Hi Gilbert, Wow this sounds like a fascinating process. I am a Spanish speaking OSer (although rather new as a facilitator and unfortunately living in the Netherlands...) Anyway, as I was reading your idea one thought came to my mind that I wanted to share with you. I think that it sounds quite interesting to allow for simultaneous OS events, but I do have a question about the residency halls.
I would assume that students, teachers, administrators, etc. are going to be invited to the event. However, if the mini events go on in residency halls there could be a danger that you get students doing one thing and professors, staff doing another (in the larger 400 person venue). If this were the case it might re-inforce the generation gap you that seems to be part of the crisis by splitting people unintentionally by age. Further, one of the things OS does so well is let people with drastically different experiences become aware of and learn from these differences. I wonder if you could work into your logistics some way to get mixed groups in the residency halls so that they would not be "homogenous" (I know that students are not necessarily homogenous, but still)... I hope this helps and I am very curious to hear how your experience develops. Doris Gottlieb -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]Namens Gilbert Brenson-Lazan Verzonden: Sunday, January 06, 2002 9:05 PM Aan: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Onderwerp: Some suggestions please Hi, all: Even though I have not contributed much to the OSLIST, due to commitments as moderator of several other lists y my collegial and profesional responsabilities, I am an avid reader and learner from this important cyberspace. Since there is no OSonOS in the next few days to help me with a big challenge I am facing, as it did a few years ago en Monterey, I am turning to the collective wisdom and experience of you all. I have been doing OS and training facilitators to do it for several years now, not just in companies but also in community development and disaster intervention. Now I feel almost like a victim of the success we have shared with this approch and have been approached by a very desperate university president. It is perhaps the most important and prestigious agriculture school in Latin America. They have just had a BIG structural shakeup over their up-until-now famous autocratic style. The 800 members of the student body are chomping at the bit to make the student affairs policies more participatory and relevant and the newer members of the faculty (yes, there is a BIG generation gap both in the faculty and the administration) are in agreement. Others are very fearful of the loss of absolute, hierarchical power; some of them realize it and some of them don´t. A very strong and influential alumni association also mirrors the same dynamic. They have all spent more than two years "diagnosing" all the problems and now want to do something. I have been called in as a consult to recommend changes, a role which I immediately challenged, choosing instead to offer a startup with an a one-day OS process with students, teachers and administrators all together, to explore feasible strategies to make the processes por participative in the school. I will then do a program of training and mentoring of the internal facilitators (grad students) of the school to keep the ball rolling. With fear and trembling, the powers that be have accepted this approach. My question is on logistics: There are six, 130-student residences which are microcosms of the school (the students live on a gorgeous 2000 acre campus). There is no facility big enough to put all 900 (students, profs and admins) together. Maximum meeting capacity would be 400. I originally thought of choosing a critical mass of 300-400 for the OS but the main sponsor and supporter of the program would like to be able to close down the university that day and invite ALL those that want to participate. My only idea so far is to organize mini-OSs in each of the Residences. My colleagues and I would do the intro with two groups of 400 and then they would go to their respective residences to do their OS thing, with the support of a couple of previously-prepared facilitators to be on hand if needed (I know that isn´t very kosher OS but in Latin America I have found it to be an excellent strategy). Then they would return at the end of the day (also in two groups) to share results and form a followup commision. Everybody would get everybody´s results. What bright ideas do you all have? Any Spanish-speaking OSers out there that want to help? Thanks a million. Warm regards, Gil ************************************** AMAUTA INTERNATIONAL, LLC Gilbert Brenson-Lazan - Socio-Gerente Tel: (+57-1) 345-2724 - Fax: 345-2072 U.S. Voice Mail and Fax: (206) 888-4386 e-mail: <g...@amauta.org> website: <http://amauta.org> ********************************* * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html