UC|21 Team Builds A 'Sense Of Place'
Gertrude Stein once summed up the problem with Oakland, California, There is no there, there. The implementation team assigned to UC/21 goal 5, Establish a Sense of Place, has crafted several proposals aimed towards creating a here, here.
Spearheaded by Co-Leaders Tom Hadley, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Gloriajean Wallace, Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the College of Allied Health, the Sense of Place team is comprised of _16__ members. The team reflects the rich diversity of the UC and surrounding Uptown community, including faculty, students, administrators, and staff from both West and East campuses; community residents; and community businesses.
The Team began working together in November 2004, and have since that time developed a Sense of Place Matrix that they have used to frame their charge.
The sense of place matrix promotes a well-rounded array of ideas about sense of place from a variety of angles, including physical sense of place, intellectual/academic sense of place, and social/emotional sense of place.
The physical sense of place ideas began with a focus on enhancing connectiveness within the university; West campus to East Campus and main campus to branch campuses, using physical and web-based virtual space connections. Considerations for the best way to extend and thread the connections throughout the Uptown area and the broader community are now also being considered.
From the social/emotional perspective, the team is looking at events that can be enhanced to attract university-wide participation and symbolism, with the intention of eventually building and deepening a sense of community through tradition. There is discussion about opening up a free block of time in the schedule for all members of the UC campus community, much like the old UC Free Hour. This would provide a time when everyone on the UC campus would be able to attend new events that could be cultivated to bring people together. Expansion of hours for university services to express the sense of a 24/7 campus is also under discussion.
From an intellectual/academic perspective, the team is exploring mechanisms to reward interdisciplinary collaboration. They are also looking into ways of fostering collaborative opportunities by helping to connect people in physically and organizationally separated areas of the campus. Creative ideas such as one term faculty, staff, administrator interdepartmental and cross campus exchange programs are also under discussion.
For the broader community, the team is exploring the development of a discount card for university activities and programs which would encourage enjoyable visits to the campus for entertainment, shopping, leisure, and scholarly events. The discount card concept is being considered as a way of increasing community participation in campus life. Among the proposals under consideration are a university-wide calendar and a variety of communication methods that would not only be informative, but inviting.
The team recognizes that enhancement of communication is at the core of building a Sense of Place, and for this reason they plan on building strong communication features into the context of the proposals that are generating. The Sense of Place Team invites input from interested individuals. Please send your ideas to Tom Hadley, tom.hadley@uc.edu.
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