Bringing It #91: Centering On The Paradigm Project
Dear friends,
BT2P’s mission has always been to catalyze positive change in undergraduate education, change grounded in the guiding purposes of undergraduate education. It’s a collective, collaborative project. The “we” of BT2P is not our staff, but the larger community of change-makers and thinkers with whom we share this commitment. We began Bringing It four years ago to speak with and listen to that community, to share our work and lift up yours.
As you know, BT2P has just launched our most ambitious initiative, the Paradigm Project. Its goal is to develop new models of holistic, engaged, equitable education and to catalyze systemic institutional change that offers such education to all students. It’s a collective, collaborative project. Given the scale of the crises facing higher education and the urgency of moving forward, how could it be otherwise? We know there is enormous creativity and positive innovation across higher ed, but too often these are siloed and marginalized in old regimes. The Paradigm Project aims to bring that creative energy to critical mass.
Storytelling is a key part of the effort; for systemic change needs the nourishment of stories that lift current innovations and spark new thinking. As we build the Paradigm Project, we plan more and more to center Bringing It on such stories. Of course, we’ll still share other information of importance to our readers. (Below, for instance, there’s an exciting job opportunity at Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service.) But beginning with this letter, we plan to feature posts on the project and stories of positive innovation that embody its goals. We start below with an introduction to the project’s Paradigm Working Group.
Are you involved in work that exemplifies for you the goals and hopes of the Paradigm Project, stories it would be valuable to share? Do you have reflections about the project and the future it aims to build? We would love to hear from you.
Introducing the Paradigm Working Group
We are pleased to introduce the Paradigm Working Group (PWG), a diverse group of ten educators and innovators that is at the heart of the project. The PWG will guide our ongoing work and connect it to best practices and models of holistic education and systemic change. Along with BT2P staff members, the members of the PWG include:
Bryan Alexander (Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Learning, Design, and Technology Program, Georgetown University)
Randy Bass (Vice President for Strategic Education Initiatives and Professor of English, Georgetown University)
Adam Bush (Provost and President-Elect, College Unbound)
Timothy Eatman (Dean of the Honors/ Living-Learning Community, Rutgers University-Newark)
Peter Felten (Executive Director, Center for Engaged Learning; Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning; Professor of History, Elon University)
Tessa Hicks-Peterson (Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement; Associate Professor, Urban Studies; Director, Critical Action + Social Advocacy, Pitzer College)
Mary Dana Hinton (President, Hollins University; President Emerita, The College of St. Benedict)
Marina Kim (Culture Strategist, Adyton PBC; Co-Founder, Ashoka U)
Buffie Longmire-Avital (Professor of Psychology; Director of the Black Lumen Project; Faculty Administrative Fellow for Mentoring Design, Elon University)
Elaine Maimon (Advisor, American Council on Higher Education; Past President, Governors State University)
The group is off to a great start. The PWG has held the first four of its monthly virtual meetings with robust and thoughtful discussions on the values and purposes of the project and how to communicate the stories of innovative change to public and academic audiences. Already the PWG feels like a community of thought-partners and supporters. We couldn’t be more excited. The bios of PWG members can be found at this link.
Job Opportunity
Haas Center for Public Service: Executive Director
Our friends at the Stanford University Haas Center for Public Service are seeking an Executive Director to oversee the university’s home for public service curricular, co-curricular, research, leadership, and other offerings. Primary responsibilities fall into the following categories: (1) Public Service Leadership and Management, (2) University and Community Partnerships, (3) Staff Development, (4) Strategic Planning, (5) Financial Management, (6) Fundraising, and (7) Field Building. The Executive Director leads and manages all administrative and operational functions at the Haas Center, while working to achieve research and teaching goals at the university. To learn more see here.
Thanks for staying in touch, contributing to our work, and for all that you do,
David, Paul, Todd, and Gianna