Saturday, March 24, 2012

Dominique-René de Lerma: 'I am profoundly impressed by' 'CBMR Update, Academic Team Recommendations'


I am profoundly impressed by the thought, time, vision, and organization this document exhibits, and appreciate its emphasis on students as well as "civic engagement."
Dominique-René de Lerma



From: Phibbs, Morris [mailto:mphibbs@colum.edu] 
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 11:01 AM
To: Hairston, Monica
Subject: CBMR Update, Academic Team Recommendations





To members of the CBMR International Advisory Board:
Dear friends,
On Monica’s behalf, I send you the attached report from the Blueprint Prioritization Academic Team. This report was released on March 19 and is much more positive than the Provost’s report, which you have seen. Both reports have been submitted to Columbia College President Dr. Warrick Carter, who, along with the college’s Board of Trustees, will announce their final decisions in late June.

It is gratifying to know that the Academic Team, which is comprised primarily of faculty members, recommends the retention of the CBMR as a viable and active component of the college’s work and mission. And while we are encouraged by this expression of support, it does not necessarily indicate that the final decision made by the President and the trustees will overturn that of the Provost. It is a positive development nonetheless.

I have included the CBMR-specific sections of the Academic Team’s report below. If you wish to interpret those sections within the context of the full college-wide report, that document is attached.
With best wishes,
Morris
Morris A. Phibbs
Center for Black Music Research
312.369.8550




Pertinent Excerpts from the full Academic Team Report
Embrace Applied Research in the Arts and Media and Civic Engagement as a Core Value
Some of the best and most visionary thinking we have encountered in the Prioritization process involves a much more cohesive conceptualization of learning through projects and of the College as a “student laboratory” which inherently supports the crossing of program, department, and school boundaries, the building of students’ bodies of work, and interdisciplinary practice. However, this kind of learning requires a critical examination of and shift in the role of the Deans, Chairs, and faculty in relation to the applied research, civic engagement, and service learning activities at the College.
The various research centers must continue to play a role in the life of the College; however, they can be more appropriately restructured in order to serve students as well as faculty and their particular constituencies.
Position the Columbia College Chicago Library as a primary place of research and
collaboration by building a twenty-first century library and confirming that we value applied
research in the arts and media, innovative thinking, and civic engagement. Place STUDENTS
at the center of those activities.
Create an environment in the Library that houses the research and civic engagement activities of the Center for Black Music Research (CBMR), the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media, and the Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP). This configuration has the potential to bring Columbia College Chicago into the forefront of arts and media research, innovation, and creative work in the world.
Require that the Dean of the newly formed entity (the Center for Applied Research and Civic Engagement), school Deans, and the various center directors work together to fully engage student project-based learning.
Position the First-Year Seminar as a central component of these research and civic engagement activities. The task force on the LAS restructuring (see 4.2) should examine this possibility.
Insist that student learning connections be central to the activities of applied research in the arts and media and civic engagement. For a more comprehensive discussion of re-envisioning the role of applied research and civic engagement in the academic life of the College and student learning, please see Opportunities.



5. Opportunities
If a central tenet of Columbia’s mission is to educate students to “author the culture of their times,” then as an institution we must have a vision for that future. We must position ourselves as the academic and artistic leaders of a global culture that focuses on the immediate, the immersive, and the interactive. We must harness the energies and agencies of this hi-tech, spectacle-rich world, and empower our students to employ them as a generative force to create change. To achieve this, we must place innovation, entrepreneurship, service learning, and applied research at the heart of the new Columbia.

The Office of Academic Research [ed. note—of which the CBMR has been one of several components] was a poorly conceived solution to what must have appeared to be a structural and functional problem. It was not designed to take advantage of an opportunity. The idea of a physical center is outmoded. The work is not. Keeping centers as disparate entities — and moving them as far away from the heart of campus as possible — assures marginalization and irrelevance. This is a missed opportunity.



5. 1 Create a Center for Applied Research and Civic Engagement
The Center should house several existing programs and Centers already at the College. We believe the Library, the Center for Community Arts Partnership, the Center for Black Music Research, and the Ellen Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media already conduct the type of work we envision for this new Center. In addition, this Center should develop new and exciting opportunities for additional research, innovation in the arts, and community contributions
.
This Center should not be tangential or on the periphery of the College, but central to our mission and purpose. Through the work of this newly designed Center, Columbia will publicly state our commitment to cultivating innovation in the arts and media, honor diverse perspectives and contributions, and contribute knowledge to our larger society.



Combine/Restructure (with reduced costs over time)
11th Street Gallery
All Creative Writing Publications
o Columbia Poetry Review
o Court Green
o F Mag
o Fictionary
o Hair Trigger
o Hotel America
o South Loop Review
All Galleries
All Lecture Series /Events
o Commercial Autopsy Lecture Series
o Creative Non-fiction Week
o IAM Guest Lecture Series
o Photography Lecture Series
o Science & Math Colloquium
o Story Week
o (And all others that did not have PIRs)
ASL/English Tutoring
Book and Paper Arts MFA
Broadcast Journalism Radio and Television
Center for Black Music Research
Center for Book and Paper Arts
Center for Community Arts Partnerships
Dance Movement Therapy / Education/ ASL Interpretation
Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media
Fiction Writing – Creative Writing / English – Creative Writing
Film & Video – Sound for Cinema, Documentary, Post-production
First-Year Seminar4
Frequency TV
HHSS – Cultural Studies
Interdisciplinary Arts and Media MFA
Journalism – News Reporting and Writing Sports and Science Journalism
Music Instrumental and Jazz Performance
Photojournalism
Radio Station (WCRX)
Teaching Artist Journal
Television – Post-production Effects

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