Open Space at Antioch and in other college/university environments?

[Murli Nagasundaram]

Bert,

I saw your message on the listserv last week describing your Open Space
experience at Antioch. I am in the process of getting an article published
in the Planning in Higher Education Journal. My article is titled, Widening
the Circle with Open Space: An Innovative Way to Increase Campus
Involvement.

I would love to hear more details about the different ways Antioch has used
Open Space organizationally as well as in the classroom. My goal is to
develop a "database" of higher education examples. When you have the time,
could you give me a little more background about how it has been used ...
and could you give some specific answers to how the 1 1/2 day event for
alums was done as well as the 85 person event you did for the antioch
community on concerns and opportunities.  Questions like:

Who was the client?
What kind of event planning group did you have?
Who was invited? Who came?
What prompted the event?
What happened as a result?
What level of "campus" or "institutional" sponsorship was there for the
event?

etc.

Would you be able to help?

I'd also be happy to share my article and other examples of OPen Space in
higher ed that didn't make the final draft.

Let me know, thanks!

Steve Brigham


Hi Metta,

I can actually shed a little bit of light on this.  Antioch actually has a
long history of interaction worth OS, most of it through the Graduate
Management Program (GMP).  OS was brought into the GMP primarily by Anne
Stadler, an adjunct faculty and longtime friend of Antioch (and OS), and
is now a part of the program's core culture.  The GMP has used OS as a
means of operating for their cohorts of students for many years, both for
"events" and just as a general way of orienting in their monthly weekend
modules.  Also, Antioch sponsored several OS trainings by Anne and
Harrison over the years here in Seattle.

OS has seeped out into other areas, including students in WSD (I'm an alum
myself), who have tried it on and found it to be quite useful and fun in
certain settings.  In terms of overall organizational process, it has only
been used a bit.  The GMP did a 1 1/2-day program-wide OS about 3 years
ago, inviting alums and other community members to help contribute to a
redesign of the program.  At that time, we were experimenting both with
group facilitation of the event and with using technology to continue the
OS after the event.  We had moderate success with both, and the event
itself was a good one.

More recently, 2 other students and I (I am now on staff in Academic
Computing) invited the entire Antioch community for a 1 day OS around our
concerns and opportunities for the future.  We had about 85 people
participate throughout the day, and got a lot started.  Personally, I
don't think 1 day was nearly enough, but it was like pulling teeth just to
get that.  And there have definitely been some tangible outcomes and
people got a taste of the power of open dialogue in a place where
communications used have strained us with our growth in size over the past
several years.

I hope this helps and would be happy to fill in any details if you need.

Bert