Notes From Feb. 25th Meeting

INTENDED / LIKELY AUDIENCE:
Students (current, prospective)
Us (Humanities Faculty / Staff / College employees)
The whole world (www)
Potential faculty
Parents
Peer review / colleagues
Advisors

Purposes of mission statement:
Clarify who we are, what we do, what we believe in
Characterize our unique contribution
What we all share
(Need to make this clear to ourselves first, then transmit to
students)

WHO ARE WE?
­Students of human experience
­Stewards of Humanities ­
Culture/Diversity/Memory/Tradition
­Sharers of ideas / mores
­Poets, writers, artists, etc.
­Teachers
­Seekers of the universal
­Community of learners
­Human experience / expression
­Lovers of art (amator ­ Latin)

WHAT DO WE DO?
­Express poetically
­Reflect
­Question
­Prompt thought and critical thinking
­Judge / Evaluate
­Value
­Make things
­Discover
­Collaborate
­Listen
­Empathize / Encourage
­Emancipate self and students from oppression
­Research
­Play

HOW DO WE PRESENT OUR STATEMENT?
­Need to offer variety of format: visual, written, symbolic, musical, etc.


WHAT RESONATES WITH US IN TCK'S POEM?
­ Home
­ Hunger (for...)
­ Act of questioning
­ Self­actualization
­ Companionship
­ Community
­ Acknowledgement
­ Inward sense of aesthetics / beauty
­ Beauty
­ Emotional expression
­ Liminal space
­ Crossing boundaries
­ What do we find?
­ What do we search for?
­ Joy and invitation
­

WHAT IS OUR UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION?
­ Individual and group creativity
­ Interpret what it means to be human
­ Expression, understanding, and appreciation of human experience
­ Passion
­ Avenues to empathy
­ Foster sense of self, place and time
­ Other places/people/times
­ Inhabit the other/ understand
­ Show / wear (place, time, self)
­ Recognizing the artificiality of boxes (disciplines / fields)

WHAT DO WE SHARE?
­ A common question: what does it mean to be human?
(Study of how others have answered the question, as
well as the individual's search for an answer.)