Trash talk

New trash cans today!

Though this may not reflect well on the academy, it is our reality today.  We have new trash cans in our offices.  They're small.  And they are small for a reason.  The goal is to get us to think before we trash. 

And if we needed an example of how easily we can miss the important for the, shall we say, less important, this is the day.  From an email sent by a staff member in the associate dean's office:

I have received so many emails about the new trashcans, and they are all thought provoking.  Many people have strong feelings for and against the cans. The question I am hearing more than any other is: “WHY are they SO small?” 

The email provides a link  to a recent New York Times article about trash cans (at another academic institution) that are even smaller than our new ones.  The ones in the article are only 6" tall and it seems they're all the rage on that campus.   By contrast, our new ones are quite a bit larger.  

This leaves me wondering... how is it we miss the irony of having time and energy to engage in email eloquence regarding the size of our trash cans?

Educator, teach thyself

 In an article sent to me on Friday with the subject line "chapter you might appreciate...," I learned something...then I learned something else...then I got excited about both of those, did some research, and starting seeing connections:

• Frank Gehry is arguably one of the two most widely known architects (the other is Frank Lloyd Wright, my personal favorite).
• While Gehry's buildings don't appeal to me as much as Wright's buildings, the process Gehry uses fascinates me.
• Dale Dauten, writing about lessons to be learned from Gehy's genius describes the process this way:

If we wanted to apply his style to, say, working on a new sales presentation, we wouldn't use other sales presentations for ideas, we'd use novels or plays, movies, paintings . . . maybe even, I don't know, zoos, or airports. And not just one, but dozens. Some would become rough models, several going at once.

By this point in my reading and research, I was seeing connections everywhere.  Because the Gehry Style is what I encourage when I teach.  It's through the use of novels, plays, movies, mythology, and music that many of us do our best and most creative work--and learn to see the connections that exist across and among seemingly disparate things.  And the ability to see connections seems critical to correctly framing a problem...and then solving it.

And, based on student responses to The Journal of  Higher Education debate, the students get it...maybe even more than the educators.  More on that soon.