Creativity in Higher Education Reality and Ideals!

The words creativity and innovation are at the centre of the discourse on the knowledge economy, often conflated with one another and usually poorly-defined. They both provide positive connotations and are perceived as an intrinsic part of the higher education narrative. Universities as centres of innovation produce graduates with creative thinking skills, flexibility, adaptability, problem-solving and initiative. Nor are they confined to programmes directly targeted to information technologies, science and engineering, but even within the arts and humanities there has been a priveleging of the creative industries culture becomes transformed into a consumable good. But, even if we are able to leave aside the political/sociological critique of the knowledge economy, and focus in on creativity as a dimension of higher education we find that there is considerable vagueness over what exactly the term means or represents. What are the implications of the valueing of creativity for practice in, for example, curricular design; teaching, learning and assessment; graduate employability; administrative and organisational structures? How, also, might we sensibly distinguish between the multiple interpretations and perspectives on what constitutes creativity, teasing out the distinction between popular (either artistic or business-oriented) understanding and the more nuanced definitions emerging from social and psychological research? Of course, some considerable work has been done in this area, including many projects under the auspices of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation and at national scales (e.g. the UKs Imaginative Curriculum project). Many of these projects have illustrated that confusion over meaning and values pervades the academy and not just wider society. In the Thematic Lunch event at this conference, and over the course of the event, a small research team (from the National University of Ireland, Galway) will attempt to explore some of these issues with conference participants. We will ask you to consider a number of key questions, share some of your own individual and institutional perspectives and help inform the discussion about practical and conceptual aspects of what it means to be creative, to be innovative and how to nurture such attributes within students and educational organisations. And of course, remembering the central theme of the conference, what are the implications of the current economic crisis on all this discussion? How can we meet our aims in a context of reduced resources, how can creativity help or must we focus on other issues at this time? Thematic Lunch: We will provide questions (on paper or card) on the issue of creativity in higher education at the lunch venue and we will ask participants to discuss one or two of these questions in groups (whoever you may be standing with at lunch!) and write down some brief feedback to us by posting it in our collection boxes. We will also display some of the ideas on a notice board to share thoughts. We might also ask you, if you wish to chat to us for an audio recording. Opinions, Ideas, Suggestions, Reflections We look forward to your thoughts and contributions and you can make your voice heard (anonymously, confidentially or publicly you choose!) in a variety of ways: Participating in the discussion at the Thematic Lunch Completing our brief online survey (http://bit.ly/creatsurvey ) Speaking to us at any time throughout the event Contributing to our informal vox pop videos/audio interviews Adding your suggestions to our suggestion box/notice board Visit us in our project room at the conference centre Emailing your thoughts or suggestions.

We look forward to hearing from you. Aurlie Boulos, Iain MacLaren, Kelly Coate a.boulos1@nuigalway.ie http://www.nuigalway.ie/celt