CREATIVITY CORE CURRICULUM
Annual Summary: 2023–2024 Academic Year
at THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY
“Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.”
—Albert Einstein
Why Focus on Creativity?
Thomas Jefferson University is 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.
All exceptional endeavors and every academic discipline require human creativity.
The Jefferson Creativity Core Curriculum helps students expand their creative capacity so they are equipped to work on the world’s most complex problems in whatever discipline they chose. The elements of the curriculum work together to support a curiosity of spirit that contributes to creative confidence, an essential quality for success in a workplace that requires constant evolution and reinvention.
THE
MISSION of 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.
Students enjoy a restorative walk
in the
in the woods
Creative Making Workshop, “Rejuvenate Your Body Through Forest Bathing” taught by Toril Hinchman, Jefferson’s Director of Fitness and Wellness.
Creativity Core Curriculum Components
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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 complete two individual workshops while pursuing their degree. 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 '23 and spring '24.
Numbers for 2023–24
126 Creative Making Workshops
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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.
36 Creativity Intensive Course Sections
PHILOSOPHIES OF THE GOOD LIFE: This course exists within the Hallmarks Core. All Jefferson students take a common senior-year course that marks the completion of their liberal arts education. By reading, discussing and writing about the works of key thinkers from across centuries and around the world, they explore how transformative ideas about living a meaningful life can be applied far from their original contexts to guide them as ethical professionals, engaged citizens and inspired individuals.
25 Philosophies of the Good Life Sections
2,248 Students Served
NEW CREATIVE MAKING WORKSHOPS
Every year, the Creativity Core Curriculum staff work to bring fresh Creative Making Workshop opportunities to our students. Here are the new additions for the 2023–24 academic year:
• Collaborating Effectively
• Exploring Creative Problem Solving Through Puzzles and Design Challenges
• Rejuvenate Your Mind and Body Through Forest Bathing
• Reconnecting with the Earth through Art
• Local Holocaust Survivors and their Artifacts
• Comedy as Truth-Telling
• Climate Change Narratives
• DIY Sensory Fidgets & Well-Being
• K-Drama and Kaleidoscopic Writing
The workshop “Local Holocaust Survivors and their Artifacts” taught by Lise Marlowe, program and outreach director of the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, provides students with the opportunity to speak directly with a holocaust survivor.
PARTNERSHIPS
The Creative Making Workshops are conducted by instructors who possess expertise in diverse fields. In addition to Jefferson affiliated instructors, the workshop program engages attorneys, physicians, educators, business owners, artists, designers, musicians, performers, and other creatives. Our instructor pool includes talent from around the country, and internationally. This year, we collaborated with the following Philadelphia-area cultural institutions, organizations, and businesses:
• Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
• Mütter Museum
• James Turrell’s “Skyspace” at Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting
• Historic RittenhouseTown
• The Fabric Workshop & Museum
• Philadelphia School of Circus Arts
• Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center (HAMEC)
• The Clay Studio
• Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild
• Animal ACTivists of Philly
• The Random Tea Room
• Wild Hand
• Wilz Pottery
• Shofuso Japanese House
• Urasenke Tea School
The Data
Student Satisfaction Data for Spring ‘24
Median figures shown. Scale of 1-5 (1=Extremely Dissatisfied/Unlikely, 2=Somewhat Dissatisfied/Unlikely, 3=Neither Satisfied/Likely nor Dissatisfied/Unlikely, 4=Somewhat Satisfied/Likely, 5=Extremely Satisfied/Likely (*Supportive Scale: 1=Strongly disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Somewhat disagree, 4=Neither agree nor disagree, 5=Somewhat agree, 6=Agree, 7=Strongly Agree)
Students in Creative Making Workshops take surveys directly before and after the experience.
Survey Question: Creativity can be enhanced when diverse thoughts, perspectives, and/or experiences are represented.
The percentage of students who “strongly agree” with this statement increased by 11.9%.
The valuation of diversity is central to the ethos of Thomas Jefferson University. An embrace of the richness of human similarities and differences is one reason that Jefferson is a leader in higher education. Diversity also supports a culture of creativity and innovation. The 11.9% increase in students (from before and after the workshop) who “strongly agree” with this statement indicates that the Creative Making Workshop experiences support this important understanding among our students. 34.6% 46.5% strongly agree
Pre-Workshops Results Post-Workshops Results
Confidence and Importance: When looking at the relevance of creativity and students’ own confidence in their abilities, the average response data from before and after the Creative Making Workshop experiences indicate a positive improvement.
Being creative gives me an extra edge in my classes.
Being creative will help me excel at my future job.
I feel that I am good at coming up with novel ideas.
I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively.
I have a knack for further developing the ideas of others.
Scale: 1=Strongly disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Somewhat disagree, 4=Neither agree nor disagree, 5=Somewhat agree, 6=Agree, 7=Strongly Agree
Growth Mindset: The Creativity Core Curriculum encourages students’ personal creative confidence by fostering a growth mindset about their own creative abilities. A “growth mindset” embodies a belief that creative skills can be learned and improved upon with effort and persistence. This is counter to a “fixed mindset” whereby an individual believes that creative skills are static and unchangeable. Data shown below are averages indicating the desired result—an increase in growth mindset and decrease in fixed mindset.
Questions supporting belief in GROWTH mindset. Questions supporting belief in FIXED mindset.
Scale: 1=Strongly disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Somewhat disagree, 4=Neither agree nor disagree, 5=Somewhat agree, 6=Agree, 7=Strongly Agree
CREATIVE MAKING WORKSHOP
SPOTLIGHT: CREATE WITH LIGHT – AN EXPLORATION OF COMMUNICATION THROUGH ART AND PHYSICAL OPTICS
Take a peak into a Creative Making Workshop that has been running since the Creativity Core Curriculum begin in Fall 2020. Taught by Catalin Florea, a senior research scientist with Lockheed Martin Space, this workshop introduces some basic concepts of optics and technology, and contextualizes them in an art-making activity. The resulting images can be viewed as reflections on various communication elements such as perspective, second meaning, duality, and plurality. Students utilize a variety of readily available materials as props, and their created images are used for an impromptu exhibition that allows students to reflect on their peers’ perspectives.
Images of student work and process demonstrates new understanding of optics and technology as inspiration for visual creation.
The
Creativity Core Curriculum embraces learning experiences that cross disciplinary boundaries and encourage students to build the confidence to engage their curiosity about unfamiliar subject matter. Catalin Florea shares thoughts about his workshop that explores how knowledge of the physical optics of light can inform communication through art.
What is your work and role?
I am a Senior Research Scientist with Lockheed Martin Space in King of Prussia, PA. One of my roles in this position is to identify and develop novel technology that can be implemented in future platforms.
What is your Creative Making Workshop about?
It mostly is about the scientific foundation of “light” (so waves and optics) and how concepts and learnings coming out of this area of science impact our daily life—from language to the optical fiber for the internet to the microwaves heating our food.
What does creativity mean to you?
Creativity comes perhaps in many shapes or dimensions. Applying principles and concepts across different fields is one way to be creative (a textile maker is going to “look” at the color blue very differently than a person mining for copper, for example). Another dimension of creativity that interests me is that where the purpose of being creative is purely artistic.
How is creativity relevant to your work?
At Lockheed we work on fairly complex systems (platforms) like satellites. Such a system integrates a diverse ecosystem of technology and therefore one needs to be able to not only switch between fields (say from optics to electronics to material science) but also explore concepts from one field to identify commonalities or un-discovered value when applied in another field.
What have you enjoyed about teaching Jefferson students?
Seeing the “light art” pieces they come up with is the highlight of the workshop for me. I also enjoy it when they have questions about science or the history of science, and when they venture answers to some of their own questions.
What is the most important thing you hope your students take away from your Creative Making Workshop?
I hope the students will get insights into the foundational knowledge (at a principles level) behind basic concepts like waves and fields, photons, interference, and diffraction. I wish for them to have the satisfaction of interacting with or manipulating light in a meaningful way.
Catalin Florea
What are students saying about Creative Making Workshops?
“I liked that magic was connected to working in a hospital or a healthcare setting, which corresponded to many of the majors in the [workshop]“
— The Art of Magic
“I enjoyed this workshop much to the point I’d consider minoring in photography. I enjoyed the concepts we learned and how there’s so much more to photography and pictures that people don’t really take the time to this about. It was extremely insightful. “
— Creative Digital Photography
“I loved listening to Danny [Holocaust and hidden child survivor]. It was so beautiful and made me cry. I hope Danny continues to share his experience with the world and the world never forgets about the horrific events during the time of the holocaust and even after.”
— Local Holocaust Survivors & Their Artifacts
“I loved this workshop. I would do this workshop multiple times. [Our instructor] did an amazing job of explaining the concept of homelessness and what our community needs to do to help [with] this.”
— Signs of Humanity: Lessons from Three Decades of Buying Homeless Signs
“I thought the writing exercises were super fun and interesting and they’re tools that I think I can use in the future when writing and doing creative things.”
— K-Drama & Kaleidoscopic Writing
“The presenter, Anna Dhody, did a great job making the topic interesting and in depth. It made something relatively unfamiliar to me, accessible and able to be engaged with in my real life.”
— The Tombstone Project… Or The Art of The Epitaph
“I liked partaking in a different perspective as textile design is not exactly connected to my premedical major.”
— What’s Old is New Again: Inspiring Textiles
DEI & CREATIVITY
The Creativity Core Curriculum is structured to support a culture that promotes the valuation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all its forms. As such, its staff is committed to providing workshop instruction opportunities to a diverse population.
At least 20% of all workshops 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
Instructors from the
DEI Designated Creative Making Workshops:
• Local Holocaust Survivors and their Artifacts
• The Mane Talk: A Walkthrough on Black/African American Hair
• Signs of Humanity: Lessons from Three Decades of Buying Homeless Signs
• Introduction to Feng Shui: History, Principles and Practice
• Building on the Promise of Hope
• Street Activism: Know Your Rights and Avoid Arrest
• Rediscovering the Almost Lost Folk Art of Papercutting
• The Story of the Blues
• Do you See What I See?: Visual Politics, Storytelling and Representation
• Beyond Male and Female
• (Un)natural Bodies
• Bringing Your Perspective to Protest
• Revolutionary Voices
• Both/And Thinking: A Key to Solving Today’s Social Dilemmas
• When Witnessing Microaggression: How Not to be a Bystander but be an Ally
• Eastern State Penitentiary and Prisons Today
• The Spirit World of Matcha
Urusenke Tea School in collaboration with the Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia conduct the Creative Making Workshop “The Spirit World of Matcha.”
SPECIAL EVENTS
Dinner and a Movie!: Coded Bias documentary film screening and Q&A with director Shalini Kantayya: The award-winning documentary film, Coded Bias, highlights the stories of people who have been impacted by harmful technology and shows pioneering women sounding the alarm about the threats artificial intelligence poses to civil rights. The documentary details the formation of the Algorithmic Justice League, a group leading a cultural movement towards equitable and accountable AI. This event was co-sponsored by the Kanbar Diversity Action Committee and The Paul J. Gutman Library.
Panel Discussion: Artificial Intelligence, Human Creativity, and the Jefferson Student Jefferson faculty from across disciplines made presentations followed by discussion that explored both inspiring possibilities and deep concerns stemming from rapid developments in AI. Panelists included: John Dwyer (Chair of the Department of Architecture), Kathryn Gindlesparger (Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric and Director of the Writing Program), Kyle Armstrong (Lecturer and Course Developer in MS in Health Data Science), Barbara Kimmelman (Dean, College of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of History), Juan Leon (Assistant Provost for Faculty Development, Online Education and Assessment and Director, Online Learning at JCPH), Dimitrios Papnagnous (Professor of Emergency Medicine and Associate Provost for Faculty Development) and moderator Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel (Director of the Creativity Core Curriculum and Director of MS in Health Communication Design).
Second Annual Creativity Fair: In celebration of the United Nations World Creativity & Innovation Day, Jefferson’s Creativity Core Curriculum hosted its second annual fair, this year with the theme of creative puzzles and games. Stations featured a variety of physical and mental challenges like caption contests and rebus card making. Attendees received free self-care kits.
A student participates in the balance challenge at the Creativity Fair.
CREATIVE MAKING WORKSHOP SPOTLIGHT: THE MANE TALK: A WALKTHROUGH ON BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN HAIR
Here’s how instructor and Jefferson alum, Devin La’Shelle (Visual Communication Design ‘18), describes her workshop: Black/African American hair has a long history of being both praised and ridiculed. Let’s use our experience together to spark conversations and make a positive difference in the Black hair community! First, we’ll discuss the history of Black/African American hair and hairstyles while highlighting the symbolic significance; then, we’ll participate in interactive activities that focus on all aspects of hair. After our activities, we’ll have open discussions about the experiences we’ve had regarding our hair and reflect in depth on the causes/effects of those experiences. We’ll also discuss opportunities to help support Black culture in regard to hair.
Can you share some information about your work and role? I am a Design Manager at an educational technology company. I apply the comprehensive knowledge of graphic design I’ve acquired at Jefferson and execute it from designing marketing collateral and materials to art direction and concepting ways to elevate the company’s visual brand.
What does creativity mean to you? Creativity to me is like air when breathing. It encompasses me and my life in all ways abundantly. It signifies freedom and curiosity, but most importantly I view creativity as everlasting authenticity.
How is creativity relevant to your work? Creativity is the essence of my work. In my role, I get to play with colors, typography, composition, photography, and several other creative elements to help me solve problems when designing graphics and concepting new visual styles to the company’s brand.
Devin La’Shelle
What is your Creative Making Workshop about? The Mane Talk is about driving awareness and getting deep into the roots of learning about Black and African American hair as it has a long history of being both praised and ridiculed. This workshop sparks conversation ranging from learning about Black and African American hair history and hairstyles while highlighting their significance. Intertwined throughout the workshop are discussion topics and activities that allow for experiences to be shared and reflected upon, coupled with ways to support Black culture in regards to hair.
What inspired you to develop this workshop? With the main goal in mind, to spread awareness and indulge in positive conversations regarding Black and African American hair, this workshop was inspired to be an expansion of my graphic design senior capstone project at Jefferson, titled The Mane Campaign The Mane Campaign’s purpose was intended to serve as a platform to raise biases on the natural hair community and how those with coarser and thicker hair were more susceptible of having to alter their identity and change their hairstyles to “fit in.” The Mane Talk creative workshop serves as a way to go back at what started this injustice and how it unfortunately affected and still continues to do so in the natural hair and Black and African American community.
What have you enjoyed most about working with Jefferson students? There’ve been so many great experiences working with Jefferson students, that upon reflection, the most enjoyable has been the reciprocation of learning from and about one another. With deep gratitude, I appreciate their eagerness and vulnerability as well as the added bonus that together we get to share smiles, laughter, and positivity!
What is the most important thing you hope your students take away from your Creative Making Workshop? The most important thing I hope the students take away from attending my workshop is that they are important. Regardless of their hair texture, how their hair grows or doesn’t grow, and how they decide to style it, they should be celebrated for being exactly who they are. Through celebrating themselves, I hope the students continue to share their backgrounds and culture and pass along any knowledge they’ve gained throughout the workshop to help result in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive world.
“I really liked how inclusive and safe the workshop felt. It made me feel very comfortable sharing my experiences and learning new things without feeling judged.”
—The Mane
Talk Workshop Student
Research & Achievements
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
• Xanto e Sforza di Marcantonio, Xanto Avelli, Un Artista Mondiale da Rovigo a Urbino. Michael Brody, October 2023 (Urbino, Italy)
• Utilizing Core Curricula to Foster Creativity and Cultivate a Confident and Flexible Student Mindset, College Art Association. Dana Scott, February 2024 (Chicago, IL)
• Ideation and Creativity for Healthcare, Jefferson College of Population Health Operational Excellence Program, Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, May 2024 (Philadelphia, PA)
• Implementing and Assessing a Creativity-Focused Education Model as a Core Element of Learning Across Disciplines, International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education. Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel and Dana Scott, June 2024 (Berlin, Germany)
• Play to Learn: Pedagogy of Play Workshop, Jefferson Faculty Days. Chris Pastore and Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, June 2024 (Philadelphia, PA)
GRANTS & AWARDS
2024 Faculty Research Grant—Mapping Creativity on the East Falls Campus: This grant supports the research and development of a map of historical and contemporary creative achievement on the East Falls campus for use by the greater university community. The project will take place in the coming academic year within a visual communication design course taught by Associate Professor, Renée Walker. An interdisciplinary group of faculty and staff developed the grant proposal. Members of the working group include Michael Brody, Susan Frosten, Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel (chair), Jade Papa, Dana Scott, Megan Voeller, and Renée Walker.
2023 Nexus Grant—The Pedagogy of Play: The act of play heightens optimism, energy, memory, is an essential part of a fulfilling life, and is a catalyst for creativity and innovation. In spring 2023, Professors Chris Pastore and Maribeth KradelWeitzel piloted the course “Design of Play” within the MS Health Communication Design program. In this course, students explore the benefits and possibilities facilitated by play via concepts and theories of play for educational, imaginative and wellness purposes. This grant aims: 1) to create an instrument for Jefferson faculty to determine the role play has in their courses; 2) to develop a training workshop for Jefferson faculty that explores the relationship between play and creativity and provides strategies for elevating play as a learning tool. Pastore and Kradel-Weitzel will deliver the workshop at Jefferson Faculty Days 2024.
Provost Award for Creative Achievement 2024: Given to Creativity Core Curriculum director, Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, this award recognizes a faculty member for significant contribution to their field through creative achievement.
Students experiment with a Pennsylvania German folk art tradition in the Creative Making Workshop, Explore the Art of Sgraffito on Clay taught by Denise Wilz of Wilz Pottery.
Associate Professor and Program Director for Biology, Jeff Klemens, shares insights about the course, Principles of Genetics, which serves as the Creativity Intensive course for Biology and Pre-med undergraduate students.
CREATIVITY INTENSIVE COURSE SPOTLIGHT: PRINCIPLES OF GENETICS
How do you personally define creativity? I think that creativity is about bringing things together in new combinations. Interconnections. There’s very little that’s truly new under the sun, but there are an infinite number of surprising or beautiful or productive connections waiting to be made.
What role does creativity play in your professional work/research?
In science everything builds on what came before. The hallmark of creativity in the sciences is the development of theory that integrates new and old observations, or the application of new techniques to old questions. A big part of science is asking the right question—formulating a hypothesis and designing an experiment that will test that hypothesis are the key creative acts that drive science forward.
As an educator, what is one way you highlight creativity in the classroom? A lot of big discoveries are made in science because someone thought to ask something that hadn’t been asked before. I try to highlight the wonder of that. Mendel discovered the laws that govern meiotic cell division decades before we knew what DNA was not because of some technological breakthrough but because he applied the tools of 19th century horticulture and some very basic math to the question of inheritance. The creative spark came in thinking to ask the questions that he did using the tools at his disposal.
Jeff Klemens
Can you describe a class project that touches on the Creativity Intensive course outcomes? When Principles of Genetics became the designated creativity intensive course for Biology we repurposed an existing lab in population genetics to make the connections to creativity more explicit. In this lab students propose hypotheses and test them using a population genetics simulator. We added some readings about the role of creativity in science and emphasized the hypothesis formulation and experimental design aspect of the lab. We also came up with a ‘creativity rubric’ specific to the activity that isn’t used for grading but with which we can assess how the hypotheses generated by the students relates to creativity within this professional context.
How do the students react to this project? My feeling is that students appreciate the degree to which our approach has highlighted the way the creativity core principles are already embedded in a core professional activity rather than it feeling like an add-on, or something that is taking the place of time dedicated to the underlying science. Making the creativity aspect more explicit has only added value to the activity.
Evolutionary Dynamics of a Single Locus: Students in Principles of Genetics use a population genetics simulator to conduct experiments in a virtual environment. The data generated by the simulator is used to test student hypotheses about allele frequency changes over time under different assumptions.
Every
undergraduate discipline has a designated Creativity Intensive course.
LARC 201: LA Design 3: Site Design
ARDS 210: Tech 1: Materials and Methods
BIOL 207: Principles of Genetics
CHEM 323: Instrumental Methods of Analysis
CMGT 499: Construction Capstone
COMS 300: Audio Production: Podcasting
DECF 102: Finding & Shaping Opportunity
EXSC 330: Internship 1
HSCI 230: Introduction to Healthcare
HSCI 231: Introduction to Healthcare Honors
INDS 200: Interdisciplinary Methods
LAW 304: Law, Media & Society
PSYC 322: Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences
What are students saying about creativity around campus?
What is a course or experience that has helped you grow your creative skills here at Jefferson?
“I was working with Ed Santilli on track experiment, and I saw how he used successive experiments to help students refine experimental skills to allow them to do harder experiments over time.”
“Definitely Physics and Chemistry. Both of these classes have almost forced me to think creatively, because the solution is always something I never would’ve thought of otherwise. It takes another level of mental mastery to reach some of those solutions.”
“Assistive technology class which combines OT and ID students to create a never been seen before product.”
“With the new VR cave, I’ve worked with professors and students to brainstorm ideas for how they can use its unique capabilities in their classes.”
“In Innovative Practice, we had to create a program on horticulture for community members of low socio-economic status and design a center for it to be held.”
“I have a project where we have to make our own app with the help of AI which is pretty creative.”
Creativity exists in all disciplines! We asked students at the 2024 Creativity Fair to name a professor who most helped them grow their creative skills. These are the faculty they mentioned:
Radika Bhaskar (Kanbar College)
Anne Bower (College of Life Sciences)
Rachel Brandoff (College of Health Professions)
Becky Flax (Kanbar College)
Teresa Gero (College of Rehabilitation Sciences)
Vito Gulla (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Suvir Hira (CABE)
Ann Keefer (College of Nursing)
Joshua Kopin (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Chae Mi Lim (Kanbar College)
Yohan Mathews (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Michelle Myers (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Kimberlee Neitz (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Abigail Orenstein Ash (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Christopher Pastore (Kanbar College)
Lisa Phillips (CABE)
John D. Pierce (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Stephen Reed (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Jenna Rieder (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Edward Santilli (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Kathryn Schaffer (College of Nursing)
Dana Scott (Kanbar College)
Joann Stout (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Loukia Tsafoulia (CABE)
Soha Youssef (College of Humanities and Sciences)
Intro to Crochet: taught by Yolanda Booker, an instructor at Wild Hand.
HALLMARKS SPOTLIGHT: PHILOSOPHIES OF THE GOOD LIFE
All Jefferson students take a common senior-year course that marks the completion of their liberal arts education. By reading, discussing and writing about the works of key thinkers from across centuries and around the world, they explore how transformative ideas about living a meaningful life can be applied far from their original contexts to guide them as ethical professionals, engaged citizens and inspired individuals. Associate Dean for General Education and Professor of History, Tom Schrand expresses thoughts about Philosophies of the Good Life, the Hallmarks Capstone course which serves as a component of the Creativity Core Curriculum for all undergraduates.
How do you personally define creativity? I find creativity hard to define, and it might manifest differently (creatively!) for different people. I’m not sure that anyone ever invents something totally new, so I tend to think of creativity as combining existing ideas or archetypes in surprising and productive ways. It also has something to do with overcoming constraints and making the most of what we have to work with.
What role does creativity play in your professional work/ research? The favorite parts of my job are the creative moments. I get a lot of satisfaction out of designing new curricula, new courses, or new classroom activities or assignments. I would put this in the category of “instructional design” and it’s a lot of fun for me. My research in history and environmental studies involves solving creative challenges in terms of narrative, metaphors, and comparisons. In a recent article, I was trying to juxtapose the theories of revolution from the Bolshevik and Menshevik parties during the Russian revolution with current ideas about how to achieve the equity demands of sustainability—I think it worked?
As an educator, what is one way you highlight creativity in the classroom? I spend a lot of time trying to invent assignments that allow students to approach course materials from different angles. I like to have students write editorials from an assigned perspective, create mind maps and diagrams to illustrate abstract concepts, or to do role-playing around certain topics. One of my favorite classroom activities is a global climate
Tom Schrand
negotiation simulation in which students are assigned the roles of different countries in a climate change summit. It’s striking how much they internalize the interests of their new nation once they get into their role!
Can you describe a class project that touches on the Hallmarks Learning Outcome? Philosophies of the Good Life is the final general education course in the Hallmarks Core, and students typically take it in their senior year. The class reads a variety of key texts that explore definitions of a well-lived or meaningful life from different cultures and time periods. In one assignment, students select ideas from two or three different thinkers or cultures discussed in class to define the values that will guide them in their future professional practice.
“This course has been thought-provoking, and provided interesting ways to consider how students preparing for graduation might apply philosophy and ethical principles as they move onward in their lives”
—Philosophies of the Good Life Student
How do the students react to this project?
I don’t teach the class myself, but it’s exciting to think about Jefferson students bringing concepts from Plato, Confucius, the Bhagavad Gita, or the Sermon on the Mount to their understanding of themselves as architects, fashion designers, or physician assistants!
How does highlighting creativity in this course better prepare students for the future? The success of this course seems to come from giving busy seniors the opportunity to ask big life questions, to consider possible answers from far-flung times and places, and to set goals for their future lives as professionals, adults, and citizens. These are all speculative, imaginative, and creative tasks.
Creativity Core Curriculum Staff
Director:
Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel
Creative Making Workshops Coordinator:
Michael Brody
Creativity Intensive Course Coordinator:
Jenna Rieder
Assessment Coordinator:
Dana Scott
Administrative Assistant: Yoo-Hyun Oak
Creativity Core Curriculum Steering Committee
Rachel Brandoff
Michael Brody
Jason Crook
Susan Frosten
Carol Hermann
Barbara Kimmelman
Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel (chair)
Yoo-Hyun Oak (administrative)
Jenna Rieder
Tom Schrand
Dana Scott
Megan Voeller
Dana Scott jefferson.edu/creativity
instagram: jefferson_creativity
email: creativity@jefferson.edu
“Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.”
—Dorothy Parker