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The Program for Creativity and Innovation is at an exciting crossroads in 2009 at Wake Forest University. The accomplishments of the 2008-2009 year have exceeded our expectations - Creativity: Worlds in the Making, the national symposium we hosted in March on our campus, was an extraordinary success by all accounts. Over 1000 people gathered to discuss the role of creativity in the 21st century. The activities leading up to and ensuing from this major event are also significant, as we work toward sustainable growth of the Program as an important initiative of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts within the university community of Wake Forest University. Here are some highlights of the year:

>>Recipient of the Provost’s Fund for Academic Excellence for two of our keynote speakers for the Creativity Symposium: David Bornstein on social entrepreneurship and David Edwards on idea translation in art and science.

>>The inauguration of a “Leading Events” series to generate knowledge of and interest in the themes related to the Symposium. Events included special film nights, a showcase of faculty and student creative research/ventures for Global Entrepreneurship Week and co-sponsored events with the Program for Bioethics, Health and Society.

>>A special interdisciplinary collaboration between 4 classes, 4 faculty and 87 students from across the college as a laboratory for developing creative approaches to teaching and learning, plus 4 new First Year Seminars on creativity.

>>Creativity: Worlds in the Making, a national symposium, featured 5 visionaries with innovative global perspectives on creativity in the 21st century including an author and entrepreneur, a bioengineer and writer, an interdisciplinary performance artist, an astrophysicist and a filmmaker and poet. Over 90 presenters from around the country (14 from WFU) and Canada conducted sessions and delivered papers. In addition, an exhibition, a film screening and multiple performances occurred in sites around the campus. Over 1000 people were in attendance.

Click here to read about a few of the ongoing events, projects and collaborations that resulted from the symposium.

Join us on our creativity blog as we continue the national conversation begun at the Symposium. As we continue developing our program at Wake, we are asking hard questions and venturing bold proposals for stimulating creative imagination and action. We want to hear other reports on innovative research and exploration of creativity and new avenues of creative engagement. In the words of one Symposium presenter Andrew Yang, a biologist by training who teaches art students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, we must become ‘disciplinary immigrants’.

Here at Wake Forest, we see creativity as both adventure and opportunity; a critical, multifaceted tool for investigating disciplinary and cultural arenas in order to bring new levels of thinking, humanity, expertise and innovation to the forefront of our efforts. As we transform the university into a new model of creative campus, we hope you will offer your perspectives and share your experiments, so that together we re-infuse new meaning and method in shaping our collective future.

Lynn Book
Director, Program for Creativity & Innovation

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