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Bell on_Old School_Lezlie Kinyon 2013<\/p><\/div>\n
In the second editorial in this series on at-a-distance learning in spirituality and the arts in higher education, I began by asking the question, \u201cWhat Works?\u201d \u00a0As a former member of the Alumni Council of a well established graduate program in San Francisco, I realized \u2013 almost at once \u2013 that I had an example to examine close at hand: Saybrook Graduate School\u00a0<\/span>\u2026 now University. Established in the mid-20th century during the period of great experimentation in education (at all levels) and the height of the Humanistic revolution in psychology, Saybrook drew it\u2019s name and inspiration from a conference attended by the luminaries in humanistic psychology at Old Saybrook in Connecticut. \u00a0Founded by the forward-looking thinkers of the mid-twentieth century, Saybrook Graduate School, as it became known, has long held the banner of humanistic scholarship and therapeutics. Through many changes over the succeeding decades the school is now is now housed in a collection of offices in a quiet corner of San Francisco.<\/span><\/p>\n The beating heart of Saybrook lies elsewhere: in a diverse and far-flung community \u2013 of sorts \u2013 of scholars, psychologists, human systems thinkers and designers, artists and activists: from California to Kenya, Siberia to London, Brazil to Alaska: in 2014 one is likely to find a \u201cSaybrookian\u201d just about anywhere you go\u2026 Whatever complaints and criticisms students and faculty may have (it is not a perfect system!) Saybrook has maintained a high order of learning \u201cat-a-distance\u201d established long before the advent of web-based learning systems. This approach to \u201cat-a-distance\u201d learning may yet come to be called \u201cThe Saybrook Model\u201d. \u00a0In short: it\u2019s working.<\/span><\/p>\n To find out more, or, at least gain some further insight, I journeyed across San Francisco Bay one foggy Tuesday morning and spent a half hour with Saybrook\u2019s president, Dr. Mark Schulman. I really had only one question: why does this system continue to work? \u00a0The answers \u2026 and \u2026 the questions that came up during that half hour, are both predictable and surprising. Predictable \u2013 by me \u2013 because I am an alumna and have long been a humanistic scholar and surprising for the same reason.<\/span><\/p>\n Saybrook began, in Dr. Schulman\u2019s words \u201dlong before Al Gore invented the Internet,\u201d working primarily with adults, early on targeting \u201cmid-career practitioner-scholars\u201d (catalogue entry, 1983-85). The \u201colder student\u201d for purposes of this discussion, are students outside the \u201cnorm\u201d of 18-22 year old undergraduates and the 22-30\u00a0year old\u00a0graduate students.<\/span><\/p>\n Dr. Schulman also cited Saybrook\u2019s success as being due to a low residency program. He cites Evalyn Bates- who was a guiding thinker in the \u201cexperimental \u00a0movement in higher ed. in the late 1960s at Goddard College: students and faculty must be in \u201coccasional touch and create that all-important relationship between faculty and student.\u201d \u00a0At Saybrook, a 5 day residency is designed in as the entry to the program.<\/span><\/p>\n While Dr. Schulman points out, there is some evidence that people retain more of what they learn on-line, they also question more about why they are doing it. \u00a0This notion of relationship between student and faculty along with a low-residency program where all the various parts (students, faculty, administrators, even some some alumnae) get together for a 5-day residential conference-style meeting at the start of the program is integral to \u201cgrowing\u201d this relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n Some research shows that people retain more online, while also questioning, more often, why they are doing this.<\/span><\/p>\n As Dr. Schulman explained that Tuesday morning: \u201cIn the past, higher education has been traditionally devoted to\u00a0\u2018the life of the mind\u2019\u00a0\u201d. \u00a0Saybrook, rather, is devoted to \u201ca way of being in the world. Something which is almost \u201coppositional to how it is in \u2018traditional academia.\u2019 \u201d While many programs, he further elaborated, are not \u2018started with a mission\u2019, \u00a0Saybrook has had a fairly clearly stated mission addressing humanistic scholarship from day one. \u00a0In fact, Saybrook is fiercer about it\u2019s mission than similar programs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The second piece is the way that a lot of people look at technology \u2013 how to use it \u2013 as opposed to being centered on the standing relationship between student and faculty. \u00a0(As example, the much touted, but, not as well received today,\u00a0MOOCS system<\/a>\u00a0of replacing classroom time with an elaborate \u201cchat room\u201d. [as example: see\u00a0Collins<\/a>, 2014]) \u00a0As the half hour reached mid point, we found ourselves in strong agreement that technology should be secondary and the use of it be squarely within the boundaries of the values of the organization.<\/span><\/p>\n Saybrook, although it has developed some prestige over the decades, is not a well-known school, nor does it support faculty research in the traditional sense, so why so faculty stay? \u201cFaculty,\u201d says Dr. Schulman with some animation, \u201cstay for the quality of the interaction with students.\u201d \u00a0It takes, he goes on to note, \u201ca particular kind of faculty person to work under these conditions.\u201d \u00a0Some Saybrook faculty are quite well-known in their fields and could teach just about anywhere, yet they do stay, some nearly since the inception of the school. \u00a0Much could also be said of the passion for keeping Saybrook the unique place of learning that it is by the far-flung alumnae. \u00a0It all boils down to relationship. Human beings engage in relationship-creation, maintenance and renewal on a daily basis. \u00a0Graduate school is a commitment of time, energy and creating human relationships that \u2013 often- last well beyond the years spent actually enrolled.<\/span><\/p>\n In my own experience as an alumna, \u201cSaybrookians\u201d are active, busy, and stay loosely connected. As the very active social networking sites will show, those relationships are often maintained over vast distances, not just with academic dialogue and networking, but with daily \u201cshared\u201d posts of life events, vacation photos, artworks, political discussions, jokes, memes, pithy commentaries, out-and-out rants, and youtube videos of favorite musical ensembles \u2013 and (lest we forget) gossiping while gaming and sharing photos of our cats. It is, in the final analysis, an active and engaged community of humans. All of whom hold the core value of caring \u2013 sometimes passionately \u2013 about the world we live in.<\/span><\/p>\n Administrators, when presented with new technological packages that seem to make their tasks run more smoothly, can be dazzled by tech. \u00a0Particularly the new vistas presented by cyber culture. \u00a0It seems that so much can be accomplished with the new platforms for learning and sharing knowledge, that the need for human, face to face interaction can almost be eliminated. While alternatives to physical travel to conferences and seminars may develop in surprising and, even very rich ways, we, as a culture, are not there, yet. \u00a0Dr. Schulman advises, \u201cDo not be dazzled.\u201d \u00a0Do it because the program is designed to be:<\/span><\/p>\n Also disabusing the idea that education primarily taken on-line is cheaper, he states that, \u201cit is very labor-intensive \u2013 definitely not cheaper.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I wrapped up our half hour with the question of what advice could he give to program designers in higher education contemplating the creation an \u201cat a distance\u201d program regarding the use of technology in their designs. \u00a0He says, unequivocally, \u201cLook to your values. Everyone will be disgruntled at one time or another. \u00a0And: don\u2019t expect to keep up with what\u2019s new, because that\u2019s a black hole\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n I left the offices contemplating my own graduate education, and what I have done since, with a certain sense of bittersweet nostalgia. A sense of what I could have accomplished with the cyber connections possible today, and a realization that it isn\u2019t the bells and whistles that make for a rich graduate experience, but the relationships formed during that experience and with the experience itself. \u00a0None of us work in a vacuum. Erik Erikson once said, \u201cLife doesn\u2019t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.\u201d (1988)<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s within that human interdependence and connection that it all comes together \u2026 the lesson, overall, of humanistic thought itself, and one that makes not only Saybrook \u201cwork\u201d but, indeed, this journal as well.<\/span><\/p>\n ____________________________________<\/p>\n Goleman, \u00a0D. (1988) \u00a0Erikson, In His Own Old Age, Expands His View of Life.<\/i> New York Times. Retrieved: June 16, 2014:\u00a0https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20150303020017\/http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1988\/06\/14\/science\/erikson-in-his-own-old-age-expands-his-view-of-life.html<\/a><\/p>\n Collins, M. (2014) Why MOOCs won\u2019t save our education system<\/em>. Daily Dot. Retrieved\u00a0 July 10, 2014: http:\/\/www.dailydot.com\/opinion\/moocs-education-free-online-courses\/<\/a><\/p>\nOnline and \u201cAt a Distance\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n
Why do Faculty Stay?<\/span><\/h3>\n
Technological Dazzlement<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Editor\u2019s note: More about Saybrook University \u00a0and Dr. Mark Schulman can be found at\u00a0www.Saybrook.edu<\/a><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”3.29.3″ _i=”1″ _address=”3.0.1″][et_pb_social_media_follow _builder_version=”3.29.3″ _i=”0″ _address=”0″][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”facebook” url=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/coreopsisjournal\/” _builder_version=”3.29.3″ background_color=”#3b5998″ follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on” _i=”0″ _address=”0.0″]facebook[\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][et_pb_social_media_follow_network social_network=”twitter” url=”https:\/\/twitter.com\/MythAndTheatre” _builder_version=”3.29.3″ background_color=”#00aced” follow_button=”off” url_new_window=”on” _i=”1″ _address=”0.1″]twitter[\/et_pb_social_media_follow_network][\/et_pb_social_media_follow][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.29.3″ global_module=”15″ saved_tabs=”all” _i=”0″ _address=”2.0.1.0″]![\"\"](\"https:\/\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/summer-2014-issue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/donate-coreopsis.jpg\")
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