Recast | 3/17 – 3pm – the first convergence of the Evergreen collaboratory
From: “Steinhoff, Eirik” <steinhoe@evergreen.edu>
Date: Monday, March 8, 2021 at 1:34 PM
THE EVERGREEN COLLABORATORY invites you to our FIRST-EVER CONVERGENCE
3pm Weds week 11 (a.k.a. 17 March 2021)
=> Zoom registration (Evergreen email required)
co-hosted by
Melinda Bratsch-Horsager (alumn, MPA student, Member of the Board of Trustees)
Michael Joseph (alumn, Admissions Counselor)
Ryan Richter (current student)
Eirik Steinhoff (adjunct faculty)
It’s been too long since we got together as a community of interested parties to discuss the past, present, and future of the College. Come one, come all.
The agenda for this gathering is to find each other and get situated to the terrain, to compare notes, initiate a conversation, and identify next steps for our work together….
The idea for this meeting emerged at the excellent community forum related to the Climate Center last week (someone said “we should do this more often,” and here we are) but this convergence is not focused on that topic.
Rather, it takes Evergreen’s upcoming 50th anniversary as its primary focal point.
Here attached is an opening statement – “the birthday memo” – written in order to set a frame for this convergence. We hope to see you there.
Wait, what is a collaboratory, you ask?
The Critical Genealogy Collaboratory (co-created by Colin Koopman – class of ’98) offers the following: “collaboration + laboratory; a venue for experimental research on shared problems across entrenched divides.” That seems like a good-enough working definition – one that can be revised in light of what our work together reveals…
And what about this entity called “the Evergreen collaboratory”?
Just as there are decades of dialog and debate behind the experiment at Evergreen, the specific framing of this “birthday memo” (attached) emerges out of intensive conversation in recent months among several faculty – “the faculty collaboratory,” as it were. “The Evergreen collaboratory” is an attempt to make it possible for that conversation to “jump scales” – from one quadrant (faculty) to all 4 quadrants (students + staff + admin as well). Faculty know that they only have part of the picture. Perceptive action-oriented analysts eager for conversations about these matters are present throughout the institution. We need to find ways to find each other, so that we can make sense of what’s going on, and figure out how to move forward together.
Did you say Evergreen is 50?
Not quite – we turn 50 on October 4.
We’re going to have an amazing celebration.
It’s going to last all year.
It’s going to last the next 50 years!
More questions, comments, ideas, solutions?
Let us know….
Or better still: bring them to the Convergence at 3pm 3/17 Weds week 11
