A Turning Point

2005 represents a unique turning point in the life of the project. From negotiating course content, mediating learning across continents, and managing frustrations around technology, we now move toward the possibilities of expanding the project, presenting our discoveries and research agendas, and investigating open source models of organization. We see these five years as a narrative arc, one that begins with the pains of setting up an online reading, writing, and sharing of cultures course, and ends – if for the moment – in the excitement of sharing our stories.

Though we see the last five years as having a “beginning” and an “end,” we have no intentions of stopping the project. Rather we are seeking ways of using the inertia and excitement generated during our most recent June faculty exchange (three team members having traveled to the United States for three weeks in June) and conference presentations (Scholarship for Teaching and Learning Institute in Chicago and the Computers and Writing Conference at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA). We know that in order for this project to continue, it must continually change shape, shift, and react to the different perspectives and interests that may come to the surface as faculty cycle in and out of the project and as we add more disciplines and classes to the Sharing Cultures Project. We know that though we are clear on how important this project has been to each team member and to the entire notion of faculty development, we also realize that the project is much, much larger than any individual. The revolutionary power and potential of this project resides in the open source mentality, the shared vision and the ability to constantly renegotiate that vision.

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