Thursday, August 2, 2012

Pow Wows on the Future in Toronto

Geoff, thank you for the excellent expansion of Module 8 with Assignment 8.3. It really raises the final work product of the course to a hefty doctoral level. As I reviewed it, I kept thinking that, yes, it is challenging; on the other hand, I cannot imagine a student who completes this not taking personal (intrinsic) satisfaction with hitting such a high level of synthesis and professionalism. I really must thank you for providing this grand finale!
While we were in Toronto, my wife and I always, if they are home, visit with our dearest friends. He was in grad school at U of Toronto for his Ph.D. when I earned my M.A. there. We have remained loyal, lifelong friends. Here is the point. He is head of science at York University, students body of 66,000, in suburban Toronto. He has 10,000 students in his science department.

  Right now, they are revising the curricula to make it competitive as we move into the future. He was sharing with me how he is dealing with resistance to his concept of change. Wow, I was able to share the core nuggets of EDU782 with him to bolster him for the faculty meetings that he faced the next morning! Talk about field testing EDU782! I carefully underscored the core of EDU782 – be sure of your core values, your philosophy, before you go into the arena. Then stick to your philosophy, and you will rally others. He sees the emerging theme of Apps, although he does not call it this. He wants students to have a skill-based curriculum that will enable them to constantly learn, unlearn, relearn, etc. as the future emerges! He was in effect doing a future trend analysis big time right there, but he did not have the concept to sum it up. I provided it.

  I must share this because of how our private – the women were in the other room catching up – pow wow underscored the value of our work too.One, he validated the important of future studies, trend forecasting as crucial today.  Two, he validated the philosophical foundation for leadership in the emerging – going into the future – age. He is a scientist, so he did not have the management science language, conceptual framework to provide the succinct summaries that future studies can.

  The great part of it – besides having face-to-face time with a dear, old friend – was all of this happened as I was getting ready to attend the World Future Society conference that week in downtown Toronto. I am so very very pleased that JIU is embracing these best of the best practices that I have put forward for course development – futuring and philosophical foundations for leadership.

  Our students are ahead of the “game” because of the JIU capacity to innovate; your polishing of these courses with me speaks to your “strategic foresight,” to use a futuring term. Yes, I am so very pleased with our directions this year with course development.

 The World Future Society conference was stunning! I even received an invitation to the annual conference of the Future Studies Society in Azerbeijan! Yes, it was a global conference, literally. I look forward to the next steps. Paul

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