Steve,
Already operating in Santa Fe are a half a dozen organizations making use of the informally credentialed to teach the informally learning, if you see what I mean. They do it very well. These organizations might need to be encouraged, perhaps, coordinated, presumably, funded, conceivably, honored, certainly, but they don’t need to be duplicated.
The only question in my mind – and you raise many good challenges even to the question – is: Would “we”, whoever “we” is, be happier 25 years from now, if there were a City University of Santa Fe offering graduate education in the things that Santa Fe does best. If “we” don’t think “we” would be happier, then I don’t think “we” should do it. Whoever “we” is.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
President and Groundskeeper.
The City University of Santa Fe.
http://home.earthlink.net/nthompson
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 11:59 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] CUSF and Higher Educamacation in the City Different.
Nick -
Let me leaven any questions I might have stated about PhDs and higher education with an endorsement of your ideas and intentions regarding Santa Fe being a *good place* for people to be able to pursue a higher education.
Many of us here are beyond caring about obtaining more credentials, but many of us may also have children or grandchildren or protege's who we would like to see have the opportunity for a higher education right here in River City (on the Alemeda or on the banks of the Agua Fria?).
While I think there are an *excess* of people qualified to teach the various courses and seminars suggested by an institution such as CUSF, I fear that few of them are *inclined* to do such teaching. The City Different draws the wealthy, the retired, and various species of the disaffected. It isn't clear which of those groups is likely to want to (or be quailified to) teach.
I don't mean this to be negative, I am just trying to frame why you may be having so much trouble rounding up people to engage properly. I, for example, am barely qualified by most standards to teach much of anything formally to anyone, and inclined only insomuch as I care passionately about at least a dozen things. Unfortunately I'm also scraping out a living (hard to tell that with all of my blathering here) doing things which, despite their spotty remuneration, are surely better paid than what I would ever see as an un-credentialed adjunct at an emerging (or fully formed) institution.
I want you to find the qualified and energetic and full-of-perspective instructors required for such an institution. I want my daughter who obtained a BA in liberal arts at CSF (just before they tanked) to have a place to get some more of the same if she wants to return to the area (she is in Denver working full time and pursuing an Art degree in her spare time). But I'm not sure such instructors are going to be easy to find with both full PhDs and the time/inclination to engage.
A more practical and (IMO) likely-to-serve-the-community deal would probably involve a lot more people teaching/leading courses/seminars *without* as many formal qualifications. There are *many* ABDs (all but dissertation) and even high school dropouts who can (and do) provide wonderful education and mentorship on many topics in this town. But maybe there is no way in the existing academic climate to do that formally... it would not do probably to bestow a bunch of honorary degrees on those who have gained much of their skills and knowledge *in spite of* academia, rather than within it's structure. That would defeat the purpose of requiring PhDs for the most part.
I applaud and encourage your efforts and don't want to discourage you from *looking for* the instructor/leader/professor candidates you seek. But I want to encourage a parallel effort that might be less challenging.
When we talk next, I'll try to listen carefully and try to dig through my network for possible resources that can help you with this endeavor... it is meritable... it is a "good thing"... it is... and I hope others here will renew (discover?) their interest in your quest...
- Steve
What, in heavens name, Peggy, led you to think I believed such a proposition? (Memorization = scholarship) Do you really think, knowing my writing on the list as well as you do, that I spent my 37 years teaching undergraduates to memorize? (I actually don’t HAVE a memory.) You are, or course, on the correct side of whatever war you are waging, but you are not waging it with me!
My only assertion was that formal advanced professional academic scholarship has SOMETHING to contribute to the mix. Santa Fe is a University town in every respect -- it has arts, galleries, music, theatre, a highly educated population (in part), institutes, policy making organizations, earnest discussion groups, research think tanks, undergraduate colleges, etc. and an abundance of good coffee, -- except that it does not have (many) graduate programs. The CUSF idea is to bring that last and final element of University life to Santa Fe. Since the City is already a university campus in many respects, let’s make that extra effort to become a City University. Read around in the (primitive and ill managed) website www.cusf.org, and see what you think. Help me make it better.
Nick
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of peggy miller
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 9:16 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] vol 88, issue 12
To Nick Thompson re "expertise"
The ability to memorize and quote things is not, in and of itself, expertise. It is simple a great ability to memorize.
--
Peggy Miller, owner/OEO
Highland Winds
Art, Photography, Herbs and Writings
406-541-7577 (home/office/shop)