CENTER FOR THE FUTURE (CF) -
Fall Action Plan
Bruce Cordell Dan Tesar
9/7/05
I. FOUNDATIONS
- Futures can serve as a theme across the curriculum and provide a unifying force across the Divisions.
- Ultimately, many curricular and topical pathways exist with this idea. It’s not necessarily technology oriented, although for some it can be.
- It’s a wonderful way to trigger critical thinking and get students interested in their classes (when they consideraspects of their potential futures).
- Students can contemplatealternate scenarios for their personal and professional futures from a variety of different angles (i.e. disciplines).
- CF’s fundamental philosophy is: If a given discipline or topic has a future, there are trends that will lead from here to there that we can identify, study, prioritize, and influence.
The bottom line is that our future – professional and personal - doesn’t just happen to us, we are major actors in it!
II. ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS
- We anticipate briefly using the upcoming Dean’s Council meeting (9/13) for an updateof CFin the context of points 1 and 2 above, and to outline theplans sketched below.
- After several consultations, each Dean has decided to develop a short-term, customizedstrategy for theirown Division that will enable them to:
- Generate initial interest in futures among faculty, and
- Identify faculty that may want to learn more about futures and how to use it in their classes.
This may involve an informal gathering with faculty after a Division meeting, or bringing in a speaker in to motivate out-of-the-box thinking as part of a special Division meeting, or some other event.
- Our first Multi-Division meeting of faculty will occur after all Deans have initially surveyed their faculty; i.e. inlate September or early October.
It will be mostly an organizational meeting where issues relating to CF and its potential uses for teaching and learning at FC and our tentative plans to implement this vision will be discussed. This meeting will include:
- Interesting articles on futuristic topics from World Future Society and other publications,
- Deans who will be available to highlight futures topics and answer questions about how they might be used in classes,
- Discussions of plans for subsequent CF/Faculty meetings
There is no significant budget requirement.
- Our 2nd Futures Meeting will be a Seminar/Workshop that will feature anexpert speaker/futurist/educator from outside who will offer specific suggestions about how futures can be integrated into classes across the curriculum.
There will be significant opportunity for faculty to interact individually and/or in small groups with the speaker after the formal presentation (during this 2-3 hour event).
Budget for speaker fees/expenses and refreshments is required.
- These activities culminate in a large all-day Conference/Workshop – “Future Day” with a major speaker and possiblymultiple colleges – in January with 50 to 100 faculty attendees. This could become an annual event.
Following the Major Speaker, this meeting will also:
- Feature breakout sessions in late morning with local/regional experts offering ideas and techniques for using futures in the classroom,
- Have discipline/topic breakout sessions of faculty in the early afternoon where faculty work together and explore specific ways they could use futures in their classes,
- Culminate in mid-afternoon when faculty groups summarize theirfindings and ideas for the whole Conference,
This requires a budget for a major speaker, hotel rental, and lunch for the group.
III. INITIAL RESOURCES
Potential resources to initially support some CF activities have been identified.
These include:
- Using current Title V for learning communities involving futures topics,
- Using faculty development funds for futures-related conferences, workshops, etc.
- Working with District Continuing Education to give credits for faculty involved in CF activities,
- Planning to build the next proposal for Title V around futures in the classroom.