Enhancing student creativity in colleges and universities: the
organizational perspectives
University System of Taiwan
March 2005
William J. Ashby
Provost, College of Creative Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
USA
The College of Creative Studies (CCS) is a small
undergraduate college on the Santa Barbara campus of the
University of California (UCSB). It enrolls a total of 325 students, less
than two percent of the undergraduate students at UCSB. The total
enrollment at the Santa Barbara campus, including both graduate
students and undergraduates is approximately 20,000.
The College of Creative Studies opened its doors to the first
class of 50 students in 1967. The mid 1960’s was an era in which
students across the United States were complaining about large,
impersonal classes, bland introductory courses, and lack of contact
with the faculty. Many institutions of higher education sought to
develop new undergraduate programs, motivated in part by altruism
but also by what historian Robert Kelley termed “an angry national
upwelling of student discontent ...”1
At the 2002 Conference on “Undergraduate Research and
Scholarship and the Mission of the Research University”, sponsored
by the Reinvention Center of the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, it was noted that “support and demands from the
external environment” is one of the prerequisite factors for change
within the context of an organization.2 There can be little doubt that
the impetus provided by societal discontent in the 60’s was a key
factor that led to the new models such as the College of Creative
Studies.
A second prerequisite factor for implementing organizational
change is “awareness and acceptance that there is a problem to be
solved.”3 The vociferous agitation of undergraduate students at
UCSB in the early 60’s was clear indication that something was
wrong.
1
Robert Kelley, Transformations: UC Santa Barbara 1909-1979. Santa Barbara: The
Associated Students, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1981, p. 30.
2 ‘Scaling up and sustaining successful approaches’, moderated by Susan G. Forman.
http://www.sunysb.edu/Reinventioncenter/conference
3 ibid.
2
The College of Creative Studies was established at the
instigation of former UCSB Chancellor Vernon I. Cheadle, who asked
Professor of English Marvin Mudrick to draft an academic plan for a
small college within UCSB that would provide an alternative to
conventional undergraduate education. The College of Creative
Studies was in fact one of several alternative undergraduate colleges
proposed at UC Santa Barbara, but was ultimately the only one to be
established. Mudrick was named the first Provost in 1967 and served
in that capacity until 1984. The College of Creative Studies became
what Robert Kelley calls “one of the more enduring and successful
educational innovations of the 1960s.”4
Chancellor Cheadle and Professor Mudrick met regularly over
breakfast to discuss plans for the new College. The fact that
Chancellor Cheadle not only lent his support but was intimately
involved in the academic planning was, of course, significant.
Organizational innovation requires “resources to support the
innovation.”5 The Chancellor’s involvement guaranteed that the
4
Robert Kelley, Transformations: UC Santa Barbara 1909-1979. Santa Barbara: The
Associated Students, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1981, p. 31.
5 ‘Scaling up and sustaining successful approaches’, moderated by Susan G. Forman.
http://www.sunysb.edu/Reinventioncenter/conference
3
resources would be provided. At the same time, organizational
change cannot effectively be imposed from on high. Professor
Mudrick’s persuasive charisma was instrumental in getting buy-in
from other interested faculty across the range of disciplines that were
incorporated into the College’s curriculum. The faculty had to be
convinced that there was an advantage to change. The fact that the
College of Creative Studies was to be integrated into the
organizational structure of UCSB would facilitate its successful
development.
The CCS model, though innovative in American undergraduate
education, was loosely based on the tutorial program of Oxford and
Cambridge, which has proved durable. Mudrick disliked much about
American undergraduate education, at least that of his time. He
especially disliked the highly structured curriculum that required
students to take large introductory courses of lecture format before
moving on to more advanced material.
In the College of Creative Studies, requirements and prerequisites would be as minimal as possible, allowing students to
focus intensively on research and creative endeavors that were the
center of their passion. The curriculum would be flexible and tailored
4
to the needs and interests of the individual student. The role of the
faculty would be not so much to transmit information, as to guide and
mentor the student. There would be no lecture courses, but, rather,
small seminars, studios, tutorials, and labs where students would be
fully engaged in the learning process. Students would be
encouraged to find answers for themselves, rather than being told the
answers by the faculty.
UC Berkeley astrophysicist Alexei Filippenko reminisces about
how he learned physics in the College of Creative Studies:
The College taught me early to have an open, inquiring, and
creative mind, but at the same time one that is logical and
critical. This had a lasting and positive influence on my
development as a scientist. Some of us, for example, were
given a quantity such as the surface tension of water to
measure in our first year, but we couldn't look up anything
about it in books. We had to figure everything out for ourselves,
as though no one had previously worked on this.6
Mudrick’s ideas were quite revolutionary in American education
in 1967. Indeed, it took over thirty years for undergraduate research
6
College of Creative Studies Commencement address, June 2000.
5
and creative activity to come to the forefront of national discourse on
undergraduate education. In 1998 the Boyer Commission on
Educating Undergraduates in the Research University (funded by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching) issued a
report entitled Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for
America’s Research Universities. The first recommendation of the
Boyer Commission was to “make research-based learning the
standard” of undergraduate education.7 The Commission prefaced
its recommendation by unknowingly echoing Mudrick’s thoughts:
Undergraduate education in research universities requires
renewed emphasis on a point strongly made by John Dewey
almost a century ago: learning is based on discovery guided by
mentoring rather than on the transmission of information.
Inherent in inquiry-based learning is an element of reciprocity:
faculty can learn from students as students are learning from
faculty….The experience of most undergraduates at most
research universities is that of receiving what is served out to
them. In one course after another they listen, transcribe,
absorb, and repeat, essentially as undergraduates have done
7
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer
6
for centuries. The ideal embodied in this report would turn the
prevailing undergraduate culture of receivers into a culture of
inquirers, a culture in which faculty, graduate students, and
undergraduates share an adventure of discovery.
The College of Creative Studies, then, was something of a
pioneer, thanks to the foresight of its founding fathers. Its basic
philosophy and structure have not changed much since the inception
of the College.
The College of Creative Studies is not an independent entity,
but is part of the University of California at Santa Barbara. However,
there can be little doubt that a key to its success and its longevity is
that it is not a program belonging to another academic unit at UCSB,
but is indeed a college. In terms of organizational structure, this
means that the Provost of the College of Creative Structure reports
directly to the Executive Vice Chancellor, from whom the College
receives its budget. The Provost of the College of Creative Studies is
fully involved in high level administrative discussions, assuring that
the interests of the college are represented.
Students eligible to attend a campus of the University of
California must be in the top twelve and a half percent of their high
7
school class. Admission to the College of Creative Studies is even
more selective, and requires a separate application in addition to the
application for study at the University of California. Approximately
half of those who apply to CCS are accepted for admission. Students
targeted by our recruiting efforts are not only unusually bright and
talented, but also are passionately committed to pursuing intensive
work focused on one of eight disciplines: art, biology, chemistry,
computer science, literature, mathematics, music composition, and
physics.
Once students enroll in the College of Creative Studies, our
mission is to guide and support them in the pursuit of their passion,
so that they are able to do creative and truly original work as soon as
possible. This may be most obvious in art, literature and music
composition, where students can begin producing original work as
entering freshmen. Indeed, they have already done original work,
some of which was included in the portfolio they submitted with their
application for admission. In the sciences, additional background
study is sometimes first required. Biology students interested in
ecology, evolution and marine biology typically engage in original field
or laboratory work by the end of their freshman year, if not sooner;
8
those wishing to pursue research in molecular, cell and
developmental biology can usually do so by the end of the second
year. In the Computer Science, Mathematics, and Physics programs,
the necessary background is provided by a series of intensive and
accelerated courses in CCS, which allow students to go on to the
UCSB departments for upper-division and sometimes graduate
courses. In Computer Science and Mathematics, the CCS courses
prepare students for advanced work roughly a year sooner than
majors in the departments. In Physics, there is a two-year
accelerated and intensive course; students then go on to upperdivision and frequently graduate courses in the department. The
Biology program provides a freshman colloquium to prepare
freshmen students for research. In the Chemistry program, there is a
series of laboratory courses specifically for CCS students. These
special courses are designed to accelerate the progress of each
student along his or her creative trajectory.
Most undergraduate students in American universities do not
have the opportunity to engage in original work much before their
senior year, if at all. By contrast, CCS endeavors to involve its
students in the creative process early on, so that they have at least
9
two or three years to engage in original research and creative activity
before graduation.
In CCS, there are no lecture classes. Instead, CCS offers
innovative seminars and tutorials in each of the eight emphases.
There are relatively few courses listed in the official UCSB Catalog,
and they have rather bland titles. However, the actual content of the
course varies from year to year. For example, Biology 101 is officially
entitled “Models and Experiments.” Under this general rubric,
courses in recent years have ranged from Evolutionary Medicine to
Systematics of Seed Plant Families. Literature 113 (Subjects and
Materials) has actually encompassed courses as diverse as Demons
in Early Western Literature and Japanese and Chinese Poetry.
Thanks to this curricular structure, faculty are not obliged to teach
pre-existing courses. They do not require a long lead-time to develop
new courses. New courses can be instituted quickly, following
closely upon the evolution of faculty research interests and student
demand. This structure ensures that faculty are teaching courses
that they and their students care passionately about.
10
In addition to courses focusing on the eight disciplines
represented in the CCS curriculum, we occasionally offer along
courses of general that are designed to stimulate interdisciplinary
dialog. These are offered under the rubric of General Studies 120
“Advanced Group Interdisciplinary Studies.” Some recent examples
of actual courses taught under this rubric are Creative Thinking, the
Magic of Ideas; What's Bugging You? (painting and entomology); The
Physics of Musical Sound; Flowers (painting and botany); Dance,
Music and the Related Arts.
The College of Creative Studies has a grading system that may
be unique in American higher education. At UCSB, as at most
American institutions of higher education, faculty traditionally assign
grades ranging from A to F, based on their judgment of the quality of
the student’s work. The problem with this system is that students
tend to compete with one another for the top grades, rather than
working collaboratively. Students tend to focus more on the grade
than on creatively applying the material and consequently making it
their own. In most American universities, over time there has been
grade inflation, making the letter grade less meaningful than in the
past.
11
Instead of letter grades, the College of Creative Studies has a
system of pass/no record grading. If the student accomplishes work
of good quality, work that would normally earn at least a B grade, he
or she will receive a “Pass”. If the student drops the course, for
whatever reason, it simply does not appear on his or her record.
Creative Studies students may drop courses up to the last day of
instruction, the same deadline that is given to graduate students. A
second component of the CCS grading system is variable units.
When students register for a Creative Studies class, they indicate the
number of units they expect to earn, typically 4 units. (A total of 180
units are required for graduation.) However, at the end of the course,
the instructor assigns the number of units that he or she believes the
student has earned. If the student has accomplished a good body of
work, but of insufficient quantity to merit 4 units, the instructor can
assign fewer. If the student has accomplished work that is
particularly impressive in qualitative and quantitative terms, the
instructor can assign 5 or 6 units.
The system of Pass/No record grading, along with late drop
deadline, is intended to encourage students to take risks without
worry of penalty. The willingness to take risks, rather than follow the
12
known, safer path, is a well known characteristic of creative people.
We want to encourage students to take advanced courses for which
they may not have the conventional background, and to take a wide
range of courses. We want them to see connections among
disciplines. The freedom to drop courses without penalty is an
important stimulus to creativity, while the system of variable units
allows the faculty to reward students who are unusually ambitious.
CCS students take courses not only in the College of Creative
Studies, but may select from among the wide range of courses taught
in the many academic departments at UCSB. In fact, in the sciences,
students take most of their course work from the departments, as
CCS cannot pretend to duplicate the laboratories and specialized
research equipment that our top-ranked science departments can
provide. However, CCS students are not obliged to follow the
prescribed curriculum that is set for most undergraduates at UCSB.
They do not necessarily have to take courses in the prescribed order,
and they do not necessarily have to take courses that are normally
prerequisites to more advanced courses. They may elect to take
graduate courses, if the instructor permits them to enroll. They may
apply courses taken from several academic departments. For
13
example, a CCS literature major may elect courses not only from the
English Department, but from any of the other academic departments
at UCSB that offer courses focusing on literature. A CCS chemistry
major might elect courses taught by the Department of Molecular,
Cellular, and Development Biology, or from the Department of
Materials Science, in addition to those taught in the Department of
Chemistry & Biochemistry.
This flexibility in curriculum is possible only because of the
academic advising system in the College of Creative Studies. Each
entering student is assigned a faculty advisor, with whom the student
is required to meet at least once per quarter. The advisor helps the
student to select courses, to plan long-term academic goals, and to
find enriching opportunities for research and creative activity.
CCS alumna, Angela Belcher, is now on the faculty of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a leader in the field of
nanoscience who was just awarded a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship.
She speaks of the role that a flexible curriculum and support from a
mentor had in launching her career:
I…remember looking through the catalog and finding what I
thought was the most interesting class at UCSB. It was a
14
graduate protein chemistry class. So I went to the professor
and he said ‘We don’t let undergraduates take this class –
besides, you don’t have the prerequisites.’ But the Provost of
CCS called him and said, ‘We don’t discourage our students
from pursuing what they are interested in, give her a chance’. It
was in that class that I really fell in love with large molecules
and proteins, and set the course for my research today8.
One of the most unusual aspects of the Creative Studies
curriculum is that advanced students can design and teach courses
called student colloquia, under the supervision of a faculty member.
Mudrick was particularly “fond of” this very innovative feature, which
soon became a very popular component of the curriculum. Mudrick
notes, “It’s possible…for very bright undergraduate students to have
a kind of enthusiasm and a freshness about handling material that
maybe some older university teachers don’t have.”9 Recent
examples of colloquia devised and taught by Creative Studies
students include “Modern Scottish Literature”, “How Science Works:
The Nature of Discovery”, ”Virtual Machines and Language
Translation”.
8
College of Creative Studies Commencement address, June 2003.
Lance Kaplan (ed.), Mudrick Transcribed: Classes and talks by Marvin Mudrick. Santa Barbara:
College of Creative Studies, 1989, p. 345.
9
15
Alumnus Alexei Filippenko writes about his experience in the
following terms:
One of my most important experiences in CCS was being
allowed to teach a full-year seminar on introductory astronomy
to a small group of students. I saw how rewarding it can be to
teach, and I recognized various gaps in my own knowledge.
All scientists should be able to communicate difficult concepts
to the public, and I got a great head start through CCS.
Taking and teaching classes, however, is only part of the CCS
experience. What Neil Gershenfeld writes about the MIT Media
Laboratory characterizes equally well the philosophy of the College of
Creative Studies:
The formal structure [of the conventional curriculum is]
valuable, but as a means rather than an end…Rather than start
with the presumption that all students need most of their time
filled with ritual observance, the organization of the Media Lab
starts by putting them in interesting environments that bring
together challenging problems and relevant tools, and then
draws on more traditional classes to support that enterprise.
The faster the world changes, the more precious these
16
traditional disciplines become as reliable guides into unfamiliar
terrain, but the less relevant they are to organize inquiry.
CCS offers a number of special programs and facilities
designed to support the initiatives of our students. Original work in
the sciences is facilitated by the Creative Studies Summer
Undergraduate Research Fellowship program (SURF), for which
sophomore and junior students who conduct research under faculty
supervision can compete. The SURF provides a stipend sufficient to
allow students to remain at UCSB during the summer and to work
full-time on their research project. Typically, SURF participants
become part of a faculty-directed research team, working side-byside with graduate students, post-docs, and faculty members; they
sometimes graduate having authored or co-authored professional
publications. Most of the funding for the SURF program is taken
from the operating budget of the College of Creative Studies. This
has become increasingly difficult in recent years, since the University
of California has suffered three consecutive years of budget cuts.
Fortunately, supplemental funding for the SURF program has come
from private gifts.
17
Support from the State of California, once providing nearly all of
the university's budget, now underwrites just over one-third of
UCSB's total expenditures. At UCSB, State appropriations are
designated for fundamental expenses. UCSB must secure additional
funds in order to maintain the excellence for which it is known
throughout the world. Private philanthropy provides that margin of
excellence, and plays a significant and increasing role in shaping the
university's reputation for teaching and research. Consequently, CCS
employs a half-time Development Officer, who works to secure
supplemental funding from individuals and foundations. We have
been particularly successful in interesting donors in supporting the
SURF program, because we can demonstrate the effect of the
program in launching the budding research careers of our exceptional
students.
Gifts from donors also help provide laboratory supplies needed
for student research projects and other special projects and
opportunities. For example, this past academic year, two CCS
students had papers accepted for presentation at professional
conferences. A literature major, Ryan Mehan, presented a paper
entitled "The Saga of Their Wanderings: Inquiries Into Roma
18
Nomadism" at the Hawaii International Conference on the
Humanities. Jay Freeman, a computer science major, delivered a
paper entitled "jMonitor: Java Runtime Event Specification and
Monitoring Library" at the Runtime Verification ’04 conference in
Barcelona, Spain. These are not conferences for undergraduate
students, but regular professional conferences. Indeed, Ryan and
Jay were the only undergraduate students presenting original papers
at these events. Since State funding cannot be used for this purpose,
gifts from donors again make a critical difference in the career of
these exceptional students.
Two literary journals are sponsored by the College of Creative
Studies: Spectrum and Into the Teeth of the Wind. These journals
are entirely student run, although each has a faculty advisor. The
students select from among the many submissions received not only
from local students and faculty, but from writers across the country
and indeed around the world. The journals are entirely edited and
marketed by CCS students, as well. Donor funding is also used to
support these endeavors.
The Creative Studies Gallery is a showcase for student art
work. All art students are required to hold a senior exhibition in the
19
Gallery. Similarly, Music Composition majors are required to have a
senior recital of their works, usually held in the Old Little Theater,
which belongs to CCS.
UCSB provides additional support for undergraduate research
and creativity, under the umbrella of the Office of Undergraduate
Research and Creative Activity. This is a clearing house for the
administration and promotion of various campus-wide programs
fostering undergraduate research and creative activity, headed by the
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies. Students are eligible to
apply for small grants (ranging up to $500). A faculty committee
evaluates the research proposals. Every spring, a poster session is
organized, where students who have received the grants present the
results of their projects. The winning entries receive small cash
prizes.
The Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity
also coordinates the Faculty Research Assistance Program. UCSB
Faculty members interested in involving undergraduate students in
their research projects can post a description of the research project
and opportunity for undergraduate involvement on the website of the
Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity. One
20
hundred eleven UCSB faculty members currently have posted such
opportunities.
In his book, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery
and Invention, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi states that the question,
“Where is creativity?” is more relevant than the question, “What is
creativity?”10. True creativity does not take place in a vacuum, in the
psyche of the creative individual alone, but in a social matrix. An
important element of the success of the College of Creative Studies is
the Creative Studies building itself. While it is an old building,
inadequate in many ways, it occupies a central location on the UCSB
campus and provides not only classrooms and faculty offices, but
much more importantly, it is a point of attraction for the CCS students.
Students can have a key to the building and they can use it
whenever they wish. And use it they do. A mid-night walk through
the building will find students clustered in study groups in the
classrooms, chatting in the kitchen, at work in the computer rooms,
painting in the art studios, perhaps playing one of several available
pianos.
10 10
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and
Invention. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
21
Giving students twenty-four access to the CCS building is one
of the easiest and most effective ways possible to stimulate interdisciplinary dialog among the students and to build a sense of
community among students and faculty.
Community building is one of the goals of the College of
Creative Studies. The academic year begins with an All College
Meeting, to which all students and faculty are invited. Following a
welcome from the Provost, faculty introduce themselves and talk
about classes they are planning to teach. Following the All College
Meeting, students meet with the faculty of their chosen discipline. At
noon, the entire CCS community reconvenes for the All College
Barbecue on the front lawn. Because of the small size of the student
body and the close working relationship between faculty advisors and
students, communication flows naturally throughout the year. A
weekly coffee hour provides an opportunity for interaction among
students and faculty of the various disciplines. Communication is
facilitated by e-mail and by a bi-weekly events calendar (This Week in
CCS). The College of Creative Studies is not a residential college,
per se. However, students are encouraged to live in the CCS House,
a component of one of the campus residential complexes.
22
The Boyer Commission recognized the importance of
community to a successful undergraduate program, noting:
…traditions feed the need for a connection with place, a
unique campus character. These rituals create an aura for
a community of learners comprising all members of the
university linked by intellectual interests, community values,
and interpersonal relations.
The College of Creative Studies could not exist, of course,
without an unusually dedicated faculty and without the support of the
larger institution. In this sense, CCS is fragile. Not every faculty
member at a research university is willing to make the substantial
commitment that teaching in the College of Creative Studies requires,
not only in terms of time spent in the classroom, but in advising and
mentoring students outside the classroom. As Mudrick put it, “you do
have to have a mission.”11
Sustaining faculty involvement in an innovative educational
institution such as the College of Creative Studies often requires a
change in faculty culture. American universities are typically facultycentered. Much of the curriculum and formal organization of the
11
Lance Kaplan (ed.), Mudrick Transcribed: Classes and talks by Marvin Mudrick. Santa
Barbara: College of Creative Studies, 1989, p. 354.
23
major largely reflect the research interests of the faculty. Faculty tend
to see themselves as purveyors of education to consuming students.
Some faculty simply do not believe that undergraduate students are
capable of producing creative and original work. Others believe that
one must follow a logically structured curriculum, even if this means
that some students will be wasting their time on pre-requisite courses
focused on material they have already mastered.
The ethos of the College of Creative Studies is quite different.
My colleague Ian Ross expresses this quite well:
The College basically is a place where an idea can flourish,
whether the idea comes from the faculty or a student. There’s
no authority, there’s no hierarchy, there’s no social strata which
will affect ehe evolution of an idea and the birth and
development of it.
The Boyer Commission report echoes this philosophy while
highlighting the benefit that not only students, but also faculty can
derive from it:
Important ideas rarely come fully-developed from the brain of a
single individual…It is one of the functions of a university to
provide the context in which ideas can be most productively
24
developed. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy
of Sciences and a member of the Boyer Commission has
referred to the “accidental collisions of ideas” necessary for the
continued productivity of faculty, and has suggested that the
presence of students provides a “lubrication” that breaks down
intellectual barriers between faculty members. When students
at every level…join with faculty in common inquiry, the
opportunities for “accidental collision of ideas” are optimized.
Fortunately, the College of Creative Studies has a core cadre of
top faculty who believe in its mission and who are more than willing to
devote their time to its cause. However, we don’t have enough of
them. As faculty of my generation approach retirement, It is crucial
that the faculty reward structure adequately recognize the
contribution of those who expend their time and energy on mentoring
talented undergraduate students.
The most fundamental organizational challenge to establishing
and sustaining an innovative institution such as the College of
Creative Studies is finding a mechanism that will ensure the
participation of interested ladder-ranking research faculty. Three
25
structural modes are possible: 1) the faculty buy-out mode, 2) the
incentive mode, 3) the permanent faculty mode.
The College of Creative Studies operates on the buy-out mode.
That is, CCS transfers money to the academic departments that loan
their faculty members to CCS, the intention being that these funds
can be used to employ a temporary replacement for the faculty
member who is teaching in CCS. The problem with this model is that
departments are sometimes reluctant to loan their faculty to CCS.
Even if the replacement funds are generous (which, in our case, they
are not), departments may see the arrangement as a loss. If they
loan to CCS a senior faculty member, the replacement is likely to be
a temporary lecturer of perceived lesser quality. Our challenge is to
persuade departments that they will derive benefit from creating
linkages to CCS. One such benefit is that CCS can be used as a
testing ground for new innovative courses that can later be
incorporated into the departmental curriculum. Another benefit is that
that stellar CCS students may become interested in taking additional
courses in the department as a result of the faculty member’s
teaching in CCS.
26
The incentive model offers faculty additional compensation for
teaching as an overload. While CCS has not followed this model, it
has proved successful at UCSB in attracting faculty to teach in the
Freshman Seminar Program. Freshman Seminars are limited to 15
students each and are designed to introduce new students to
research faculty. The Seminars, which focus on a topic of interest to
the faculty member, meet for a total of ten hours per quarter and are
give one unit of academic credit. This year, approximately 100
Freshman Seminars are being offered, examples of which are shown
on the slide. Faculty volunteer to teach the Seminars in addition to
their regular course assignment. In compensation, they receive
$1500 in research funds. Of course, teaching a one-hour seminar
per week is not a major investment in faculty time and energy,
compared to teaching a full course in CCS.
There is an advantage to the buy-out and incentive modes.
These two modes assure that there develops no dead wood among
the faculty. If a given faculty member proves ill-suited to teaching in
CCS and to mentoring creative students, he or she is simply not
invited back. These modes also allow for a rotation of faculty and
27
consequently provide flexibility to address changing student interests
and disciplinary shifts.
Despite these advantages, I believe that the permanent faculty
mode is superior. Only permanent faculty can become truly vested in
the institution. Faculty who are transitory can be stellar teachers and
good mentors, but their primary allegiance will always be to their
home department with whom their career is vested. There are some
ladder faculty who are generous in involving themselves in the
governance of the College, but they are the exceptions. The ideal
mode is that of joint appointments between CCS and an academic
department. This is the mode for which CCS is now advocating in its
academic plan.
Enhancing creativity in the university setting requires not only
the right faculty culture, it also requires the right student culture.
Students who are admitted to the College of Creative Studies are not
only bright and talented, but also are passionately committed to
pursuing intensive work focused on one of eight disciplines: art,
biology, chemistry, computer science, literature, mathematics, music
composition, and physics.
28
While the typical student entering the College of Creative
Studies has high test scores and grades,12 every year the College
seeks admission to UCSB by Special Action for a handful of students
who otherwise would not qualify for admission. Sometimes such
students have poor high school records, because they have been
bored and have refused to play the academic game that would have
earned them high grades. Sometimes their high school record is very
uneven. Sometimes they have suffered personal or family adversity.
In cases of Admission by Special Action, the Creative Studies faculty
have looked at more than the numbers and have been convinced of
the talent and potential of the individual. In most cases, such
students go on to do good things in CCS and in later life.
When reviewing students for admission, the faculty look above
all for promise of creative potential. Identifying appropriate students is
not easy. Of course, we consider the high school record in terms of
courses taken and grades earned. We also consider the scores
students have earned on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). We
have found, however, that these cannot be the only criteria. Many of
the faculty members of the College of Creative Studies would agree
12
in Fall 2003, the average SAT 1 score among new freshmen was 1325; the average high
school GPA was 3.71.
29
with physicist Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Media Lab, that a
high grade point average is not necessarily a predictor of creativity
and in fact may be a counter indicator. In discussing the criteria for
selecting students for the Media Lab, he says:
I look to make sure they have a few F’s [a failing grade].
Students with perfect grades almost always don’t work out,
because it means they’ve spent their time trying to meticulously
follow classroom instructions that are absent in the rest of the
world. Students with A’s and F’s have a much better record,
because they’re able to do good work, and also set priorities for
themselves. They’re the ones most able to pose—and solve—
problems that go far beyond anything I might assign to them.13
When students apply for admission to the College of Creative
Studies, they must include a letter of intent, addressed to the Provost,
in which they are invited to articulate their goals and reasons for
studying in the College of Creative Studies. They must also secure
letters of recommendation from their high school teachers. The
faculty in the program to which the student applies read these texts
carefully for evidence that the student is not just smart and good at
13
Neil A. Gershenfeld, When Things Start to Think. New York: Henry Holt, 1979, p. 188.
30
taking tests, but that he or she is truly committed to pursuing
advanced and independent work. Students applying for study in the
arts must submit a substantial portfolio of their creative work.
Sometimes students will be interviewed in person or on the
telephone.
As a means both of identifying appropriate students and of
judging their creativity, CCS also conducts three Prize Competitions
for high school students every year.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes that one of the characteristics of
creative people is an early interest in a particular subject.14 Another
characteristic of creative people is an uncommon curiosity and love
for the subject. These are the characteristics we look for among
prospective students. An example of the focused and passionate
individual attracted to CCS is a student I will call “Octopus Girl.” In
her Statement of Intent, Octopus Girl writes:
I have always been a hands-on, independent learner, and I am
excited to think that even as an undergraduate I would be able
to do original research…My love for the ocean is expressed in
almost everything I own, from clothes to books, from clocks to
14
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New
York: Harper Collins, 1996.
31
stationary. I am sometimes called Octopus Girl at school, due
to my well-known interest (obsession?) in these remarkable
cephalopods. In fact, I have kept several pet octopuses, as
well as seahorses and anemones, for which purpose I
purchased a sixty-gallon tank several years ago.
At the College of Creative Studies, Octopus Girl, whose real
name is Danna Schulman pursued her research interests in marine
science. She graduated last fall and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in
marine biology at Stanford University.
As I stated earlier, the College of Creative Studies enrolls less
than two percent of the undergraduate students at UC Santa Barbara.
It is something of an elite institution, a meritocracy for students with
unusual talent, focus and drive. For students who have their own
creative vision.
Not all students who enter UCSB are as focused and
passionate as Ms. Octopus, of course. In fact, many students are
quite, more solitary learners. These students often say that they
prefer the anonymity of the large lecture class. They expect the
faculty to be purveyors of knowledge and see themselves as
consumers. They are sometimes fiercely competitive and care less
32
about creativity than about earning a good grade. Is there a way to
apply the lessons of the College of Creative Studies on a larger scale
so as to encourage creativity among such students? Can we change
the prevailing student and faculty culture so as to enhance creativity?
This is not easy to accomplish, even in the context of an American
university. It may be more difficult to accomplish in Taiwan, where
traditions and prevaling cultural patterns are quite different than those
in the United States. The Boyer Commission suggests ten relevant
goals that can guide institutions in reforming undergraduate
education. Most of these goals have guided the College of Creative
Studies for nearly forty years. We have not been able to realize all of
them to our satisfaction, but I believe they offer useful guiding
principles.
1)
Make research-based learning the standard;
2)
Construct an inquiry based freshman year;
3)
Build on the freshman foundation;
4)
Remove barriers to interdisciplinary education;
5)
Link communication skills and course work;
6)
Use information technology creatively;
7)
Culminate with a capstone experience;
33
8)
Educate graduate students as apprentice teachers;
9)
Change faculty rewards systems;
10)
Cultivate a sense of community.
These goals can serve as useful guidelines for developing
academic programs and organizational structures that will support
creative collaborations between students and faculty.
34