THE LAB

Are our Universities Mass Producing?
I might be overlapping a bit with RVL’s other blogs on Education, but I work at a University and thought it would be appropriate to write about my thoughts on the role of community in post-secondary education.

I work as an Admission Counsellor at Quest University Canada in Squamish, British Columbia. Quest was founded 2002 (its inaugural year was in 2007) by a man named Doctor David Strangway, formerly the President of the University of British Columbia. Strangway established Quest because he thought there was more to education than cramming hundreds of students into one room, throwing facts at them, asking them to regurgitate those facts onto an end-of-term exam, and then booting them out into the real world where, to be honest, fact-cramming and regurgitation don’t play an integral role.

I would agree. Our universities should not be factories for the mass production of educated people. If you look at the mass production of any commodity, what you get is hundreds of thousands of low quality products which are completely indistinguishable from one another. To illustrate,  picture a tin soldier factory, complete with whirring and humming machinery, a conveyer belt, large robotic arms swooping in and out, and a gigantic ‘stamping’ contraption that slams down onto the conveyor belt with a certain, crushing finality. The usual procedure is to take something raw, organic, and unique, send it through that factory, and ‘stamp’ it into some preconceived mold, the tin soldier mold in this case.

- The film Baraka does a good job comparing human society to a chicken factory; I think similar parallels can be drawn with the mass production of students at universities.
Is this really what we want our post-secondary educational system to look like? It’s a bit scary if you ask me. The world doesn’t need tin soldiers. It needs unique, independently-thinking citizens who can do a lot more than just spit out memorized facts.

Humans, it seems, have a tendency to move towards expansion. We see it nearly everywhere, especially in North American society. Expand, expand, expand. Go bigger, get more, be faster. When we focus so obsessively on this kind of expansion, we lose quality. In the case of education, we lose creative, confident, and well educated individuals.

I’m not saying that expansion is necessarily a bad thing. What I am arguing for is mindful expansion, and if we are going to have large universities, then we need to ensure that the quality of the education is not compromised by the very hugeness of the institution.

This is where community comes in. Community plays a necessary role in education and should be cultivated by all post-secondary institutions whether on a university-wide scale or on a smaller, program or residence specific scale. Community, in my opinion, has the ability to keep that giant, mold-stamping, tin-soldier-producing machine at bay.

Community at Quest University Canada

Quest University Canada, Squamsh, BC

At Quest University Canada,  community is deliberately cultivated, and the results are tangible. Like many other liberal arts institutions in North America, Quest is a residential campus, has small, seminar style classes, and an emphasis on student/faculty interaction. These features, in addition to Quest’s smallness (as a brand new university, Quest only has 220 students) are all contributors towards the cultivation of community.

However, Quest is unique in the sense that students have a real say in how the University is run. This is affected through what we call ‘Community Days.’ Community Days are held biannually at Quest and consist of the entire campus -students, faculty, and staff – gathering together to reflect on the Quest experience and offer suggestions for improvement. Community Days are complemented by monthly Community Updates where again the entire campus gathers to receive updates on the latest events at Quest.

As some one who attended a large university – indeed, an absolute behemoth of 40,000 students as compared to Quest’s 220 – I’ve found the level of student consultation at Quest to be remarkable. Students actually feel like they have a say at Quest, that they matter, and that the university truly is theirs to use in pursuance of their own goals and education. Giving students a voice is probably one of the biggest factors in forging a tight knit community at Quest.

The Results

According to Dean of Student Affairs, Melanie Koenderman, Quest’s efforts towards community building have resulted in:

• lower attrition rates
• fewer disciplinarian problems
• a devoted group of alumni who are more likely to give back to the university
• improved academics
• happier students…

…And most importantly, individuals who are truly unique and who are confident in their own genius and creativity. There are definitely no tin soldiers at Quest.

One of Quest’s main challenge, as Melanie told me, is making ‘Small seem Big’. As a start-up University, retention of students is vital. Community cultivation has become integral for the University in this sense. Larger universities have the opposite challenge; they need to make ‘Big’ seem ‘Small.’ I would argue that challenge can also be achieved and should be achieved through strategic cultivation of community on campus.

Let’s take a step back, World, stop mass producing tin soldiers, and start supporting the unique individuals that we all are and want to be.

by Ashley Best
Re-Vision Labs Fellow Emeritus

Need the current scoop on education in the United States? Check out these links!

STATE OF THE UNION: President Obama gave the State of the Union last night and unveiled his plan to use healthy competition to bolster performance in schools across the nation and to work toward reducing the high cost of tuition through various avenues.  His “Race to the Top” program rewards schools that make strides in raising academic standards and teacher quality, and improving failing schools .  This plan would help schools that have weakened their standard under the No Child Left Behind act, as floundering schools currently lose federal funding and districts cling to what monies they have available.  It is estimated that these programs will cost in the ballpark of $4 billion. “In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education,” Obama said. “No one should go broke because they chose to go to college.” Tax breaks and student loan payback incentives are designed to ease the burden places on students and families under the high cost of college tuition.  The following links explore these plans and their implications of the future of United States education.

"We only reward success." - President Obama

1. The Official Plan – From the White House website

2. Prepared Text – The basics of Obama’s vision to improve the United States’ education system

3. The Nitty Gritty - A detailed account of the individual facets of the new education plan

4. Show Me the Money – How do we pay for “Race to the Top”?

5. United States Student Association – The country’s oldest and largest national student-led organization praises education ideas

Check back for next week’s hot topic!  Education is empowering. Enjoy the week!

by Ashley Best
Re-Vision Labs Fellow

Need the current scoop on education in the United States? Check out these links!

Week of January 4th – 8th, 2010

MICROFINANCE: Microfinance week at RVL is upon us! (Go check it out!)  In the most broad of terms, microfinance refers to a movement that envisions low-income households having the permanent support of, and access to, high quality financial services to help reduce poverty.  More narrowly, this term refers to loans and and financial services provided by mircofinance institutions to low-income clients.  How does this effect education one may ask?  A cornerstone of alleviating poverty lies in the opportunity to provide education.  This crucial fact has spurred many microfinance institutions to focus on providing education loans and creating educational focus.  ETC.

Viattana connects you, the lender, with students who need your help.

1. Vittana – Based in Seattle (yay!), Vittana makes it possible for person-to-person loans to go directly from the public to a student.  100% of the money you loan to Vittana goes to a high achieving student that needs an education loan, and as the student pays Vittana back, Vittana pays you! Pretty cool.  Student profiles are uploaded to the site so people can see exactly who your money is going to!  This is a great way to help finance someone’s education!

2. Janta – Down the coast in San Francisco, Janta offers the possibility of educational loans or gifts.  This organization provides student profiles and academic progress reports to the financial donors, providing proof that education works to alleciate poverty and provide opportunity one person at a time.  Donations can be made to Janta through gifts, that are tax deductible through the charitable organization Namaste Foundation, or through lending, that will be repaid by Janta’s microfinance institution when funds are repaid by the student.

How does Janta work, you ask?

3. Focus on Children – A faculty member at the University of Huston reviews a study that proposes to add a children’s education fund on to the microfinance loans made to clients.  When clients pay back their loans, small business loans or otherwise, a portion of the repaid money goes into a fund that is reserved for their child’s education.  It focuses on the possibilities of existing mircofinance institutions adding educational lending and program updates to their current offerings.

4. Stories from the Field – Kiva, another institution implementing mircofinance loans, has a fellows program that serves the purpose of documenting the lives of the working poor.  This blog is very informative and gives supreme insight to the populations that can benefit from all kinds of mircofinance loans and gifts.  This particular post explores how women in the Philippines have used loans to better their standards of living, allowing their children to be free to attend better schools in other cities, attend college and have opportunities that they would otherwise never have been able to experience.  While this example is not based in the United States, it speaks to the power of microfinance and the inherent ties between education and alleviation of poverty.

REMEMBER: RVL’s is hosting the Seattle Greendrinks and Oikocredit kick-off event on January 12th at 5:30pm.  See you there!

Check back for next week’s hot topic!  Education is empowering. Enjoy the week.

In my next several posts, I plan to carry out case studies of how community works in business. Why would a business choose to incorporate community? How does business profit from cultivating community? How does a corporation create community around its product in the first place?

I’ll start with Starbucks, the perfect example of the impersonal, giant, corporate chain threatening to take over the world with its ubiquitous Grande lattes and frappuccinos who suddenly seeks out community…

Last summer there was quite the buz (almost the hyper, jittery buz of some espresso-holic Seattle-ite) about the coffee titan. Starbucks was breaking with tradition and going “undercover,” as an article in the Huffington Post describes the unusual move. For some reason, Starbucks had chosen to open up a new coffee shop that would look nothing like the previously employed, cookie-cutter-recipe cafe that the corporation had already opened up across the world.

Why the change? Why suddenly was the old policy of brand consistency and familiarity overturned for a coffee shop that would effectively look nothing like what we’ve come to know, love, and yes, sometimes hate, about Starbucks?

The answer: Starbucks is looking to incorporate more community into its business model

This new, community based Starbucks store is called 15th Avenue Coffee. It has none of the familiar trappings of your original Starbucks. It serves beer. It wants to have poetry slams. Above all, it’s looking to set itself apart from the Starbucks chain that gave birth to it and actively engage the local community.

To be fair, Starbucks has always sought out at least some elements of community cultivation and corporate social responsibility before going undercover. Its efforts to purchase fair trade coffee, the way it sends nutrient-hungry gardeners (like me) home to garden with leftover coffee grounds, and the company’s employee support system are all efforts by Starbucks to create a positive community around its product.

But unexpectedly individualizing its stores? This is taking marketing to a whole new level. I mean, this was a former multinational tycoon, just another of the faceless chains where you’re guaranteed to get the exact same product at every store. Lack of variety, lack of individuality. This was the model that served Starbucks for years to grow and grow. It brought the business of specialty coffee to center stage. In some cities, it seems there’s a Starbucks on every corner. Expand, expand, expand, but then, bam, Starbucks is getting local!?

But going undercover isn’t the only way Starbucks is cultivating community these days. A quick perusal of their website will show you immediately that community is an integral part of their marketing. To be honest, having never looked at their website before, I have no idea whether or not community has always been so central to their online branding. My ignorance of Starbucks’ marketing history aside, it’s still interesting to note the kind of emphasis they place on community on their webpage.

The Starbucks homepage has a lot of frothy looking cups of coffee on it, personal account information, and a short video about a rewards program. However, there is also links dedicated entirely to cultivating a Starbucks community. They have the usual Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube links. More importantly for our story here is that the MyStarbucksIdea.com, Starbucks V2V, and Starbucks Shared Planet programs. It is through these programs that you really see Starbucks’ efforts to cultivate community coming through.

In the MyStarbucksIdea.com, people obviously have the chance to share suggestions with Starbucks. They create an account, sign in, and join the conversation.

In Starbucks V2V, Stabucks is “redefining community.” It has essentially created an online forum to connect people with other people, actions, and causes to bring good into the world.

Finally, in the Starbucks Shared Planet Program, you’ll find Ethical Sourcing, Environmental Stewardship, and Community Involvement programs. In the Community Involvement tab, Starbucks says:

“From the neighborhoods where our stores are located, to the ones where our coffee is grown – we believe in being involved in the communities we’re a part of. Bringing people together, inspiring change and making a difference in people’s lives – it’s all part of being a good neighbor. And it’s a commitment rooted in the belief that we can use our scale to be a catalyst for change.”

Frankly, I’m impressed. I had no idea Starbucks was trying to be such a catalyst for change, trying to cultivate and engage its community offline and online.

Maybe this new move is towards community cultivation is appropriate. After all, that’s what Starbucks was about originally: a local coffee house that garnered a loyal following and community. Perhaps the ‘powers that be’ at Starbucks understand that the local and individualized is more attractive to a community of people than a chain corporation practically synonomous with McDonalds and other fast food joints. Starbucks does try to give off the sense that it’s all about the finer points in life. Community is one of those finer points.

Ultimately, Starbucks creating community around its specialty coffees and shops through the individualization of its cafes, through its efforts in community involvement, and through its social media programs means that Starbucks is getting to know its customers in a far more intimate manner than ever before. And if Starbucks knows its customers better, it can serve them better, and in the end, better secure their loyalties, all while making the world a better place. What a novel concept!

Up next week: Lululemon: Cultivating Community or Cultivating Cult?

by Ashley Best
Re-Vision Labs Fellow

Need the current scoop on education in the United States? Check out these links!

Week of December 28th, 2009 – January 1st, 2010

SKYPE: Skype is a software that allows over-the-internet voice and video chat between Skype users for free! It can also incorporate instant messaging, text messaging and calls to landlines.  This versatile and user-friendly software has taken internet communication to a level of ease and accessibility.  Like many useful technologies, there is great potential to use this software in the classroom for collaboration and the ePals section of the Skype software makes it easily possible for teachers and classrooms to connect to each other. Over-the-internet learning is a steadily growing market and integrating this useful and connective software in the classroom presents endless opportunities and creative outlets for students and educators alike.

Skype allows connectivity in the classroom in new and exciting ways!

1. What You Need:  Written by an educator, this short article explains the necessary equipment, space, and permissions needed to set up Skype accounts for students, as well as precautions that should be considered.

2. History Comes To Life:  An awesome example of how a teacher connected his history lesson plans with a expert in the field, a curator at a National Museum using Skype. (Yes, yes, this is in Canada.)

3. Virtual Field Trips: School field trips are not always an option due to budget, proximity, or other factors, but with Skype, students can take a live tour of a new place and ask questions about what they are seeing!

4. Interviews in (or out of) the Classroom: These high school students are studying broadcast journalism and use Skype to conduct interviews off campus. Pretty handy!

5. The More the Merrier: 50 great ideas on how to incorporate Skype in the classroom.  These ideas stretch from lesson planning to parent-teacher conferences to learning a foreign language.

Check back for next week’s hot topic!  Education is empowering. Enjoy the week & Happy New Year!

By Regan Kohlhardt

Re-Vision Labs Fellow

Just in time to whip up for your Christmas dinner this week, here are the last four ingredients for our delicious, home-made pot of Community! See last week’s post for the first four.

Ingredient #5 Governance

Communities need leadership. I read an interesting blog post a while back that touched on this particular topic, and I thought the author had a good point about community leaders self-selecting themselves. Here is what she had to say:

Community leaders emerge over time as they continue to take proactive roles in the community and rally other members to their causes. These leaders are community members and they self-select because of their interests – not because they are told to do so…although they can be encouraged to do so.

To read the whole post which also has some interesting insight on essential elements of community, see “Social Media is Not Community,” The Social Organization.

Governance helps support a community’s common goal or interest. Community leaders take the community’s conversations, ideas, and aspirations and consolidate them into some sort of holistic plan for the community. They facilitate cooperation among the members and serve as examples in their fervor for the community goal. They provide the reliability and stability needed to keep a community thriving.

An interesting development to note with regard to community Governance, is the increased member participation in leadership decision-making that social media and the internet have incorporated into modern communities. The voices and thoughts of community members have always been respected by community leaders, but with social media and the internet, participants have a much larger and louder voice.

Check out the White House’s movement towards open government as well as the City of Seattle’s movement towards open government for examples of members of the national and state-level communities having a voice in the ‘grand plan’ of their communities.

Ingredient #6 Networking

Our next tasty ingredient to add to our Community dish is: Networking

Communities cannot exist in isolation. They would die off if that were the case. Instead, prospering and growing communities are those that deliberately work to network and bring in a constant flow of new community members and support.

Networking also allows communities to form alliances with other communities to pursue a common goal. Two heads are better than one, right? Multiple communities working together towards one goal are logically better than multiple communities working separately.

This is actually a problem we see a lot in development work around the world. Multiple organizations will work to achieve similar goals (say improving maternal health care), but they don’t always work together. Why not? Any body else have thoughts on this?

As with community Governance, community Networking is also something that has been dramatically affected by social media and the internet. There’s a video which has run rampant on Youtube called Did You Know that says it takes only 2 years to reach a market audience of 50 million using Facebook. That’s compared to 38 years using the radio. Communities have fully taken advantage ofsocial media and the web to increase their outreach efforts to more people than they ever could have reached before the internet.

Ingredient #7 and #8 Design and Story

And here we have the last two ingredients for our Community recipe: Design and Story.

Design and Story help to give communities an identity, a soul if you will, to display to both its members and the rest of the world. They help communicate and outline the mission and goal behind every community.

Thinking about Design specifically, a community, whether it manifests itself on a webpage, on an online forum, in a physical gathering place, or just as an idea, needs some sort of ‘designed’ appeal. Playing on the whole recipe analogy, any recipe that produces awesome-tasting food is great, but if it looks like crap (to be explicit), nobody’s going to want to eat it. The same goes for community.

Obviously for online forums and webpages, Design is in the appearance of the page, in the way it communicates the mission statement of the community and in the ease with which community members can voice their thoughts and partake in the discussion.

With physical spaces, you could say its the feng shui of the space. Does it look like a kind of space that can accurately represent the community it accommodates?

Lastly, with ideas, are these ideas ordered and meaningful? Is there Design behind them or are they just a random shmattering of thoughts? This is basic common sense. How can you gather a group of people without properly communicating your ideas?

Story really gives community a personal aspect, something that people can hang onto and take to the heart. Tales that delineate the creation of a community, the trials and tribulations of a community, and the triumphs of community can communicate to the fullest extent what that community is all about. Stories lay bare the character of community, and this in turn, attracts people to it. They formulate trust, bonds, and ‘me-too!’ experiences that pull in individuals far more securely than mere facts ever could.

People like character, and they prize individuality. Design and Story bring the character and individuality of a community to the front. More importantly, they speak to the raw emotions we have as humans and successfully court our loyalties.

Remember hearing this fable when you were little? Now that is a tale of cooking up community if I ever heard of one...

Simmer over Medium Heat and Serve Hot!

There we have it! The 8 Essential Ingredients for a hot pot of Community: Commons, Ecology, Food, Economy, Governance, Networks, Design, and Story.

I would appreciate any comments from all of you readers on these 8 Ingredients. Community can be a tricky potion to concoct because it does establish itself in so many unique and different ways. Are these 8 Ingredients absolutely essential? Are some more important that others? Are there some additional additives that would make this recipe even more enticing?

Let me know your thoughts and good luck with the cooking!

How is social media changing the world? Check out this week’s hottest hits in global development!

1. Crowdsourcing Platform  Ushahidi Breaks Barriers with Innovative Design

New open source web platform allows for the crowdsourcing of global development related ideas, updates, and information.

2. Activists Use Social Media to Spread the Word about Copenhagen

NGOs take advantage of new social networking and social media tools to disseminate information, tweet elected officials, and track progress during the conference.

3. Hopenhagen: The Social Media Experience!

Founded under a mission to “give everyone hope and a platform to act,” Hopenhagen, an interactive website that unites global participants around the Copenhagen conference, allows their collective voice to speak loudly and clearly.

4. Al Gore Introduces “Repower America” Campaign, Rooted in Social Media Dynamism

Al Gore used the platform of the Copenhagen conference to introduce a new grassroots movement entitled ‘Repower America’ that will focus on garnering public support for Congressional approval of clean energy and climate legislation by Earth Day of 2010. The main focus of the campaign is an interactive wall where participants, celebrities, etc can post videos and photos representing their thoughts and feelings on climate legislation.