Creativity & Innovation

Creative Courage Cohort

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At its core, creative confidence is about believing in your ability to create change in the world around you. It is the conviction that you can achieve what you set out to do. We think this self-assurance, this belief in your creative capacity, lies at the heart of innovation.” (Kelley, T., & Kelley, D. 2013).  

The Creative Courage Cohort

The Creative Courage Cohort is a year-long program that offers faculty opportunities to engage with approaches that cultivate creative thinking, including creative problem-solving theory and methodologies. Discussion also includes applying these across disciplines and exploring options for adapting and incorporating exercises that develop students’ creative confidence into courses. This experience will especially benefit those who wish to align new or existing courses with the Creative Process general education requirement. 

The program consists of two day-long immersions during the fall semester and a series of workshops throughout the academic year. For AY 26-27, the immersion dates are Thursday, September 17 and Thursday, November 12. We ask that participants commit to attending both immersions. In addition to the immersions, participants come together in the workshops to discuss, adapt, and expand on the exercises introduced during the immersions. Workshops are held on the third Thursday in Blocks 2-3 and Blocks 5-8. Participants choose a minimum of three workshops to complete. 

Throughout the program, participating faculty have access to support from Creativity & Innovation staff to integrate exercises into their courses, departments, or other work. Support includes syllabus and assignment development assistance, as well as guidance and feedback as faculty members develop and practice creativity-related pedagogies that meet their specific goals.  

Each faculty member who completes the program receives a summer course development grant of $2,000 to modify an existing course, or $4,000 to develop a new course, or an equivalent application (awarded the summer or year after completion).

Registration

To reserve your space, submit a no later than Sep. 1 of the year you wish to join.  

Completion Requirements

Successful program completion requires:

  • Attending both immersions
  • Attending a minimum of three workshops
  • Submitting documentation (see below) that shows the application of creativity-related pedagogies

Documentation can be submitted any time after Block 7, and should demonstrate your process of applying creative pedagogies. It answers the questions:

  • “How did you apply creative frameworks and/or exercises to your work/courses/teaching?” (which can be answered by submitting assignment details, syllabus, narrative about your process, etc.) and
  • “What were the outcomes and what might you change?” (which can be demonstrated with copies of student work, a narrative of your reflections, etc.).

Documentation can be in the form of a video from your phone of you reflecting out loud about your answers to these questions - no need to script; or anything you developed during the process of application that shows how you applied creativity frameworks/exercises to your work (such as assignment details before and after the application of creative pedagogies, or photos or copies of student work, etc.).

We welcome the opportunity to talk through any part of this process with you.

Expanding Your Creative Practice

Creativity research tends to distinguish between personal (or generic) and disciplinary creativity. Personal creativity often shows up unconsciously in our daily lives, while disciplinary creativity often reflects particular thinking processes we learn within defined contexts. The Creative Courage Cohort intends to help participants develop both types of creativity. The two-day immersion session will focus on personal creativity by cultivating vulnerability, stimulating self-reflection, and encouraging productive risk-taking. The workshops and discussions that participants will take following the immersion will help them apply the skills they learned to specific problems or opportunities. Post-immersion programming for faculty will focus specifically on disciplinary creativity. Creativity & Innovation staff will collaborate with faculty to develop components for their classes that allow students to understand what creative thinking looks and feels like within each discipline. Our vision is that students and faculty members will have ample opportunity within the program, and during subsequent interactions within CC classes, to explore how they might ignite and amplify their creative thinking capacities within and across multiple contexts. In this way, our campus collective participates in students’ development arc. 

In our rapidly changing world, we face macro-problems that are “high-impact, global, long-term, and transdisciplinary.” (Ambrose & Sternberg, 2016). In an increasingly complex and interconnected world, many habitual forms of thinking no longer serve us. We must learn to navigate uncertainty by challenging assumptions and risking new behaviors. In this way, the profoundly anxiety-provoking crises of the twenty-first century can serve as essential catalysts for creative action. (Beghetto, 2021). The Creative Courage Cohort will help participants intentionally cultivate the ability to stay present with ambiguity, and even embrace it, so they might begin to find the possibilities within uncertainty. 

Creativity represents a critical capacity for all kinds of work (and play). The World Economic Forum identified creativity as one of the top three skills most in demand by employers for 2022. It seems there is a consensus that in a future where human skills exist alongside technical skills, creativity is not only key to navigating a highly volatile and increasingly complex business environment, but it is also an essential foundation for innovation and will help us resiliently navigate a future where automation is accelerating. According to McKinsey Quarterly (Chui et al., 2016), “work that requires a high degree of imagination, creative analysis, and strategic thinking is harder to automate.” By helping participants identify, augment, and articulate how they are creative, the Creative Courage Cohort experience will empower them to design, rather than accept, their futures. 

Research demonstrates that exercising our creativity enhances our well-being. For example, The British Journal of Clinical Psychology published a study indicating that when people are involved in creative activities, they experience heightened positive emotions. A University of Otago study revealed that the positive feelings people experience when engaged in creative pursuits can often lead them to seek additional creative outlets. Therefore, Creativity & Innovation aims to help CCC participants develop life-long creative practices that support their mental health. Moreover, because creativity is profoundly connected to our ability to empathize with others, we believe that creating cohorts of fellow learners will allow members to deepen their creative practices while establishing supportive bonds. 

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Supporting Research

Ambrose D., & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.). (2016). Creative Intelligence in the 21st Century: Grappling with Enormous Problems and Huge Opportunities. Sense Publishers.  

Craft, A., Jeffrey, B., & Leibling, M. (Eds.). (2001). Creativity in Education. Continuum International Publishing Group.

Kelley, T., & Kelley, D. (2013). Creative Confidence: Unleashing the creative potential within all of us. First edition. Crown Business.

Beghetto, R. A. (2019). Structured Uncertainty: How creativity thrives under constraints and uncertainty. In C. A. Mullen (Ed.), Creativity Under Duress in Education? Creativity Theory and Action in Education, vol. 3. Springer, Cham.  

Chui, M., Manyika, J., & Miremadi, M. (2016, July). Where machines could replace humans—and where they can’t (yet). McKinsey Quarterly, 1-12. 

Conner, T. S., DeYoung, C. G., & Silvia, P. J. (2018). Everyday creative activity as a path to flourishing. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(2), 181–189.   

Demetriou, H., & Nicholl, B. (2022). Empathy is the mother of invention: Emotion and cognition for creativity in the classroom. Improving Schools, 25(1), 4–21.  

Dietrich, A. (2019). Types of Creativity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26, 1–12.    

Kaimal, G., Ayaz, H., Herres, J., Dieterich-Hartwell, R., Makwana. B., Kaiser D. H., & Nasser, J. A. (2017). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy assessment of reward perception based on visual self-expression: Coloring, doodling, and free drawing. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 55, 85–92.   

McPartland, T. J. (2020). Education and the process of inquiry: Community, creativity, and critical thinking. Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies, 11(1), 37–57.  

Runco, M. A., & Jaeger, G. J. (2012). The Standard Definition of Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 24(1), 92–96.

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