Convocation awards (through 2012)
(continued at files/awards)
"Critical and Creative Thinking Award for Personal and Professional Development" (unless otherwise noted)
2012
Lorna Riach
When Lorna Riach took a CCT class after-hours she was looking for something quite different to "show up for" than her detail-oriented job in a medical field. She did not know that she had embarked on a journey that would provide, as she describes it in her capstone synthesis, "the framework, resources, and experience of deeply reflecting upon and exploring my own creativity so that I can safely now believe: I am a creative person." Lorna's newfound creative identity centers on writing but she also came to face the "fears emerging as a result of my writing and reflective practice." Through the projects she took on during her CCT studies, she came to understand that "these fears cast doubt toward my ability to feel I had a right to be heard (or that I had something worthwhile to say), and as a result-I had stopped taking chances and risks, and had a decreased sense of personal wonder or inquiry." Along her journey of developing as a reflective practitioner, Lorna looked at her highly-disciplined approach to work and studies in new ways and "learned to be kinder to myself." Lorna's capstone synthesis provides an example for future or potential CCT students of the personal change that is possible in the Program and should inspire and guide anyone-herself included-who experiences fear around creativity. The Program faculty have, with appreciation, watched Lorna inquire, wonder, write her way into and through the fear-full thickets of making sense of who she has been and who she is becoming. We anticipate that she will go on to share her writing and reflective practice with the wider world and, in doing so, help others in their journeys.
2011
Julie Johnstone (Critical and Creative Thinking Award for Personal and
Professional Development)
A dean of students at a progressive secondary school, Julie used her CCT studies to explore new directions for teaching, learning, and collaboration at her school as well as to support the work of her peers and professors in the program. As an experienced professional Julie saw viewed CCT classroom activities and curriculum design as something she might be able to adopt or adapt, so she was very prepared to speak up, in her quiet but firm way, when she had questions or reservations about how the classroom situation was affecting learning. This spirit of responsibility-in-learning informed her capstone project, which centered around two propositions she made: "a school structured as an ethical institution will serve as an environment that is conducive to social justice and action," and "more meaningful learning will occur when service is connected to working with others and taking time for ongoing reflection." The service-learning Action Plan she developed and began to implement during her final semester was distinctive in the way that it built in significant time between lessons for implementation, collaboration, evaluation, and reflection. Julie Johnstone was already a school leader when she came to CCT, but left as a reflective practitioner.
Renessa Ciampa Brewer (Delores Gallo Award for Creative Development and Outreach)
Throughout Renessa's time as a CCT student, she has reached outward and inward, especially around her field of graphic design. With a view to changing the education of design students or the professional development of existing designers, she has been steadily assembling a critical and creative thinking toolkit for the concept development process. Some of those tools concern lifelong learning and reflective practice, which Renessa has applied systematically to projects for her own design firm since the fall as part of her final capstone synthesis research. As a member of the CCT community, Renessa has also reached outward and inward. She has played a leadership role for the CCT Forum and the CCT Network--the student and alum organizations--in arranging monthly events that extend personal and professional development, community building, and educational-innovation activities beyond the formal CCT program of studies. (Her brilliant publicity graphics cannot be pasted into this citation, but can be seen by visiting the CCT homepage, http://www.cct.umb.edu.) In addition to these outreach efforts, Renessa has been a bulwark of support and ideas to the CCT faculty, an avid initiator of study groups outside class, and someone who has cheerfully enriched CCT community life in general.
Michael Johns (Nomination for Convocation Speaker)
Michael Johns is both ordinary and extraordinary among UMass graduate students. He can speak on behalf of everyone for whom this public university provides an opportunity--an affordable opportunity--to move their work and lives in a new direction or to a higher level, especially in mid career. Mike came to UMass after serving in the Navy, running a contracting business, then teaching in the Maritime Apprentice Program--more on that in due course. (Along the way he worked after hours in EMT, as a Scout leader, and in other community service roles.) Three winters ago while looking for pre-med courses to take and finding none, he was intrigued by a course on the Dialogue Process offered by the Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) graduate program. After taking that course, he dived right into CCT studies. Mike became one of those UMass graduate students who turned a not-so- exemplary undergraduate record into a stellar graduate school GPA after finding a program of study that fully engaged their interests.
Mike can also speak of his UMass studies in an inspiring way, exemplifying the extraordinary work many of our students undertake. At the Maritime Apprentice Program he was working with highest risk (to others) and most at-risk (to self) youth offenders in the Seaport Boat Shop in South Boston. As he describes the work: "We helped transition them back to life outside, prepare them with social, life and job skills to give them the second chance, that often their early environment gave little chance of. Preparation included basics such as getting food, a safe place to live (and get sleep), counseling, healthcare, mentorship and lessons in self-care and responsibility. We worked to find the good in every person, helped them to see it, and supported them in gaining confidence and positive self-esteem. We recognized their learned street survival skills and worked with this resiliency, channeling it into healthy, productive, marketable skills for the workforce."
From early on in his CCT studies, Mike started using the tools and processes he was learning to address challenges of this work. He was able to help the young men address the trauma and stress of their lives in gangs and prison as well as introduce the dialogue process to his co-workers who needed to take stock of their own understandings and feelings about their efforts, which were not always successful. These initiatives at the Maritime Apprentice Program led him to begin to help veterans, initially at UMass Boston but now in a new job as Veterans Services Coordinator in his local community of Foxboro. Over the past year of "Mutual Mondays," veterans, himself included, have used the dialogue process to address their isolation, withdrawal, avoidance, hyper-vigilance, as well as other psychological and physiological maladies that affect veteran health. Themes that Michael has seen veterans come to express during Mutual Mondays concern empathy, awareness, connection, voice (having one that counts), and wishing to rejoin the community in roles of service. (Michael's own commitment to service has also shone through in his attention to his fellow CCT students who, like himself, are usually making career- and life-changes. For three semesters Michael has played a reliable and sometimes leadership role in the CCT students' Writing Support Group.)
Let me finish this nomination with the words a Mutual Mondays participant, a Vietnam Veteran Navy Bomber Pilot and Baptist Minister, wrote to Mike recently: Just a quick note to say thank you for the delightful conversation we had today. When I left your office, I found myself pondering over the things we discussed. I must admit I don't recall a time I have ever been so transparent with issues pertinent to my military endeavors. It was refreshing to know that someone understood the significance of the dilemma we sometime find ourselves in. Moving on, I will indeed make every effort to join you and the others at your next meeting. As you so astutely put it, "you were the facilitator that received the healing from the participants."
2010
Marie Levey-Pabst
A high school English teacher, Marie lapped up opportunities that CCT studies provided to immerse herself in creative and reflective work as well as to support the work of her peers in the program. What her teachers have seen is an adventurous, empathic and disciplined thinker who is becoming an effective change agent in professional and personal life. In particular, she seeks, in her words, to "integrate critical and collaborative conversations" into her work environment, as she has found those conversations pivotal to her own growth as a teacher. "Having colleagues share these thoughts with me allowed me to consider issues in teaching and learning that had not occurred to me before, and gave me a broader understanding of different ways of planning and implementing instruction....Almost every step of the way I was forced to stop, reflect, and open up my options and thinking." In her capstone synthesis, she provides vivid case examples both from her own experience and interviews with other teachers of the ways each has moved from simplistic "either-or thinking" to "navigating the complexities of teaching." She has beautifully documented the kinds of thinking processes that allow them to continue to question, struggle, and grow as professionals.
2009
Jeremy Szteiter
As a child "I only understood my education as a way to learn how to be good at school, not how to be good at something else that was meaningful to my life." So now, as an adult educator, Jeremy has a vocation to help others-and himself-restore a "natural and personal joy of learning." In his capstone synthesis he advances an approach to lifelong learning based on supporting people outside formal educational settings coming to see themselves as teachers-to develop, in his words, a "teaching mind." This vision of lifelong learning is "highly inclusive... involv[ing] people who are not always perceived to be likely participants in academic communities, such as senior citizens, disabled people, immigrants, tradespeople, the homeless, and those in poverty."
Indeed, a thoughtful, caring, innovative approach to adult education has been evident throughout Jeremy's CCT studies and in his many and invaluable contributions to the CCT Program. Most notably, early on in his CCT studies Jeremy made a commitment to continue after he graduated building the wider community around CCT. Towards that end, he co-founded the CCT Network, which organizes monthly events that continue alums' education through their involvement in the education of current students and hosts a "ning" (something like facebook). In an early posting, Jeremy described the ning "as a sort of agreement between us. That we agree to acknowledge common threads between us, that we agree to continue to share our progress with each other over time, and that we agree to keep in touch periodically. Occasionally, a long time may go by in between visits, but still the CCT Network might be a place where we can find familiar territory and use our built-in relationship as a step to finding deeper ones."
In the words of one CCT faculty member, Jeremy has "an amazingly expansive and incisive intellect, is a beautifully clear and precise writer, and a warm and kind person who is committed to promoting the growth and development of others, especially adult learners." This has been evident, as a fellow student notes, in his "organizing study support groups and providing deep and thought provoking feedback on classmates' work." The impact of Jeremy's ongoing work for the CCT community was highlighted by a new student, who, after a CCT Network event, "Looking Out For Each Other: Thinking Our Way Through an Economic Funk," emailed: "I have really enjoyed my experience so far and feel enriched by all of you, who have welcomed me... What I didn't quite expect, way back when, was the depth of care and interest 'we' all take in each other, and therefore take universally.... The CCT gatherings I have been at so far have always left me reflecting for several days, in a very positive way. Same for this most recent one...Not Utopia; real change and real effect, in a real world...real time. Thank you for what you do."
Thanks Jeremy for what you have done and will continue to do for the CCT community.
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"Delores Gallo Award for Creative Development and Outreach"
Tara Tetzlaff
When first coming to know Tara it's obvious that she loves to wear hats - nostalgic, whimsical ones especially! A cloche with a flower bobbing playfully to one side, a straw bonnet given to her by an aunt. A uniquely representative hat for each season. One also recognizes these hats as metaphors for a self-confident, self-directed, independent person with a lively openness to new learning and self-understanding.
Tara Tetzlaff chose the CCT program to learn to think in ways that would help her clarify and prepare to take new directions in her life. Having left her Buffalo, NY roots and close family, she was poised for cultural change, new responsibilities as a graduate assistant to the CCT program, plus a full boat of demanding courses unlike she had probably ever known.
Predictably, Tara flourished in the program. Curious and inquisitive, provocative and reflective, a sought-after collaborator by her classmates, she was in the process of redefining herself on many levels. As a program assistant Tara has been a bulwark of support and ideas to the CCT coordinator and faculty, and to the enrichment of CCT community life in general. From office management tasks, to co-organizing a series of events with alumni and current students, to writing for the Mass Media, to providing writing assistance to students, she is an inspiration and a joy to work with, managing to do it all with remarkable effectiveness.
Tara has been a gift to the CCT program. But what would be one of the program's lasting gifts to her? When asked about a significant turning point, something that was deeply transformational, she paused to reflect then said:
"Last spring semester. Close to finishing the program is when it all came together for me. I was working my way creatively through an action research and philosophy of role project, figuring out how to move forward in my life, when I realized how I wanted to change the way I think. It struck me that I don't need to rely on the certainty of a having a set plan for the future - that I'm comfortable with that ambiguity because I view this as an opportunity to recognize and explore possibilities for myself."
Tara has always regarded herself as an independent learner. Interestingly, the catch was a need to rely on others to provide the structure within which to work independently. Tara says, "The impact of this discovery has been life-changing. I would say that I've now really found my own mind." CCT says, "Hats ON to you, Tara! This new one has relevance for all the seasons of your life."
2008
"My CCT training taught me that, while we can't always control the circumstances in our lives, we can take charge of how we think about them."
Indeed, Sheryl Savage had ample opportunity to apply this principle to work and personal life, at times requiring time out from her CCT studies. During these times, which extended the timeframe for completing her program, Sheryl was actively applying strategies for how to think about problems. This resulted in effective solutions to professional and medical concerns. And to healing after a seemingly insurmountable painful loss.
Sheryl views the CCT Program as life changing, equipping her with indispensable thinking tools. She developed confidence and competence as a risk-taker, realizing that,"Because I can think a situation through, I can handle it - and that, if one possibility or solution doesn't work, I can generate another that will."
This transformational process took root in the creative thinking course. One of the exercises was to reproduce a famous drawing by turning it upside down and viewing each part as a pleasing arrangement of shapes and lines. "This surprisingly successful outcome struck a sensitive nerve within that, when I think I can't do something, to step back, take a different view and break a circumstance down into manageable aspects."
Sheryl first came to CCT during her tenure with the UMB Office of Institutional Advancement where she helped raise millions of dollars in contributions. Through this work Sheryl formulated a capstone synthesis project on how to add humor to an organization's culture to enliven people's creativity. As it turned out, humor provided a resource for her own challenges. A boating accident resulted in fracturing her back and the possibility of never walking again. "Twenty four hours later, lying in a hospital bed, I was thinking solutions for moving ahead with my life based on different surgical outcomes. Fortunately, I emerged whole from the surgery."
Shortly after, Sheryl lost her infant grandson to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). This devastating circumstance brought her CCT capstone work to an indefinite halt. Clearly, it seemed impossible to continue writing about humor in the workplace - or any level. What limited strength she had was needed to help the family cope and learn about SIDS through support programs and research.
However, in what undoubtedly was one of the most powerful challenges to her thinking strengths, Sheryl shifted her synthesis focus to humor as a means of promoting healing from loss. "Again, my CCT training helped me take a different view, grasp what questions I needed to ask and answers to seek. Sheryl's courageous capstone work shows a journey in understanding how to transform pain and anguish to SIDS prevention programs. In the process, an intellectual and emotional resilience that had been stretched to the limit was recaptured.
In Sheryl's words, "My CCT training was invaluable. Equally invaluable was the faculty's dedication to guiding and supporting me throughout this extraordinary transformative learning process, especially during difficult times."
Sheryl, we the CCT faculty and students want you to know how much you have inspired and supported us throughout your studies, and now as a graduate of the Program. We now think, "is there any situation so serious that humor cannot help?"
2007
As a librarian in a relatively small community college in Whittier, California, the students Jan Coe serves range from knowledgeable adults who may not have stepped into a library in years to recent high-school graduates who are technologically savvy but information illiterate. Her desire to help them succeed in college and in life led her to pursue her own late-career education in the CCT Program during summer courses, then a full-year sabbatical, and finally as a long-distance student (nudging the Program into the era of skype and wikis). In her own words, she wants her "students to understand that the research process is not linear - there are many dead ends, shortcuts, and wrong turnings... that research is exciting; and that research matters [and] that when conducting research, they have a responsibility to examine their own assumptions and opinions as well as those propounded in published sources, by their friends, and in the media."
This spirit of reflection on assumptions and excitement of finding out new things emerged wonderfully in Jan's own CCT studies. She used every project as a chance to investigate and synthesize-always in well-organized papers and presentations-what is known about a topic, drawing not only on her librarian's skills, but her curiosity to see issues from all sides. Through the sequence of courses in the Program she grew in self-confidence, taking more risks over time in presenting her own ideas and exploring new domains. Most notably, she discovered a passion for citizen input to debates about new developments in biomedicine.
Jan's interest in investigating and communicating the different sides of issues is mirrored in her ability to listen attentively in group discussions and to do the patient work needed to help a group cooperate despite differences in opinions and work-style. This was especially clear during a group "problem-based learning" project that developed a plan for a yearlong multi-disciplinary symposium on death and dying. It was also evident in her administrative assistance to the Program and her participation in CCT courses and activities, which are as much about group process, participation, and "reflective practice" as they are about thinking. Jan always contributed responsibly and generously to the learning of fellow students and, indirectly, by gently nudging faculty members to reflect on their own practice. The CCT faculty and students were privileged to witness and contribute to, in Jan's words, her "intellectual re-awakening and professional reinvigoration."
2006
Karen Crounse
2005
There's a brief pause then Matthew Puma's eyes twinkle with excitement as he describes the kind of thinking he likes to do best: "I get immense joy and satisfaction from the process of connecting things up, from pairing seemingly disparate or oppositional ideas to find common ground among them." Indeed, Matthew, who holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy, revels in getting his hands on a whole lot of "stuff", findings way to connect it, and teaching his adult learners to do the same. He attributes his significant strides as a thinker and successful application of this in the classroom to his CCT training.
As an educator, Matthew serves unique populations. One of his tasks is to serve as the curriculum developer and primary teacher for the Computers for the Office Training Program for unemployed adults living in an urban housing project in Worcester, Massachusetts. His aim: to train these adults to become fluid, flexible thinkers who gain success and satisfaction in their lives and work through connection making. Through familiar content he teaches them to identify paradoxes embedded in oppositional thinking such as open vs closed, reason vs. emotion, male vs. female and good vs. evil which Matthew describes as "loaded oppositions that become hindrances to thought when they are held too rigidly as dichotomies". In the process this special adult population, many of whom have little prior educational advantage, learn to free up fixed or rigid ideas and think fluidly which is essential to effective critical and creative thinking.
This powerful method of learning to learn is the basis of Matthew's CCT capstone project in which he translates themes from academic philosophy into practice in the adult basic education classroom. The result is a set of instructional strategies and a guide to help teachers use paradoxical and oppositional thinking as rich metaphors for enhancing students' development on many levels.
Training students to identify common ground in the face of split or oppositional thinking, to think in terms of degrees and possibilities, prepares them to be effective in life. At the same time, Matthew's course projects have been "training" his CCT instructors to think more deeply about our classroom strategies because he often translated tools and themes we introduced into clear and detailed instructional guides for his adult learners. Intelligent, insightful, compassionate, Matthew Puma has achieved one of the highest goals of the CCT program. He is an effective, inspirational agent of change in the lives of others.
2004
Ivy Frances' growth and development throughout her CCT program has been an inspiration to her classmates and instructors. Ivy models curiosity and questioning, receptivity and openness to ideas, fair-mindedness, adventurous, flexible thinking, and empathy and understanding for others.
Ivy chose the CCT program to help her make changes in the direction of her life. Her quest for deeper self-realization and personal fulfillment has resulted in extraordinary transformations. Over the course of her journey in the program she has come a great distance from her primary focus as an agent for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). She has discovered an exciting new sense of self and of place as a thinker and photographer-artist-essayist.
From childhood, Ivy loved taking pictures but as an adult doubted her talents as an artistic photographer. She wanted her photographs to tell stories, convey ideas, capture nature, and represent truth, but could she succeed? As a CCT student she has re-examined her fears and lack of confidence as a visual artist. The magnificent photos she has taken for her coursework and her reflection on their meaning show the growing confidence and her recognition that she is, indeed, an artist with a camera. From capturing the ethereal qualities of a milkweed plant to penetrating the character of her hometown of Scituate and its people, Ivy has rediscovered and affirmed herself as an artist and story-teller with a camera. Her own words best describe a journey that has been empowering and resulted in significant strides in self-awareness and confidence:
"Through the CCT program, I've become more able to look at my self critically without self-doubt, with greater self-awareness and new found capacity to grow and move forward rather than stalling. My creative side has burgeoned in the supportive, challenging environment of the CCT program, encouraging me to take intellectual risks and revel in them, taking my creativity to a much higher level. My thinking abilities are expanded -- they are now dimensional, like a cube. I think in multi-faceted ways with greater fluidity, flexibility, and with confidence in possibility. "
For Ivy, this is just the beginning of her journey. Along the way, she is certain to continue giving others with whom she shares her art pause to think about their own latent gifts and talents. The satisfaction and joy she shows from stopping to take time to think is bound to be infectious.
2003
Luanne Witkowski has taken a persistent, caring, innovative role in the CCT Program, in her workplace, and in her community. Luanne is an artist who, shortly before she joined CCT, left her full-time job so she could have more time for painting. This she has done, with solo and joint exhibits of large paintings and works on paper. To pay her bills she took on a half-time position as a studio manager at Mass Art. Finding that she was the first person in this position, Luanne has put in place guidelines and organization that ensure a personally healthy and environmentally responsible workspace. She began to develop a three-part plan for "basic training" of artists, making good use of the tools for personal and organizational change she was learning in CCT. Basic training in Luanne's model not only includes health and environmental concerns, but also artists' responsibility to engage with the communities that artists rely on to view and support their artwork. In this spirit, she took up an offer of use of a storefront in Jamaica Plain and initiated the Efka Project. As Efka's coordinator she coached emerging artists to prepare, publicize, curate, and staff their first exhibits. In turn, Efka exhibits provide an "opportunity for the public to gain exposure to, and education about artists in their community who are about to embark on their careers." (Efka was featured in the Boston Globe, 3 Feb. '02). This three-part plan was showcased in a poster as part of the Environment/sustainability activities during the Chancellor's fall inauguration. Luanne has gone on to develop a curriculum for Mass Art, which she has refined as a possible UMB course through her participation in a faculty curriculum development workshop this spring. Meanwhile, in the CCT Program, Luanne has served this year as the teaching assistant for the large core courses. In this position, she has created efficient, behind-the-scenes organization to support the instructors, who for the first time, had to handle the large classes with only one instructor. Finally, in her course work Luanne models to other students the CCT ideals of students experimenting and taking risks in applying what they are learning, reflecting on the outcomes, and building up a set of tools, practices, and perspectives that work in their specific professional or personal endeavors.
2002
Suzanne Clark, an assistant professor of music at Berklee College, joined CCT's interdisciplinary graduate program to expand her perspectives on creativity in writing, performing and teaching music. During her three and a half years in the Program, she developed a keen appreciation of the ways that physical and psychological stresses detract from creative engagement with music. Through her course projects and capstone synthesis research Suzanne has assembled a variety of tools for reflection and mindful practice, showed their power in reevaluating her own experiences as a musician, and prepared a guide for musicians' wellness. We look forward to hearing of musicians encouraged by her teaching to look after themselves better. We also look forward to reading more of Suzanne's stories and poems that now complement her musical compositions.
As well as being a serious teacher-scholar-practitioner, Suzanne has contributed responsibly and generously to the learning of fellow students during courses, in the extra-curricular activities of the CCT Forum (the graduate student organization), and, indirectly, by gently nudging faculty members to reflect on their own practice. She has also taken an active role in CCT's outreach beyond its formal program of study through the Thinktank for Community College teachers, the web-based Fieldbook of tools for critical thinking and reflective practice, and reorganization of the Program's website and paper files. These contributions to the CCT community, as well as her projects, are recognized in this book award.