Final Project Presentations
I found Catherine Carmichael’s presentation regarding her work with Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to be relevant to the work that I am doing at the Whistler Waldorf School. Her interactions and experiences seemed to be similar to mine in many aspects. Like Whistler Waldorf, WHOI is an institution that embraces environmental sustainability as a philosophy, as is reflected in its environmental oceanographic research, but does not sufficiently embrace environmentally sustainable practices. The disconnect between philosophy and practice is what makes our projects likely to be embraced by our organizations, and provides a strong foundation for us to build on. Catherine and I have little authority at our institutions and are not in leadership positions, so engaging key stakeholders was one of the most important early steps for both of us. Catherine was fortunate enough to be able to reinstate a defunct sustainability task force by including both former members and recruiting new ones, but while I am starting from scratch, I have strong support from key faculty, staff and parents who will embrace the idea of a sustainability task force at the school. We both appear to be breaking new ground at out organizations and so must take great care to foster positive relationships, and practice our communication and facilitation skills. What I appreciated most from Catherine’s project presentation, and would like to adopt for my own project, was the idea of creating standard monthly meetings to ensure continued engagement and communication between task force members, in an effort to explore and share new ideas. This will be a perfect fit for my zero-waste lunch program and further sustainable initiatives at the Whistler Waldorf School, and will help me practice and improve my meeting facilitation skills.
David Gibson’s project Stepping Back to Step Forward is one that I would like to continue to be updated on. His commitment to volunteerism and providing aid to underprivileged communities is humbling, and his ability to share his personal contributions and overarching vision with clarity of purpose and contagious enthusiasm is inspirational. I have no personal experience with working with underprivileged communities and am very interested in continuing to hear about his challenges and successes.
As an artist myself, I am also very interested in Karen Ogden’s project with respect to LED lighting in an art Gallery. I would love to follow her research on different bulbs and fixture combinations and how they effect initial and operating costs, as well as what seems to work well with paintings and framed photographs and the extent to which color represents accurately.
Reflections for the Next “Generation” of E117
The biggest shift in my understanding of what it is to be a change agent is the relationship between leadership and agency. Coming in to this course, it was my belief that a change agent was a leader who fearlessly fought to put their agenda in the forefront of their chosen organizations operation plans, but I have since learned that we are a gentle force, enticing others to follow our vision and to compliment our ‘true north’ with their own visions. An important lesson for me was to embrace the possibility of initiating change without ever receiving the credit for my work. It is a small but important lesson to learn, for when we release ourselves from any desire or expectation for personal reward in the form of recognition, we are able to focus on our true overall vision, and simply initiate change for the change alone, and open ourselves to possibilities that may never have revealed themselves otherwise.
In the beginning I felt as though my project was far too insignificant compared to those being undertaken by my classmates, and was skeptical that a small project was sufficient for the purpose of this course. I was happy to learn and to eventually experience that a small pilot project is perfectly suited for this course. Many classmates also initiated large projects that were equally suited. In the end, it is the experience of interacting with a community or members of an organization, facilitating meetings, exploring social dynamics and developing interpersonal communication skills that is at the core of this learning experience, with initiating environmentally sustainable change as the motivation. One aspect that surprised me was the length of time that is actually required to build momentum. I believed at the outset that my project would be easily implemented by the end of semester, only to learn later that it really won’t even begin until long after this course has ended. Instead the time was spent laying groundwork and engaging key supporters.
I enjoyed the social dynamics and interpersonal psychology aspects of the course. As a psychology student, and being particularly interested in the psychology of change, this course provided me with a unique opportunity to develop change agency skills, and apply them as well. There was a surprising amount of spiritual philosophy discussed throughout this course that was unexpected, but a welcome addition to a topic that aims to bring a certain level of consciousness to organizations that traditionally may not consider such things.
Another course concept that had an impact on me that I shared in our class review, but also feel it is important to include here, is the APT framework. It outlined the simple fact that using a pilot project as a sub-goal within your overall vision is not only an acceptable practice, but in fact one of the best ways to ensure success and mitigate unwanted failures or dramatic losses; both financial losses, and social currency and ability to leverage relationships at a later date. But I see the APT framework as being something that can be applied in much more than just the sustainable growth of an organization, it extends to so many aspects of growth both organizationally and societally. In fact it can be distilled down to the individual level and applied towards one’s own personal growth goals; awake, pioneer, transform. That truly is how all lasting-change happens.
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