356
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Thesis outline - resilience and dynamic complexity (view source)
Revision as of 23:35, 16 November 2020
, 23:35, 16 November 2020no edit summary
Institutions in higher education see the need to respond to those divides but have yet to figure out how to create a resilient society that goes beyond the institution’s walls. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) institutions have come up with numerous solutions to prevent climate change, but there are no larger social structures in place to engage in a co-creative implementation of those ideas. We argue that the educational approach to understanding and teaching the sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, social sciences, psychology, economics) at institutions of higher education has gotten stuck in disciplinary specialization that fails to draw trans-disciplinary connections between the different fields. Most students start to understand the physical world around them through physics and chemistry classes. Those disciplines offer linear systems thinking as useful tools to predict outcomes and manipulate our surroundings. However, linear systems are rare exceptions in our bio-physical world that is dominated by ever-changing complex systems. [one can’t make predictions about complex systems, only assumptions about possible development]] [[more on the nature of complex systems]. Understanding those complex systems, the biophysical and socio-political world around us, therefore, requires a familiarity with the dynamically complex characteristics of nature. We believe that an integrated understanding of the sciences, treating them as a web rather than drawers, will lead to a more intuitive and constructive engagement with issues occurring in the systems around us.
At Olin College, the disruption and uncertainty of the 2020 pandemic created a moment of collective reflection, in which students, alumni, staff, and faculty investigated needs and opportunities for the Fall semester of 2020. As a result of this campus-community collaboration, the idea of college was open to receiving proposals from the community. With help from faculty, staff, and students, we asked for support for student pods led with volunteering professors to a studentwork on urgent systemic issues. However, the path-planning committee shied away from implementing institutionally-led experiments. Therefore, we independently organized a micro-campus of 15 students at a family-owned off-grid permaculture farm , Woodland Harvest Mountain Farm, in the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina. The experience at the micro-campus served as strong evidence for a needed integrated understanding of the sciencesranging from logistics to physics, social sciences, and biology. As engineers seek to take on a meaningful role in healing our planet, they need to experience what it means to be part of an eco-system and interact with it. A typical streamlined college experience leaves little room to immersive yourself in nature and close-knit communities to even start to grasp the immensity and complexity of life that we are all a part of. Most campus facilities such as the dining hall, double dorm rooms, libraries, and student services optimize for disengagement setting the focus on academic work. However, all this a much broader and interconnected understanding is required to take responsible and effective action in our modern , complex world.While these forms of integrated understanding and knowledge are crucial, students need more than just the knowledge and identity around their field of interest. Students need spaces and time to act upon emerging opportunities that they start to sense. When they sense those opportunities, they can only act upon them as social entrepreneurs when they have the social and spiritual means to do so. The focus of higher education institutions needs to shift from academic analysis and experimentation to society-based methods that cultivate social entrepreneurs that than create social enterprises and in the long run wide-ranging social innovation (Westley 2010[^Westley2010]). Therefore, fostering our ability to live and work with each other doesn’t only strengthen our inter-personal networks but empowers students to take action when needed because they can make use of their social and creative capital.
Therefore, we see strong evidence that an educational environment that emphasizes an integrated understanding of the sciences and values the interconnectedness of living beings can lead to a more resilient society, improve their wellbeing and consequently make use of the most meaningful capital that we have: creativity.
[^Holling2001]:Holling, C. S. (2001). Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems. Ecosystems, 4(5), 390–405. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-001-0101-5
[^Westley2010]:Westley, F., & Antadze, N. (2010). Making a difference: Strategies for scaling social innovation for greater impact. Innovation Journal, 15(2).
