Eugene, ISCN Conference 2012
The International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) provides a global forum to support leading colleges, universities, and corporate campuses in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching. Within the context of this conference, Yves Corminboeuf, member of the group Multiple, invited the 3rd Eye research group to prepare various activities for ISCN's Working Group 3 which focuses on the integration of research, education and the impacts on university campuses in our communities.
First, a workshop was initiated by mobilizing artistic mediation as inspirational sources to promote a sense of community. By creating spaces within which the participants were encouraged to explore new forms of sensemaking through sensitive and reflexive measures, the 3rd eye facilitators accompanied 30 people from different countries and backgrounds during a creative process reflecting their lived experience.
After, the facilitators supported the animators of the World Cafe (a practice which multiplies the effects of a significant conversation and of a collective intelligence to tackle the complexity of today's issues) which had Integration of Research, Education and Impacts : Challenges and Approaches as its main theme.
Workshop, Tuesday June 19th
Leave your trace, the color of your mindset
On big sheets of paper each participant was invited to make a mark, a drawing of some sort with the use of markers and crayons made available to them. The 3rd eye facilitators asked the participants to use the color that best represented/illustrated the mindset he or she was in.
This introduction acted as a preparation for what followed since the intention behind the proposed activities was to encourage a reflexive state of mind by asking the participants to concentrate themselves on their feelings, senses and interiority and express it in a creative way.
It was essential for us to underline that the objective of our activities was not to understand cognitively/rationally each aspect of the process, but rather to live the experience through senses in order to explore new ideas and encourage the emergence of new concepts.
The source
We asked the participants to form pairs and alternate asking/answering questions (two) which were meant to guide their reflections towards positive aspects of the communities and faculties they had been or were still evolved in.
During this activity, the participants were introduced with the main themes that were to be discussed the following day. In this first activity, the dialogue was set in an intimate (micro) atmosphere. Because of this, the activity became complementary to the World Cafe which was to be hosted in a broader and more collective manner.
Key words
The participants wrote write on pieces of paper key words or short sentences which encompassed their vision about excellence and sustainability. These key words - summarizing their previous dialogue as well as their personal thoughts on the themes - were written on small cards which were then placed on the mural of the "mindset colors". The idea here was to collectively produce a sort of thinking/sensitive/aesthetic map as a material trace of the exchanges happening. These event were photographed and projected in a presentation the next day.
Workshop, Wednesday June 20th
World Cafe
After discussing with the organizers of Working Group 3, it was decided that the World Cafe would simultaneously host two themes. Using the key words provided by the participants the eve of the workshop, one of the two themes emerged as such:
Innovative learning: social interactions towards sustainability (theme 1)
The other theme had been predetermined by one of the organizers of Working Group 3:
Relationship between excellence and sustainability (theme 2)
Participants were divided into small working groups (3-4 people per group, per table). After a brief explanation of what a World Cafe consisted of as a social innovation practice, each group had the choice between the two presented themes. Coincidentally, equal amounts of groups worked on each theme. A few modifications were made to the traditional activity of this practice. One consisted of having a designated a host at each table acting as a sort of guide for the activity and the other consisted in having two themes discussed simultaneously.
First, a workshop was initiated by mobilizing artistic mediation as inspirational sources to promote a sense of community. By creating spaces within which the participants were encouraged to explore new forms of sensemaking through sensitive and reflexive measures, the 3rd eye facilitators accompanied 30 people from different countries and backgrounds during a creative process reflecting their lived experience.
After, the facilitators supported the animators of the World Cafe (a practice which multiplies the effects of a significant conversation and of a collective intelligence to tackle the complexity of today's issues) which had Integration of Research, Education and Impacts : Challenges and Approaches as its main theme.
Workshop, Tuesday June 19th
Leave your trace, the color of your mindset
On big sheets of paper each participant was invited to make a mark, a drawing of some sort with the use of markers and crayons made available to them. The 3rd eye facilitators asked the participants to use the color that best represented/illustrated the mindset he or she was in.
This introduction acted as a preparation for what followed since the intention behind the proposed activities was to encourage a reflexive state of mind by asking the participants to concentrate themselves on their feelings, senses and interiority and express it in a creative way.
It was essential for us to underline that the objective of our activities was not to understand cognitively/rationally each aspect of the process, but rather to live the experience through senses in order to explore new ideas and encourage the emergence of new concepts.
The source
We asked the participants to form pairs and alternate asking/answering questions (two) which were meant to guide their reflections towards positive aspects of the communities and faculties they had been or were still evolved in.
During this activity, the participants were introduced with the main themes that were to be discussed the following day. In this first activity, the dialogue was set in an intimate (micro) atmosphere. Because of this, the activity became complementary to the World Cafe which was to be hosted in a broader and more collective manner.
Key words
The participants wrote write on pieces of paper key words or short sentences which encompassed their vision about excellence and sustainability. These key words - summarizing their previous dialogue as well as their personal thoughts on the themes - were written on small cards which were then placed on the mural of the "mindset colors". The idea here was to collectively produce a sort of thinking/sensitive/aesthetic map as a material trace of the exchanges happening. These event were photographed and projected in a presentation the next day.
Workshop, Wednesday June 20th
World Cafe
After discussing with the organizers of Working Group 3, it was decided that the World Cafe would simultaneously host two themes. Using the key words provided by the participants the eve of the workshop, one of the two themes emerged as such:
Innovative learning: social interactions towards sustainability (theme 1)
The other theme had been predetermined by one of the organizers of Working Group 3:
Relationship between excellence and sustainability (theme 2)
Participants were divided into small working groups (3-4 people per group, per table). After a brief explanation of what a World Cafe consisted of as a social innovation practice, each group had the choice between the two presented themes. Coincidentally, equal amounts of groups worked on each theme. A few modifications were made to the traditional activity of this practice. One consisted of having a designated a host at each table acting as a sort of guide for the activity and the other consisted in having two themes discussed simultaneously.