Sonoma State University

Conversations about SSU's academic story - the story we tell ourselves, our students, and our community about the role of SSU in the world - have been very exciting.  Ideas are more consistent and coherent than I expected, and many people seem very happy to have an opportunity to talk with colleagues about why and how we do this work.  I know I sure enjoy them.  Since I last wrote, we've had a lunch or two and a breakfast session at North Light Café and Books; 12-14 faculty members have come to each lunch, and about 8 to each breakfast so far.

I think I've written before that ideas around collaboration seem to resonate with a lot of participants as capturing much of what is true and is wished to be true about SSU:  Close faculty-student interactions; interdisciplinary efforts; coherent GE efforts; community partnerships; and more.  "Collaborative" also describes a characteristic that many of us want our graduates to have; it's one of the critical skills mentioned by Richard Thornburg in his address last week.  Another theme that some have mentioned is leadership.

I've discovered that, while "collaboration" is meaningful to me, it needs some explanation to some who haven't been in the conversations.  Here are pieces of what it captures for me: 

• Collaboration as a way to "do" education: Student-faculty collaboration; students collaborating in teams on projects; faculty collaborating across departments
• Collaboration with our community to situate our students' learning in this amazing place and community
• Collaboration as a learning objective, as a critical skill for our students in almost any career they choose

One challenge for me is seeing how these conversations lead to some kind of motto or tag line or motto, if such a thing would be useful (as I think it would).  The usefulness would depend on a balance between having some real meaning, and being broad enough to frame most or all of the ways we want SSU to be a force in the world.  The two examples I cite a lot are Cal Poly SLO, which uses the standard polytechnic "Learn By Doing" to great effect, both internally (as a way of structuring education) and externally (corporate recruiters talk about Cal Poly graduates' ability to hit the ground running); and Evergreen's "Let it all hang out," which also tells you something about how education works there, and what you might expect of a graduate.

Conversations are broadening:  Representatives from development and public relations, along with two deans, participated in the last lunch gathering, and the student government cabinet is coming to this Wednesday's lunch.  Hope to see some of you there!