I'd like some help coming up with the appropriate wording for an OS theme. What I have coming up is a high stakes event. The precise theme wording is critical (at least I think it is).
First I need to give some background. I am a member of a College of Education at a university. We are undergoing massive teacher education redesign. We are under a state mandate to get a new program in place by Fall 99. We have a month and a half left in this academic year. Failure to come up with a new curriculum is simply not an option. A key group of ten faculty (10 PhD ego's) are working on a new "Core Curriculum." Deliberations have broken down over philosophical issues, content issues, generalist vs specialist teacher issues, number of hours, etc., etc. In short conversations have become very contentious and heated. The group is going in circles and a couple of people have resigned. Emotions are high and acrimony is rampant. The group is getting frustrated, exhausted, and burned out on every-other-day meetings. To me the situation meets perfectly the criteria for an OS event: high levels of complexity, high levels of diversity, high levels of conflict, and a decision is needed yesterday. I volunteered to hold an OS event with this group. The group may be expanded in size somewhat. I'm going to guess that 15 to 20 people would voluntarily come together if they believed real progress could be made. I would GREATLY APPRECIATE any suggestions anyone on this list might have for the wording of a theme to focus this group. Something like "issues and opportunities facing the College of Education" just seems too generic for this particular situation, which I might go so far as to describe as a crisis. Thanks VERY MUCH for your help!!!
