Advice Needed on Higher Ed Programs for D&Ders

[Sandy]

Here are three great replies I received via email. Don't be afraid to post to the forum, folks!

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Here?’s a start. Go to www.communityarts.net and browse through the Art in the Public Interest offerings. Dialogue is an adjunct to much of the theatre projects described there & you can find a section ?– I think it?’s called Community Arts 101 ?– that details who offers degrees or supplemental academic training in applied arts. Try www.animatingdemocracy.org. Again, these are arts projects intended to structure or at least stimulate dialogue on social issues.

Gracias,

John Sullivan
Co-Director: Public Forum & Toxics Assistance
Community Environmental Forum Theatre Practitioner
Sealy Center for Environmental Health & Medicine / NIEHS
University of Texas Medical Branch @ Galveston TX
409-747-1246

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Dear Sandy,

Without looking at the list but from personal experience I would suggest the following. No matter what the program discription says you should ask how many of the faculty involved with the course(s) have actually conducted or participated in dialogue, critical philosophy or critical pedagogy. There is only one doctoral program in critical pedagogy in the country that I kow of personally and that is at the University of Saint Thomas and no one on that faculty (The School of Education) has mcuh experience in the field although there is a "noted" scholar on inquiry, Stephen Brookfield, on the faculty. There are a lot of knowledgeable people out there but they don't all have open access to the student populations because the faculty senate and organizational architecture are historically hierarchical and bound to the traditions that deny any authority other than tenure. Check them out to see if they walk their talk.

There is more competence in this organization (Dialogue and Deliberation) {and I have some reservations} than there is in the academic community as a whole, which is bound by intellectual research and very little innovative experience. They talk the game but play by a different set of rules e.g. Love, Inclusion and Diversity are excluded. (For God's sake don't see that comment as a narrowly constructed racial observation.) There are many schools that have embraced Appreciative Inquiry (and even have courses) without a moment of careful investigation or reasonable research because it has the patina of civilized debate but no sense of real inquiry in the Socratic domain of epistemology, I would probably attend a course you gave on the subject before attending a university program of similar interest and scope of investigation. But then again I'm a contrarian.

Perhaps you should see if such a program designed and implemented by NCDD could get a University imprimatur, then you could offer to the community the broad and substantial wisdom of the community in true Socratic fashion and tradition. let me know what you think of the idea and how I might be able to help.

Rogier Gregoire Ed.D.
Harvard Graduate School of Education 1972



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I think your choice might be pretty easy ?– I suggest that you contact Barnett Pearce (of the Public Dialogue Consortium) and his colleagues at the Fielding Graduate University, I?’ve forgotten its exact name. I think it will have everything you?’re looking for. Good luck, Ken

Kenneth N. Cissna, Ph.D.
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Communication
4202 East Fowler Avenue, CIS 1040
University of South Florida
Tampa FL 33620-7800

Phone: 813-974-6820
E-mail:
http://www.cas.usf.edu/communication/cissna/index.html
_________________
Sandy Heierbacher
Convenor, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)

[Loretta Donovan]

I understand that this is not a new conversation, but only just having found it, there are several attractors to my giving advice. Rogier cites some significant theoretical foundations of my own development . . . critical theory and appreciative inquiry. There is no clear formula . . . does the egg come first or the chicken . . . but your personal philosophy will guide you in your graduate studies AND your graduate program will shape your philosophy. I was attracted to Brookfield's ideas about self-directed learning and that drew me to Columbia University, Teachers College. I learned a lot from him, but even more because the beliefs in the department were the legacy of Jack Mezirow. Dialogue and inquiry were embedded everywhere. And, as you know, other forces in my professional life introduced me to appreciative inquiry after I had finished my doctoral coursework. I found a theoretical fit in Mezirow's and Cooperrider's work.

I guess what I am pointing out is that there are some doctoral programs that are focused on theory, and encourage your own growth as a thinker. There are many programs, as Rogier points out, that have all the right words on their websites and appear to have similar courses. Some do have faculty with field experience, but this may not be original work or researched to validate its contributions. These universities and faculty offer more instrumental learning. In other words, the number of credits make them doctoral programs, but the intellectual rigor is still at the masters level.

There are two ways that you may find the answers to your questions. The first is to use Dissertations Abstracts to see what the recent graduates of some universities are researching and whether your interests lie in those areas. The second is to spend a day or two attending classes to see faculty and students in action.

Please let me know if I can help your decision making in any other way.

Loretta

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Loretta L. Donovan
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