CREATIVITY CORE CURRICULUM
Annual Summary: 2022-23 Academic Year
THE MISSION OF
We’re making the case for a creativity focused education. Artificial intelligence, automation and the blurring of digital, biological, and physical worlds have brought change on an exponential scale, and new connections among previously unrelated fields are rapidly transforming the workplace. Human creativity, which has, in part, been responsible for these changes, is essential for success in this environment. This demands a proactive, immediate, and ongoing evolution in education.
THE CURRICULUM CONSISTS OF:
CREATIVE MAKING WORKSHOPS: These workshops offer students discreet experiences that provide the opportunity, materials, guidance and time to experiment in a risk-free environment in absence of expectations and deadlines and in a context outside their discipline. Undergraduate students at our East Falls campus will complete two individual workshops during the course of degree completion. Each workshop is 3–5 hours in length. The Creativity Core Curriculum delivered a total of 126 workshops on a wide diversity of topics across fall '22 and spring '23.
CREATIVITY INTENSIVE COURSES: Every undergraduate major on the East Falls campus requires a course that includes creativity content and skills development within a disciplinary context.
PHILOSOPHIES OF THE GOOD LIFE: (from the Hallmarks Core)
All undergraduate students take a common course that is the culmination of their liberal arts education. This course focuses on the incorporation of design thinking methodologies, reflective writing and prototyping strategies to help students imagine and plan for meaningful and fulfilling lives after graduation.
COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION
The Creativity Core Curriculum is consciously structured to support a culture of inclusivity that promotes the valuation of diversity in all its forms. As such, its staff is committed to providing workshop instruction opportunities to a diverse population. Additionally, the Creativity Core Curriculum has set a goal for at least 20% of all workshops to focus on subject matter that highlights the value of diversity in the following ways:
• represent interests and views of non-dominant cultures and people and/or
• directly encourage thinking and behaviors that support the valuation of diversity, equity and inclusion
DESCRIPTION OF CREATIVE MAKING WORKSHOP IMAGES:
Cover: balance and movement exercise in "Success and Failure in Circus" by the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts
1. student artwork using principles of light physics from "Design with Light — An Exploration of Communication Through Art and Physical Optics"
2. exploring the physical structure of plants in "The Name Game, or How to Identify 1000s of Plants in a Few Hours"
3. screenprinting, woodblock printing and pattern making in "Print Mash-Up with the Fabric Workshop and Museum"
4. 18th - and 19th -century Pennsylvania German traditional pottery technique with slip on clay in "Explore the Art of Sgraffito on Clay"
5. tour and paper making exercise at one of the oldest intact historic sites in Philadelphia in "From Industrial to Bucolic: Exploring the History of Historic Rittenhouse Town and Paper Making"
JEFFERSON’S CREATIVITY CORE CURRICULUM is to cultivate a confident and flexible student mindset through learning opportunities that explore individual and collaborative creative aptitude and equip students to yield novel and valuable results.
EVENTS
The Hidden Talent of Everyday Things — keynote lecture and workshop by renowned artist, designer and paper engineer, Kelli Anderson. Anderson spoke of unconscious biases which prevent creators from seeing potential hiding in plain view and unexpected applications of paper engineering—from a NASA satellite to cardiovascular surgery and animations for NPR.
First Annual Creativity Fair — Jefferson students enjoyed activities inspired by the physical senses and designed to boost creativity and reduce stress. Students experimented with unfamiliar materials, technology and ways of thinking. The event was attended by over 100 students and celebrated the United Nations World Creativity and Innovation Day.
International Creative Making Workshops — The global reach of the Creativity Core Curriculum expanded this year to include seven internationally-based workshops taught by instructors residing in Italy and the United Kingdom, and with partner organizations University of Arkansas: Rome and John Cabot University.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education: Implementing and Assessing a Creativity-Focused Education Model as a Core Element of Learning Across Disciplines: Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, Anahid Modrek, and Dana Scott
Lilly Conference on Innovative Strategies to Advance Student Learning: Implementing a Creativity-Focused Core to Enhance Learning Across Disciplines: Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, Anahid Modrek, and Dana Scott
IUPUI Assessment Institute: Implementing and Assessing a Creativity-Focused Education Model as a Core Element of Learning Across Disciplines: Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, Anahid Modrek, and Dana Scott
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
Two ad hoc committees are exploring models for a Creative in Residence program and other means to support creativity through a future-oriented and global lens.
A 2023 Nexus Grant led by Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel and Chris Pastore will investigate play as a pedagogical approach to further creativity and innovation in Jefferson's curricula.
DATA FOR AY 22-23:
32 Sections of Creativity Intensive Courses
126 Creative Making Workshops
1,474 Students Served
CREATIVITY CORE CURRICULUM STAFF
Director:
Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel (Maribeth.Kradel-Weitzel@jefferson.edu)
Creative Making Workshops Coordinator: Michael Brody (Michael.Brody@jefferson.edu)
Creativity Intensive Course Coordinator: Jenna Rieder (Jenna.Rieder@jefferson.edu)
Assessment Coordinator: Dana Scott (Dana.Scott@jefferson.edu)
Administrative Assistant: Anya Kress (Anya.Kress@jefferson.edu)
CREATIVITY CORE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE
Michael Brody
Jason Crook
Susan Frosten
Carol Hermann
Barbara Kimmelman
Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel (chair)
Anya Kress (administrative)
Jenna Rieder
Tom Schrand
Dana Scott
Megan Voeller
Jefferson.edu/Creativity