2011 CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE PROGRAM AWARDS

This year's winners were announced at the annual banquet on Tuesday, November 15, at the Hilton Suites Chicago - Magnificent Mile.

The committee is pleased to announce the names of the three recipients.

Credit Program Recipient

American Indian Art Therapy Institute - George Washington University
   Elizabeth Warson, Faculty, CCAS Art Therapy Program
   Georgette Edmondson-Wright, Director of Summer Sessions
   Kimberly Kon, Assistant Director of the Online Learning Initiative

2011 Administrative Program Recipients

Summer Profitability Challenge - Miami University
   Cheryl Young, Director of Lifelong Learning

Starting From Scratch - University of Oklahoma
   Kelly Damphousse, Associate Dean
   Robin Stroud, Administrator II

American Indian Art Therapy Institute - George Washington University
The George Washington University’s mission is to provide an environment where knowledge is created and acquired and where creative endeavors seek to enrich the experiences of the global society. Our academic, research and service programs, focus particularly on six strategic initiatives, one of which is service and engagement. The American Indian Art Therapy Institute, held from May 16th – August 1st, 2011, offers an excellent example of a summer program that satisfies those priorities in expanding research, encouraging curricular innovation, and enhancing student learning while benefiting a community.

Dr. Elizabeth Warson has been conducting research in tribal communities since the early 90s. She has collaborated with her graduate art therapy students on research focusing on art-based stress reduction workshops for tribal communities throughout North Carolina. Her work inspired her to collaborate on developing culturally-relevant programs for the Oglala tribe of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and the Fond du Lac tribe of northern Minnesota. Because of these relationships, a summer institute was proposed focusing on the Oglala tribe, primarily because this is an underserved reservation with 85% unemployment, a high suicide rate, and chronic health issues.

The aim of this institute was to provide art therapy services geared toward fostering self-esteem, providing an outlet for expression of feeling, and promoting the benefits of art making as a coping strategy. The institute, open to graduate students, packaged a six-week, three- credit online course, titled Social and Cultural Diversity, followed by an 18-day cultural immersion service-learning project at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Summer Profitability Challenge - Miami University
To strategically assess the profitability of the university summer session, Miami University began an initiative known as the Summer Profitability Challenge project. Focused on managing summer enrollment, while measuring and containing costs, the project team included representation from information technology services (enterprise and business intelligence areas), budget, business and finance, registrar, bursar, institutional research, academic personnel, and the continuing education and summer session units. As the project progressed, the value and substance of the powerful business intelligence methodologies allowed the team to cross seemingly insurmountable barriers.

The initial challenge was met – detailed and innovative reporting for effective decision making by university administrators for summer session to ensure student needs are met, costs are contained, and profitability. Further, the project revealed the value of the collaborative effort as well as best practices in alliances across university divisional divides.

Starting From Scratch - University of Oklahoma
In light of a 17% decline in summer session enrollment over the previous four years, the University of Oklahoma created an ad hoc Summer Session Steering Committee (SSSC) to explore programmatic changes that would increase enrollment in Summer 2011 and beyond.

The committee considered “best practices” by successful summer session programs that were discovered through NAASS at the 2010 annual meeting. We devised a two-pronged approach that sought to (1) increase interest in summer session among our students and our academic units and (2) coordinating summer session planning more centrally. The changes included the creation of OU’s first summer session coordinator position, a radical expansion of the summer calendar, the creation of a dedicated summer session website (summer.ou.edu), and a huge marketing blitz.

Other changes included:

• Significant discounts in summer housing costs

• Increased number of summer study abroad options

• The creation of a website that would aid students finding classes with available seats (ClassNav.ou.edu)

• Marketing to non-OU students

• Streamling the pre-requisite bottle neck that existed for sequenced courses

• Sharing tuition proceeds with academic departments