Date: May 30th
Setting: A local establishment close to CSM: Beer + Burger. The back section reserved and held aside.
Objective: Creating a social space for sister MA courses in Culture & Enterprise: Innovation Management, CCC, Applied Imagination to come together.
Attendees: About 40 over the evening.
Protocol: I greeted and welcomed everyone as they arrived, asking them to put their name and course on a nametag as a quick way to set the social space, to set expectations, an easy icebreaker, and as a way to aid interaction with a visual element.
Engagement: I heard and engaged in many conversations about people’s backgrounds, course engagement, interests, and projects. There were people working on similar topics who connected. An overriding theme was that people didn’t understand how our courses fit together under the rubric of Culture & Enterprise. I explained that I thought Applied Imagination dreamed up ideas, Innovation Management helped make them real, and CCC legitimized them by writing/contextualizing and helping refine. One second year IM student expressed that she didn’t even know CCC existed.
Conclusion: Many people expressed immense gratitude for the even as a way to get to meet people, spend social time with people in their own course and forge connections beyond.
Reflections:
- Yes to nametags, signposting, introductions
- The space was a little small or how many people we were, so that created some bottlenecks and I had to usher people away from the counter so kitchen staff could move through. It was the maximum number of people that would fit in that space
- It was a good way to introduce people to each other, but community building needs sustained interactions, not only one.
Future Plans:
Met with C&E programme chair Richie Manu on Wednesday, June 1st. Discussed what I had been implementing so far, and the shared desire to create more of a communal identity for Culture and Enterprise.
Discussed putting on an end-of-term social for students and tutors, with backing from the department for refreshments. Pending availability of the C&E space, this will be on Thursday, June 23rd.
Discussed how more clearly introducing/explicating the structure of C&E to students can let them understand the structure and possibly begin to empower exchange.
Discussed meeting in July to put together a more regular (monthly?) social for the fall.