Finding Space for Creativity

Prioritization is a great idea gone haywire. As has been publicly admitted, the tri-hierarchical ratings of programs caused undue morale reduction. Something is dreadfully wrong when I, attempting to be considerate, do not "bother" my professor-friends for a chat because I can sense they are barely able to handle their classes. Something is sadly disappointing that after endless hours of painfully hard work, we see the bottom line triumphing and relatively minor changes proposed. Most importantly, something is frightfully scary when I see a university founded on Anabaptist principles unable to withstand the winds of consumerism, capitalism, and our individual product-driven society.

I'm wondering how to balance out my criticism. I could give alternative suggestions, but they would all be retroactive like not hiring our foundational consultant. I would suggest that we should have put the great minds on campus together to envision a prioritization process that could be most beneficial for all, with a secondary check with a professional prioritizer (and be willing to not go with her/his recommendations), but that's water under the bridge.

Something radically clear to me is the need this university has for a concentrated, supported space for vision-dreamers. When faculty are over-booked without needed time for scholarship, when they forego necessary tasks in order to focus on students' needs constantly entering their offices, all brain cells are exhausted to even entertain the consideration of having time for university visionaries. No, we cannot afford to "be what we've become." Therefore, not only do we need a re-prioritization but we also need to find space for creativity. Having a "creative feedback" box to fill on a computer screen barely nods at what's needed, especially when these apparently creative feedback comments are disregarded when we realize what we really need is a budgetary cut.

Allow me to outline a potential design for creative-visioning space. The proposed faculty senate could choose a group of four faculty to become part of a creative-visioning team. Instead of having a four-four loading schedule, these faculty members would each teach two courses per semester (as to not drastically harm their respective departments) and the remaining loading all accumulate in this creative-visioning team. Their contracts would be extended one month in order to support the summer time that would be needed to jump-start the team's visioning. Two staff members would also be chosen for this team. An administrator would "visit" the group two or three times a semester to check-in and offer feedback but would not be a part of the team. Creative visioning is what the administrators should have been doing, so allow them the chance now to play catch-up and creatively vision the university out of the budgetary crisis while the creative-visioning team dreams without limits of the bottom line.

Although students are continually filtering in and out at EMU as they graduate roughly every four years, they must play an integral part of the creative visioning process. A major deficient factor of the prioritization process was the lack of sustained student voice representation with the steering committee. Similar to the faculty-staff creative visioning team, a small group of students (likely numbering between six and eight) in their third, fourth, or fifth years at EMU would meet several times a semester to "creatively vision" for the university. This team would continually rotate each year bringing in third-year students as fourth and fifth-year students graduate. They would meet at least twice a semester with the faculty/staff visioning team and be minimally compensated either through the work-study program or with course credit possibilities. Both the faculty/staff team and the student team would host university forums and conversations to elicit voices not represented on their teams and allow the university community the opportunity to be a part of the process.

What will be the end result? We don't know - it's an experiment, and that's the beauty of experiments. The university can decide to continue the teams, choose a different team, or discontinue the entire process after one year if the teams' visioning appear to be more damaging than helpful for the university. My hope would be that the team would continue throughout the future with a regular rotation of members. These individuals should ask the questions of each other and the university that we've all been wondering. What makes EMU distinctive? What does an Anabaptist-Mennonite university in the 21st century look like? What is the purpose of an education at EMU and are we achieving that? Who does EMU serve and how can we strengthen that/those connection(s)?

It must be wearisome for faculty and staff writing prioritization reports to see that what makes EMU distinctive is not the creativity involved in the university functions, but the distinctiveness of indistinctiveness. And I'm sure it must be a powerful headache for administration personnel to attempt to run a university with serious financial needs, a tenacious donor base, a radically divided constituency, and frustrated faculty and students with low morale. I refuse, however, to conclude this article with a critical, depressed, and frustrated voice because it would only have captured part of the truth. EMU has a distinctive education founded on a radical Christian faith tradition which fuels the world with bright, enthusiastic, purpose-driven, and compassionate-minded graduates. The professors that are here are here because they love the school, they have a priority for their faith, and they find worth in working with students. The administrators are here because of a deep-seated commitment to what the university stands for. With this great wealth of possibility, let's dream with hope and passion for what EMU can become. Somehow, we must find the creative in the consumer-driven rat race. As students we must challenge the unjust and praise the virtuous, and as a university we must discover and recommit to the fundamentals and decide to become what we can be, even if it means undergoing and implementing some radical imaginative creative-visioning.

Contact Sharon at sharon.kniss@emu.edu