Creative Connections Alumni Network

Spotlight on ICSC Graduate: Marta Davidovich Ockuly

2011-11-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Marta moved from Sarasota, Florida to Buffalo, New York in May of 2010 to become a residential student in the I.C.S.C. program. In one whirlwind year, she completed her studies with distinction. Awarded her Master’s of Science degree in May, 2011, she was also one of three graduating students chosen to receive the coveted Mary Murdock Creative Spirit Award. Her master’s project: “Keys to Unlocking Creative Potential: The Expressive Path to Personal Growth” launched her popular creativity blog, and also led to a Social Media Consulting position offer from Saybrook University distinguished professors Dr. Ruth Richards and Dr. Steve Pritzker.

Prior to leaving Buffalo, Marta was accepted as a PhD student at Saybrook. She began her PhD studies as a distance student in August, and by September, under Dr. Ruth Richard’s generous mentorship, she was published as a co-author in the peer reviewed journal: NeuroQuantology. The is titled: “Creativity Revalued: How Professors, Students, and an Innovative University are Turning the Tide.” In 2013, Marta will begin training with Dr. Natalie Rogers to earn her Certification as a Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapist as part of her doctoral program.

Upon her return to Florida, Marta accepted an Adjunct Professor position with Eckerd College. She is teaching a course she developed called: “Creative Process: Awakening Creative Potential for Personal and Professional Growth” to adult undergraduate students. Marta will present at the National Association of Gifted Children’s conference ‘Creativity Night’, Friday, November 4^th in New Orleans, Louisiana, the same week she launches her first original research project in partnership with Dr. Ruth Richards. It is a quantitative study measuring contemporary views, perceptions and definitions of creativity and using social media to attract participants from varied backgrounds. She hopes to present the findings at APA’s Annual Conference in August of 2012. In addition to her work as a PhD student, professor, and social media consultant, Marta is a busy creativity catalyst, joy coach, and Chief Inspiration Officer of www.JoyofQuotes.com. Her fast growing site is attracting more than 100,000 visits per month and features the largest collection of creativity quotes on-line.

On the personal side, Marta’s daughter Sarah is an award-winning metals artist who recently graduated Summa Cum Laud with a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Bowling Green University in Ohio. Her son David is a certified art teacher completing his Master’s Degree in Art Education at Ohio State University. Marta enjoys her life in sunny Sarasota with her companion Alejandro (a 4-month old Maltese puppy)!

Links:

www.JoyofQuotes.com

www.JoyofQuotesBlog.com

http://twitter.com/QuoteJoy

Spotlight on ICSC Graduate: Patrick Colemont

2011-09-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

When Patrick Colemont from Belgium started the graduate program in 1986, he was the first European student at ICSC. He received the Creative Studies Alumni Foundation Award in 1987 and completed his Masters degree in 1990. His Master’s project consisted of the planning and organizing of the Second European Conference on Creativity and Innovation in The Netherlands. Patrick continued to be a pioneer and professional in the field of creativity and innovation and he was nominated “universal ambassador” by the European Association for Creativity and Innovation in 2001.

In the first decade of the new millennium Patrick developed a new career as creative consultant in communication and campaigns in politics. In 2008, he became part-time parliamentary collaborator of two Belgian senators. Later on, Patrick has continued his passion for creative thinking in a variety of domains, including mental health and peace making initiatives. He currently is active as ‘co-creative-partner’ and is in the process of writing a publication on “The Code, a conceptual design for co-creativity”.

Patrick will be participating and presenting at the 11the European Conference on Creativity and Innovation in Faro, Portugal from 14-16 September, 2011. He recently has entered a contest to contribute a seven minute speech at the Creativity World Forum 2011 in his hometown of Hasselt. You can see his pitch talk on the internet: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QgXNpUmU2U

Patrick is a proud father of Antoine (14) and Amarine (10) who live with their mother Anne-Sophie in Paris. With his partner Krisje, he enjoys playing golf and spending quality time with the children when they stay in Hasselt. Patrick can be contacted at: patrick.colemont@telenet.be

Links:
www.co-creative-partner.be
www.eaci.net/eccixii
www.flandersdc.be/en/events/cwf11

Spotlight on ICSC Graduates: Hector and Suzanna Ramos

2011-08-21T18:16:00.000-07:00

Hector and Suzanna come from diverse backgrounds (Spain and Singapore) but they share one passion – the study of creativity.

They both completed their MS in Creative Studies in 2005, while garnering several awards during the course of their study. Suzanna received the President’s Medal for “Outstanding Graduate Student” and “Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award” while Hector received the “ICSC Alumni Foundation Achievement Award”. Prior to their studies in Buffalo, Suzanna and Hector had accomplished careers in their respective fields. Suzanna had a career in education and served as a teacher, head of department, assistant principal and professional development officer facilitating teachers in action research in the classroom. Hector has a background in publishing and was also a trainer and facilitator in South East Asia and the Middle East.

They are currently doctoral students at Texas A&M University, pursuing a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology focused on Creativity, Cognition, and Giftedness. Suzanna is part of a research team investigating the gap between verbal and nonverbal intelligence of underperforming gifted students in various schools in Texas. She is also exploring creative strategies, like ‘MindSketching’, to address this problem. Her other research interests include implicit theories of creativity and intelligence, and cross-cultural creativity. Hector is currently investigating learning transfer as it relates to creative thinking training. His other areas of interest are creative and innovative climate and exploring elements that foster and hinder undergraduate research at Texas A&M University.

Besides presenting at the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented conferences, they are also involved in writing chapters for the Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship. This Encyclopedia is a 4-volume reference currently in development in Springer. It features contributions from economics, management, psychology, anthropology, technology, education, and the arts, to offer a “transdisciplinary” approach to creativity and innovation.

In addition to their academic pursuits, Hector and Suzanna have managed to incorporate the skills they have learnt from the master’s program. They ‘revived’ and headed the Creativity and Innovation Alliance (CIA), an undergraduate student organization at Texas A&M University. Hector is currently the President of the Educational Psychology Student Organization (EPSO) where he has numerous opportunities to apply his creativity skills. He is a graduate assistant at the Honors program and has facilitated staff retreats using CPS. Suzanna is also a graduate assistant where she conducts workshops on supervision and management. She has modified the sessions to incorporate CPS tools and techniques.

As a form of relaxation, Suzanna is passionate about making her own jewelry and is constantly perfecting her craft. Hector and Suzanna are also avid practitioners of the Turkish art of Paper Marbling called ‘Ebru’ and are exploring ways to apply this technique to greeting cards, tee shirts and jewelry.

As a celebration of their 15 years of marriage, they reaffirmed their wedding vows on June 1st 2011.

Spotlight on ICSC Graduate: Kai Wang

2011-08-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

Kai Wang is a researcher in creativity and innovation management. He is a 2010 alumnus of the Master's program in Creative Studies. While he has heavy background in biotechnology, his major passion has been creativity since college. Following this passion, he found the program in ICSC by online search. Now he has facilitated many CPS sessions, in Chinese and English, for people from various disciplines. His Master's project was focused on the classification of idea generation techniques. Now he is in the PhD program in technology management in Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. One of his major research interests is about creative processes and techniques. The current research project is about developing ways to organize online crowds to generate creative ideas. Specifically, he is using Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online crowdsourcing marketplace, to solicit creative ideas from the crowd and to study ways to collect, improve, evaluate and select ideas. A second academic interest is about innovation management. He is involved in research about innovation diffusion and implementation, for example, what factors affect the implementation of new technology in an organization.

He is from mainland China and currently resides in New Jersey. Read more on his Linkedin Profile

Give for Greatness

2011-04-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.giveforgreatness.org/organization/folkloric-dance

This video clip highlights work Cathy Skora is doing in the field of art education utilizing the creative process in teaching and learning. The clip shows portions of a rehearsal process for a 4th grad class involved in a school-wide project entitled Welcome to the Village conceived and developed by Cathy Skora.
 
In this project Cathy uses brainstorming and other action based teaching and learning methods to facilitate students in a script building process with a theme on global conservation.  Students also use their creativity as via dance brainstorms  in putting together a dance. The program culminates with school wide presentations of the work at venues outside of the school allowing students  a varied experience in presenting their work in different environments.
 
This program was recognized and funded in part  by the New York State Council on the Arts
 
from linked:
 
Dance Teacher - Arts Integration Facilitator Develop programming for grades K-6 focusing on cultural dance according to NYS art standards, develop lesson plans that align with core curriculum, using creativity training facilitate students in learning movement and script writing. Certified in Dance Content by NYSED.
 
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?trk=h-gnav-name-link-0#name>  Workshop Facilitator, Trainer Folkloric Productions Dance Co., Inc. Workshop Leader
My lifelong studies of dance and meditation have led me on an interesting journey. This journey has included developing techniques to assist others in enhancing their lives professionally and personally. Working in a variety of settings from education to special need populations has allowed me to tap into the creative process by identifying and connecting common denominators among different groups, such as movement and emotion , in order to assist others in moving past barriers in order to enhance their lives.

Workshops I have developed focus on techniques for personal development , discovery, and awareness of personal potential. My current studies as a graduate student in the Creative Studies Department at the State University College at Buffalo is a natural progression towards the development of layering and identifying further personal development workshops utilizing movement and meditation to access the creative process, 
My career path has been an incredible journey full of renovations, realizations, and reinventions. It is my pleasure to share my insights and assist others in connecting with their potential.

Highlight on Alicia Arnold

2011-02-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

Alicia Arnold graduated in 2010 with an MSc in Creative Studies. In 2011 she will be starting a publishing company and offering three titles. The first, Creativity Unscripted, originated during Alicia's first summer session at Buffalo State when Blair Miller introduced the Lucky 7's to a problem finding exercise using the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. The positive feedback about the approachability and simplicity of using nursery rhymes as a teaching tool led to the concept for the book. Creativity Unscripted uses a behind-the-scenes look into the Land of Nursery Rhyme and the characters Jack and Jill to teach CPS. The book blends the dryness of learning fact with the pleasure of reading fiction to create a business fable focused on teaching creativity.

Her next two titles, geared towards children, are part of a series. With the Mack & Cally titles, Alicia introduces "The Letterman’s" – sibling crime solvers with a phonics bag of tricks. Readers can follow 8-year old Cally and 7-year old Mack through a series of adventures as they recover the Mona Lisa, search for the stolen Hope Diamond and return a Faberge egg to its rightful owner. The Letterman’s uses an engaging problem solving format to teach literacy. While solving crimes, Cally finds herself in precarious situations. Luckily, she has the Linking Letters to help her out. The letters come to life and form what they spell – that is, if Cally spells and pronounces them correctly. The Letterman’s stimulates imagination and promotes literacy by focusing on phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each story will feature phonics blends, letter sounds, and other phonics relationships to reinforce concepts learned in school.

If you would like to read the manuscripts and and provide a review, feel free to contact Alicia at alicarnold@yahoo.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @alicarnold.

Highlight on Anneliese Gryta

2011-01-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

Anneliese Gryta is a 2005 alumna of the undergraduate minor program in Creative Studies at Buffalo State. She was recently featured as "Person of the day" by Huffington Post. Please read about the great work she is doing!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/todays-huffpost-greatest-anneliese-grieta_n_803757.html

HIghlight on Nathan Schwagler, 2008 Graduate

2010-12-26T12:58:00.000-08:00

Nathan Schwagler
Graduation year: 2008
Home: Tampa Bay, FL
Website: LinkedIn profile

Teaching: Deliberate Creativity in the B school.

Prior to completing the MS in Creative Studies, Nathan entered graduate business school in a Master of Science degree program titled: Entrepreneurship in Applied Technologies – a fancy degree title that basically means: how to launch a technology company. Essentially, it was a 10-course blend of tools and skills to assist the person who thinks they want to get involved in the creation and implementation of something new.

While reading the textbooks, he couldn’t help but notice all of the instances that the terms creativity and innovation were being used. Consequently, he started flagging page corners and realized this was something worthy of further investigation.

Since then, he’s come to believe that entrepreneurs – as well as the greater business community – know that they need to be creative; they just have limited understanding of what to do about it.

Simply doing the basics professed at the ICSC, such as: steadfastly using affirmative judgment when evaluating ideas (even when it hurts); applying facilitation best-practices during team-based exercises; and promoting the deliberate separation of divergence and convergence, professors began asking him to come in and speak to classes about how the students could re-connect with their own creative thinking skills to become more effective business professionals (read: better thinkers).

This recently turned into an opportunity to join the USF Saint Petersburg College of Business as an adjunct instructor of a course on Creativity in Entrepreneurship (imagine CRS 559 with an emphasis on business vocabulary).

What really makes the opportunity special is that the administrators of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation Alliance believe that creativity is so important for successfully launching and sustaining a venture, that they’ve decided to make the creativity course foundational and mandatory – meaning everyone must take it!

This foresight has resulted in an opportunity for Nathan to also serve the program as “Creative-In-Residence”, tasked with providing curriculum consultation around integrating creative thinking tools/skills into the remaining courses.

Nathan is absolutely interested in any insights the creative studies community might offer to support the initiative(s); and he would like you to kindly consider sharing your unique wisdom and experience with him. Thank you!!

Highlight on Janice Francisco, 2007

2010-12-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

Highlight on Janice Francisco, 2007 (Ottawa, Canada)

Creativity in government?
Yes, it's possible: innovation consulting isn't just for private business, it's also been put into play by the Canadian Federal Government to drive movement, change, and creativity and innovation internally. In recognition of her work to drive innovation within the Canadian Federal Government, Janice was invited to join the 2010 judging committee for the GTEC (Government Technology Exhibition and Conference) (GTEC) Distinction Awards Program.

The Distinction Awards recognizes innovation as a creative approach, using Information Management / Information Technology applications and/or technology, to advance government policy frameworks, service delivery, organizational transformation, use of customer-centered services, public consultation and participation, and competition in the global economy. Honorees are recognized for having outstanding achievements or actions that are clearly above and beyond what would normally be required or expected in government.

For the past 17 years, the Awards have been the pre-eminent public sector recognition program in Canada, for the use of information technology and information management in government service delivery. Each year, the Distinction Awards judging committees conduct an extensive nominations, evaluation and judging program for hundreds of projects submitted by federal, provincial and municipal government teams.

Janice must have made an impression on her fellow judges. They've asked her back for 2011 and to facilitate dialogue on how they could improve the criteria by which they judge innovation.

Find out more about GTEC Awards of Distinction at

http://www.gtec.ca/distinction-awards/general-information.php

For more information on Janice, check out her website at:
http://www.bridgepointeffect.com/about-us/associates/

Highlight on Marci Segal

2010-11-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

Highlight on Marci Segal

Marci Segal, 2001 Graduate of ICSC, has been:

1.) Working with NASA Langley Research
Center's innovation team to help them develop innovation program to use throughout
the organization. She recently presented a keynote presentation, "Winning with
Innovation" to a group of 200 scientists, engineers and technologists to inspire
their new thinking.

Read more about Marci on her websites: http://www.marcisegal.com and
http://www.creativityland.net

2) Presented a day-long workshop, Language to Leverage Creative
Thinking, for police officers advancing their command careers at the
Peace Officer Standards and Training Command College in California.
Have been written into their program as an adjunct instructor.

3) A longstanding client recently won Media Agency of the Year from
Strategy Magazine. In the article, attached, they site our program,
Passport to Innovation, as a catalyst for sparking and sustaining
their creativity.

4) Recent blog-post went viral! Entitled "Intellectual Hide-and-Seek
taught at schools" it reveals research from Ron Beghetto at the
University of Oregon. This post alone received close to 3500 hits.
http://wp.me/pURBb-I8

2010-11-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Creative Studies Alumni Achievement Award

History of the Alumni Award 1984-2008The Creative Studies Alumni Achievement Award was conceived as a means to recognize service to an educational program that has greatly influenced the lives of its students and instructors. Founded in 1984 by Gary Gorski with the support of Innovation Resource Associates founders Diane Foucar-Szocki and Roger Firestien as well as other Creative Studies faculty and the ICSC community, the first award was presented to Ed Zilewicz. The award originally included a small monetary gift funded completely by former students and past and current staff members of the ICSC.

From 1984 to 2008, all current students of the International Center for Studies in Creativity Masters program who completed at least one full semester and all recent graduates of the program were eligible for the award. In addition to being recognized for the individual’s achievements to date, the award recognized the potential of the individual to utilize his/her degree in creativity and contribute to society in the future. It also provided a small amount of monetary support as traditionally funding for students and recent graduates of the master’s degree were almost non-existent at the time.

The award winners from the inception of the award through 2008 were:
Ed Zilewicz 1984
Patrick Colemont 1985
Gerard Puccio 1986
Jon Michael Fox 1987
Susan M. Keller 1988
Barbara A. Piwko 1989
Kenneth J. Lauer 1989
Carol Speser 1989
Suzanne K. Vosburg 1993
Christopher Grivas 1995
Andrew J. Dutcher 1996
Robert J. Hookey 1997
Russell A. Schoen 1998
John A. Sharkey 1999
Russell A. Wheeler 2000
David Gonzalez 2001
Cynthia A. Argona 2002
Diane M. Steele 2003
Kristin Daley 2004
Hector Ramos 2005
Jennifer Haggerty 2006
Nathan Schwagler 2008

2009 Re-Conceptualized Alumni Award
With the creation of three new endowed scholarships at the International for Center for Studies in Creativity in the names of Sid Parnes & Ruth Noller, Mary Murdock and the Firestien Family, both monetary support and recognition for ICSC students grew. In 2008, it became apparent that the Alumni Achievement Award had a unique place in ICSC awards as the first and longest running Creative Studies award with 22 award winners spanning 24 years. It was at that time that the award was reframed to focus on a long-term view of contributions of alumni.

Awarding of the 2009 Alumni Achievement Award to Marci SegalWith that change in purpose, the Alumni Award was given in 2009 to Marci Segal, M.S. in Creativity who was also ICSC’s first graduate of the undergraduate minor program in creativity in 1977 and a co-founder of World Creativity Week. Marci’s work in the field of creativity spans 33 years of studying, applying and influencing others to bring creativity to the forefront of society. Her keynote address at the Expert-to-Expert Conference in the spring of 2010 as the award winner highlighted her expertise and her ability to be provocative as she challenged the thinking of the community to work toward a set of ethics for creativity professionals.

A call for Nominations for the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award
With the new focus of the Creative Studies Alumni Achievement Award in mind, we invite nominations for the 2011 award recipient. The purpose of the award is to recognize the recipient’s long-term commitment to nurturing and developing creativity and modeling the ideals of living as a creative learner, creative producer, and creative leader. The winner’s influence could be local or global, yet the person makes a strong impression on their community, provides leadership in understanding and disseminating knowledge of creativity and has a demonstrated history of generating rich outcomes that endure.

The next award will be given out in the spring of 2011 at the Expert-to-Expert conference. Starting with the fall of 2010 and continuing each year going forward, a call for nominations will go out in the middle of the fall semester with an end of the calendar year deadline. The selection committee, which is made up of the Award Chair, Department Chair, faculty and immediate past alumni award recipient, will notify the winner by January in anticipation of the winner participating in the award ceremony the following spring. On a year-to-year basis there may be slight variations to the schedule outlined above.

A Call for nominations goes out to the entire Creative Studies Community, including faculty, alumni, current students and colleagues of Creative Studies. Nominations may be submitted by anyone associated with the Center, including the prospective award nominee. The nominated person must be a graduate of the Master’s of Science in Creativity, Certificate Program in Creativity and Change Leadership, the Creative Studies Undergraduate Minor program or the Creative Studies Undergraduate Leadership Program. Full time faculty in the Creative Studies Department are not eligible for the award.

Documentation from the nominator should contain a description of approximately two to three pages that includes past and current activities of the nominee as well as the nominator’s reasons for nominating the person. The description should also include how the nominee demonstrates a long-term commitment to nurturing and developing creativity and modeling the ideals of living as a creative learner, creative producer, and creative leader. Additionally, address in the description how the person makes a strong impression on his/her community and provides leadership in understanding and disseminating knowledge of creativity and bringing to society rich outcomes that endure. Supporting documentation outlining the person’s achievements is encouraged (e.g. vitae or resume, letters of support, links to websites, bibliographies or other documentation of creative productivity and influence) but not essential. The ideal candidate is a creative leader who embodies a creative spirit and is a positive force in society.

The award committee will base its selection on the submitted nomination, personal knowledge of the nominee’s achievements and any recommendations received by the due date. The award has three components: (1) The recipient’s name will be added to the ICSC wall plaque listing all recipients of the award; (2) an engraved plaque presented to the recipient; and (3) the person will be asked to present his/her current thinking to the Creative Studies community at the Expert-to-Expert Conference in May. Nominees who are not selected for the award are automatically considered in the pool of nominees for future cycles.

During the open nomination timeframe, nominations can be emailed or mailed to Gary Gorski, Award Chair, or submitted to a Creative Studies Faculty member.
Alumni Achievement Award c/o Gary Gorski, S-536 Four Rod Rd., Alden, NY 14004 gmgorski@aol.com
Nominations for the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award are due by 1/21/1