(and well-spent) amount of time
at what Cicero, the classical rhetorician, would call
the “invention” stage. We asked lots of questions,
offered answers, debated over the answers, asked more
questions…you get the idea. However, this process of
collaboration and decision-making was just as much of an
accomplishment as our final product. The experience of
working across disciplinary boundaries to achieve a
shared goal is, I believe, one of enduring value.
To formulate our specific project, we had to determine how we could add to existing efforts to support undergraduate teaching and learning, a feat not easy to accomplish given the size of our university. It seemed that no matter where we looked, any original idea we thought was ours had already been turned into a successful program somewhere else on campus. Figuring out what was going on already, though, was a vital part of the process. In so doing, we established a connection with the Mark Stewart in UM Office of Sustainability and developed a project that would support their goal to educate the campus on the value of sustainability. Our contribution would be to focus on
existing and potential academic
efforts to incorporate the
concept of sustainability into
undergraduate teaching and
learning. Briefly defined,
sustainability as an angle of
inquiry connects social,
economic, and environmental concerns regarding consumption
of natural resources. Based on the positive responses we received
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when we pitched our idea to faculty, the question about whether we
should create a resource guide, website or hold an event was soon
answered: we would do it all three. Pooling our individual and
collective talents, we gathered resources from departments across
campus, researched programs at peer institutions, and created a
format for presenting our information that would be adaptable and
easy to use. The result was an online resource portal called @TLAST:
“Applying Today’s Learning to Achieve Sustainability Tomorrow” (you
can find it at this link
http://cte.umd.edu/programs/graduate/
lillygraduate/@last) that we would present at a CTE Workshop and at the Chesapeake Project, the first UM summer institute on sustainability. And not to brag, but in addition to completing this project by the Spring, three of the eight students in our cohort defended their dissertations (!).
As someone who will soon defend her dissertation and (hopefully) take an academic post, being a CTE-Lilly Graduate Fellow offered me an amazing opportunity to work with colleagues to create something as collective. Since so much of what we do as a students and teachers must happen in private—most of the time, it feels like it’s just me and my laptop— I welcomed the chance to regularly engage with a group of committed teachers and learners.
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