To facilitate our creating new ways to teach and to learn, we want the Purdue Polytech Incubator to have an innovative organizational structure, too. In the spirit of collaboration, faculty fellows have adopted the holacracy model, a highly-collaborative system in which faculty and staff work within a distributed system of responsibilities, accountabilities, and decision-making authority. Holacracy puts empowerment at our core. We are leaders in our individual roles, with both authority and responsibility, getting work done through dynamic governance and transparent operations. Our various roles are organized into circles, each with a leader (“lead link”) and other members who share authority for the creation, execution, and measurement of our circles’ processes. By design, circles are created as needs arise. Here is how we are presently organized:
Degree Architecture Circle: Kirk Alter (of College of Technology), with Jeff Evans (Technology) and Chris Lukasik (Liberal Arts). Circle members are designing the foundations of a multidisciplinary degree tentatively named Technology, Society, and Culture.
First Year Circle: Chris Lukasik (of Liberal Arts); with Tom Hacker, Mark French, and Esteban Garcia (Technology); and Richard Dionne (Liberal Arts). This circle is creating the architecture of a student’s first year. It will include a year-long seminar, year-long design studio, and ILMs (physical and virtual PODs for cognitive and experiential learning).
A rendering of a proposed Purdue Polytech studio by Davin Huston, “lead link” of the Space Circle.
Studio Circle: Richard Dionne (Liberal Arts); with Marisa Exter (Education); and Mark French, Tom Hacker, Davin Huston, and Sarah Leach (Technology). The group is creating the structure for and content of the first-year Studio course experience.
Program Evaluation Circle: Marisa Exter (Education), with Ale Magana and Mark Shaurette (Technology). The Program Evaluation circle will collect data from students on the Purdue Polytech design prior to implementation. It will also conduct formative and evaluation of the program once it has begun.
Credentialing Circle: Sorin Matei (Liberal Arts), with Marisa Exter (Education). The team is working with ITaP Studio programmers to utilize Passport, a learning system which demonstrates academic achievement through customizable badges.
Future Circle: Bob Herrick (Technology). The circle is examining internal and external needs to realize the proposed degree.
Space Circle: Davin Huston (Technology), with Tom Hacker (Technology). The group has been designing Purdue Polytech’s physical spaces.
Others include the South Bend Circle (Sarah Leach, with John Piller and Karl Perusich), New Albany Circle (Tim Cooley), and Communication Circle (John O’Malley).