Notes to self:
Driving home I thought Jimmy Carter. Looked up the Carter Center (Atlanta, GA). Looking at their mission it seems that a philanthropic matchmaking center may not be their schtick. Even so, I'll be in Atlanta for Thanksgiving and will try to set up an appointment with somebody there in an effort to get a clue.
Still, the Carter Center has subject matter experts and is run by a Board of Trustees, Jimmy Carter being the head. It is affiliated with Emory University.
What is the possibility that such an endeavor would be embraced by folks at RIT? There are definitely individuals, faculty and students alike who would be interested in such an undertaking, but I can't imagine our administration being that altruistic. (Time for more hallway discussions).
Similarly, I am reticent to seek US governmental subsidy. It strikes me that this entity would need to be extremely neutral, so there may need to be filters in terms of what grants and subsidies we may seek.
If I am truly committed to this, how can I spin it so it relates to my job? This can be attacked in many ways. If I place it in my Plan of Work, then I may be able to feed resources and time into it.
Entity. Need to define the entity and create it, even if it is only conceptually in document form. See Deb as a start.
Posted by weez at October 28, 2003 09:25 PM | TrackBackLook at your institution's "mission" language, the kind of stuff they tell donors and legislators (oops! you're a private school) when they need to explain the purpose of the school. See how much of that language you can use in describing your hypothetical project. That will go a long way.
Posted by: George at October 29, 2003 07:29 AMGeorge, thanks for the tips. I'll follow up.
So the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
Posted by: weez at October 29, 2003 07:34 AMAlas, as I suspected, RIT's mission is career-focused education (read that as applied and hireable). I'm not seeing any wiggle room for altruistic partnerships, social concerns, nor application of ethical technology.
The university is hoping to become more of a research institution, and I don't know how this may fit into that new identity.
This is quickly becoming a lesson in networking.
Posted by: weez at October 29, 2003 10:07 AMWeez, there are careers to be made in the fields of ethical investment, economic development and information interchange.
See:
World Summit on the Information Society
http://www.itu.int/wsis/
Career-centred insitutions and public-mindedness are not mutuallly exclusive.
How many of the software development courses at RIT deal with internationalization? Anyone working on Unicode? RIT is associated with the NTID, no?
Posted by: Francois Lachance at October 30, 2003 09:05 PMAll good points. The college of business has a track devoted to internationalization, interface design courses touch upon globalization issues.
More heartening was a discussion I had with another professor who talked about using networks of likeminded folks (faculty and students) to drive us along. Spin happens.
Posted by: weez at October 30, 2003 10:00 PMQuigley's Law:
Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
atttempt to use it.
It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too
good either if you speak when your head is empty.
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