed? As a CCT student she has re-examined her fears and lack of confidence as a visual artist. The magnificent photos she has taken for her coursework and her reflection on their meaning show the growing confidence and her recognition that she is, indeed, an artist with a camera. From capturing the ethereal qualities of a milkweed plant to penetrating the character of her hometown of Scituate and its people, Ivy has rediscovered and affirmed herself as an artist and story-teller with a camera. Her own words best describe a journey that has been empowering and resulted in significant strides in self-awareness and confidence:
"Through the CCT program, I've become more able to look at my self critically without self-doubt, with greater self-awareness and new found capacity to grow and move forward rather than stalling. My creative side has burgeoned in the supportive, challenging environment of the CCT program, encouraging me to take intellectual risks and revel in them, taking my creativity to a much higher level. My thinking abilities are expanded -- they are now dimensional, like a cube. I think in multi-faceted ways with greater fluidity, flexibility, and with confidence in possibility. "
For Ivy, this is just the beginning of her journey. Along the way, she is certain to continue giving others with whom she shares her art pause to think about their own latent gifts and talents. The satisfaction and joy she shows from stopping to take time to think is bound to be infectious.
2003
Luanne Witkowski has taken a persistent, caring, innovative role in the CCT Program, in her workplace, and in her community. Luanne is an artist who, shortly before she joined CCT, left her full-time job so she could have more time for painting. This she has done, with solo and joint exhibits of large paintings and works on paper. To pay her bills she took on a half-time position as a studio manager at Mass Art. Finding that she was the first person in this position, Luanne has put in place guidelines and organization that ensure a personally healthy and environmentally responsible workspace. She began to develop a three-part plan for "basic training" of artists, making good use of the tools for personal and organizational change she was learning in CCT. Basic training in Luanne's model not only includes health and environmental concerns, but also artists' responsibility to engage with the communities that artists rely on to view and support their artwork. In this spirit, she took up an offer of use of a storefront in Jamaica Plain and initiated the Efka Project. As Efka's coordinator she coached emerging artists to prepare, publicize, curate, and staff their first exhibits. In turn, Efka exhibits provide an "opportunity for the public to gain exposure to, and education about artists in their community who are about to embark on their careers." (Efka was featured in the Boston Globe, 3 Feb. '02). This three-part plan was showcased in a poster as part of the Environment/sustainability activities during the Chancellor's fall inauguration. Luanne has gone on to develop a curriculum for Mass Art, which she has refined as a possible UMB course through her participation in a faculty curriculum development workshop this spring. Meanwhile, in the CCT Program, Luanne has served this year as the teaching assistant for the large core courses. In this position, she has created efficient, behind-the-scenes organization to support the instructors, who for the first time, had to handle the large classes with only one instructor. Finally, in her course work Luanne models to other students the CCT ideals of students experimenting and taking risks in applying what they are learning, reflecting on the outcomes, and building up a set of tools, practices, and perspectives that work in their specific professional or personal endeavors.
2002
Suzanne Clark, an assistant professor of music at Berklee College, joined CCT's interdisciplinary graduate program to expand her perspectives on creativity in writing, performing and teaching music. During her three and a half years in the Program, she developed a keen appreciation of the ways that physical and psychological stresses detract from creative engagement with music. Through her course projects and capstone synthesis research Suzanne has assembled a variety of tools for reflection and mindful practice, showed their power in reevaluating her own experiences as a musician, and prepared a guide for musicians' wellness. We look forward to hearing of musicians encouraged by her teaching to look after themselves better. We also look forward to reading more of Suzanne's stories and poems that now complement her musical compositions.
As well as being a serious teacher-scholar-practitioner, Suzanne has contributed responsibly and generously to the learning of fellow students during courses, in the extra-curricular activities of the CCT Forum (the graduate student organization), and, indirectly, by gently nudging faculty members to reflect on their own practice. She has also taken an active role in CCT's outreach beyond its formal program of study through the Thinktank for Community College teachers, the web-based Fieldbook of tools for critical thinking and reflective practice, and reorganization of the Program's website and paper files. These contributions to the CCT community, as well as her projects, are recognized in this book award.