.+We Operate Best Together+.

Posted By Morgan on June 3, 2009

After serving in AmeriCorps for 2.5 years (with the awesome CTC VISTA Project), I have an Ed Award I can use towards post-secondary expenses at an accredited Title IV school.  I want to be well supported money-wise during my travels, so I enrolled at a local college (Laney College), met with a college counselor,  and am now designing an Independent Study while waiting to hear back regarding my Education Award Payment Request. Yes!

While at Laney, I had a *great* conversation with Darlene Cruz at the Dean’s office who was really supportive of my plans (thank you Darlene!).  She gave me the Independent Study Proposal Form to fill out and referred me to Dr. Leslee Stradford to serve as a (mandatory) Faculty Advisor.  Leslee was generous with her time (right before running off to teach a class!) and agreed to at least look at my proposal.   If she accepts and approves, I’ll just need to get the Dean’s signature and can officially enroll in a class I designed!

UPDATE: She just agreed!  Now I just have to get the dean’s signature!

UPDATE: Marco Menéndez, the Dean of Instruction, just signed!!!  I can now apply to have my AmeriCorps Ed Award applied to the project!!!

Here’s my class design proposal:

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Title of Independent Study Project
Global Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Collaboration in Creative Communities

Course Description:

We operate best together.  Working from this premise, this course seeks to answer the question:

How is global social change made where media, technology and creative people meet?

Through blog posts, photos and web video accessible at http://travel.memeshift.com, this travel abroad project will document the stories of creative communities found in European galleries, international events, meetups, barcamps, fabrication labs, and innovation competitions.  The successes, challenges and ‘best practices’ of these communities will be recorded and ‘shared back’ across social networks and other online communities here in the United States.

At it’s core, this project serves as a practicum to promote cross cultural understanding through cross sector collaboration.

Other key questions include:

• How is community-based innovation related to the economic development?
• How do artists, entrepreneurs and other ‘creatives’ support themselves doing the work they do?
• How do creative communities, spaces and networks support and sustain innovation?

Method of Evaluation
Weekly editorial blog posts on topics of collaboration, social innovation and entrepreneurship will be used to gauge the success of the student’s activity while traveling.  Interviews and stories of people engaged in relevant local communities and networks are also amenable to evaluation.

Category: California, United States of America
Tags: Laney College, Oakland