FEATURE
MAKING CHANGE Dr Alison Wood, Academic Director, Homerton Changemakers
At its core Changemakers is about, well, change. Dreaming of it. Prompting it. Working with others to build it. Seeing it all around us as a perpetual, natural state. Seeing it happen with or without us. Gaining wisdom about what to change, what not to change, what can be changed, what we’d rather not change...
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ight now these perspectives seem even more pertinent. The global pandemic demands that we live with almost daily significant changes, stretching the resources of our inner life and logistical competence. Equally, conversations about what kind of future might be possible - from ‘build back better’ to the function of leadership; to possibilities for moral imagination and social creativity; the ‘how will we be with each other’ questions – are sought out and urgent. Changemakers was set up to help students and the Homerton community find better answers to these questions, even in the midst of a pandemic and possibly because of it. So, as of May 2020 Changemakers is an entirely virtual programme and will stay that way for the foreseeable future, available to all Homerton students in residence or not, and as operating conditions in College and the University vary depending on government advice at the time. The core elements of Changemakers – workshops and residentials, termly seminars, a six-week self-study module, mentoring, a student ambassadors’ group, volunteering opportunities, change-initiative projects – are still happening. As is the research and collaboration that keeps the programme intellectually lively and challenging. We want to see more clearly what narratives of ‘Changemaking’ are most at work as the world moves towards, for example, new modes of social responsibility and disruption. And we want to envisage more powerfully (more usefully?) the elements of education essential for all if we are to survive the future. We’re working with academic colleagues across the world
The Changemakers Summer School, October 2019
– from Cambridge to California to Cape Town - and with Form the Future, the Tavistock Institute, Cambridge Sustainable Food Network and Cambridge Zero to offer resources and programmes for students. Given the extraordinary nature of the times we have also decided to make some elements of the programme publicly available: online bitesize modules on selfleadership, systems thinking, and epistemic humility are planned for the autumn. We are also refocusing aspects of the programme to explicitly address some of the challenges prompted by remote-learning, distancing, and the difficulties of entering or returning
to Cambridge academic life after significant disruption. From Michaelmas 2020/21 a new suite of online materials will be available to help Homerton students approach their work in ways that are easier, less fraught, and more productive: modules on epistemic agility, quietude, anxiety and its roots, assumption checking, deliberate practice. The materials are organised to enhance both performance and personal stability. Things we each, and all, need.
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aunched in 2019, Homerton Changemakers is a programme which sits alongside students’ academic degree, to enable them to develop skills and build the foundations essential for success.
HOMERTON COLLEGE
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