Dear Incoming or Prospective CCT Student,
Welcome to the Critical and Creative Thinking Program, a unique and innovative inter-disciplinary graduate program offered only at UMass Boston [see overview of the program]. The CCT Handbook provides a guide to joining and moving through the Program. The most current information about CCT activities and updates on future semesters' courses are available on the CCT website (www.cct.umb.edu) and through periodic email news postings. New students and others interested in CCT are encouraged to email the cctnews moderator to join the distribution list and email the program office (cct@umb.edu) to keep us informed of any changes in your email address.
As an interdisciplinary, cross-college program CCT has to be critical and creative in the way it secures its resources and uses them, especially in times of state budgets cuts and shifting institutional priorities. Given the reduction in full-time faculty in the late 90's, we have worked to build more "horizontal" exchanges and support among students in the larger CCT community. In this spirit we have over the last several years initiated:
- "CCT in Practice" evening sessions and open houses (presentations covering the range of ways people put critical and creative thinking into practice -- faculty present on their work, students do practice run-throughs of lessons and workshop sessions for their synthesis projects, we have music and performances from the talented pool of CCT students, and alums return to speak about how their current work builds on their CCT experience )
- a Thinktank for Teachers of Critical Thinking and
- Reflective Practitioners Support Group, (both currently in hibernation)
- an evolving wiki, cct.wikispaces.com
- a Thinking for Change Fieldbook, and
- a Community Directory (designed to foster on-going support, communication, and the sharing of resources among current and former students, and others who have been associated with the Program).
We also want the time students spend consulting with faculty to focus as much as possible on issues of personal, professional, and intellectual development, so we have designed the web-based handbook to enable students to handle most bureaucratic matters on their own. (Students recently admitted should take note of the guidelines about advising.)
We would also value help getting CCT's website ( http://www.cct.umb.edu) linked in appropriate places and any good old word of mouth about CCT would be appreciated. To reach our target of new students each year, we need to reach out and find people who might not know about us.
Finally, we view the CCT program as works-in-progress, which means that we encourage members of the CCT community to find opportunities to affirm what is working well and to suggest directions for further development. It helps our spirits to know that others are thinking about how the Program can move ahead.
Sincerely,
Peter Taylor, Program Coordinator