We are pleased to announce the Comet Weave initiative at the University of Texas at Dallas.
We seek to reach out for the collective ideas, ingenuity and intelligence of staff members on campus and send suggestions through our systems.
Campus top-down information structures are represented heavily in not only the decision-making aspects of the university but also in the identification of problems.
How long will the concrete on the UTD campus? Not long? Certainly not as long as Roman Concrete? See: Riddle solved: Why was Roman concrete so durable?
Innovation has created much of the world that we know today and as such the role of ingenuity has begun to diminish in many of our institutions. Perhaps we need to incubate ingenious professionals to influence the innovation obsessed.
We all excited by windmill generated electricity, but windmills were invited centuries ago. (See here)
UTD is a rapidly growing university that has not adapted its management methods completely to different scale. We feel that it doesn’t listen enough to the wisdom of the gardeners, staff employees, and visitors who have known the university longer than the current administration. There is a staff council.
Exemplars:
Who knows which offices are never used? – the cleaning staff.
We seek to “weave’ knowledge across and under the whole campus.
‘Interdisciplinary’ is an oft-used buzz word we like to toss around on campus, especially in the Bass School of Arts, Humanities and Technology, where the ArtSciLab specifically seeks to bridge the supposed gaps between artistic, scientific, and technological communities at UT Dallas. BAHT is the benefactor of the ideas and efforts that emerge from an environment containing eclectic knowledge. This same kind of inclusiveness when exchanging ideas is no less valuable when applied to the institutional knowledge that exists between all individuals who work, teach, and learn at UT Dallas.
‘Comet Weave’ aims at further inclusiveness when adopting terms such as ‘interdisciplinary.’ The UT Dallas community is still largely broken up into separately managed communities, lending themselves internalize their problem-solving and identification. This can be observed on multiple levels: students, staff, faculty, and admin each have their own outlets through which they can come together as communities, innovate, and enact change. This can also be seen in the management of different academic schools and departments. This is not to say these communities never work in tandem or identify shared goals – Comet Weave, however, will institute a consistent avenue through which these groups can come together under one banner to the benefit of all of UT Dallas.
As we continue in developing this this collaborative venture, we are confident the ingenuous spirit of the Bass School will contaminate the rest of the university.
If you are interested in helping weave UTD, contact us at: cometsweaveutdallas@outlook.com