II. Collaborative Work - Pods: Peer groups, which we will call pods1, will meet weekly, starting week two, to review seminar papers, and to do collaborative work. Schedule additional meetings/times with your pod as needed. The following collaborative pod activities are also requirements for full credit in Made for Contemplation:

  1. Seminar Image Inquiry Peer Review – In or before your Monday pod meeting, review the first draft of two pod member’s seminar image inquiry. Use the other members’ comments to write the second draft to be turned in at the beginning of Wednesday seminar (Please remember to make 2 copies of your text and image; turn one copy in to your seminar faculty).

  1. Pod Collaborative Creative Project – make a temporary public/community art piece or space for contemplation. This involves several elements:
    1. RESEARCH: Your work will be inspired and informed by additional online and library research (Jules Unsel workshop) including a more in-depth consideration of what constitutes “public,” “community,” “collaborative,” “activism” and “service” in relation to your creation of contemplative art. Pods will begin by reading and discussing Tarra Christoff’s article, “Generation Awakening” from the Institute of Noetic Science’s magazine, Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness.
    2. PROPOSAL: EACH student will write a proposal following the guidelines of the Evergreen Foundation Activity Grants. Information to review includes John McLain’s presentation week 6 of fall quarter as well as that at: http://www.evergreen.edu/sponsoredresearch/foundationactivitygrants.htm The proposal must include the Foundation Activity Grant application form, a two page proposal narrative (project summary) that includes a timeline (production schedule), and a budget. Individual proposals are due Monday of Week 2 for pod peer review. The pod will choose the best proposal or combine the best elements from several individual proposals to create a final, collaborative proposal. Submit your individual and collaborative proposals to your seminar leader at the beginning of the Tuesday January 15 (Week 2) proposal presentations. Your pod is responsible for taking notes during the presentation & discussion. Revise the collaborative proposal based on feedback received in class and submit final to the grants office AND your seminar leader by Friday. E-mail submissions are preferred. Send your electronic applications to actgrant@evergreen.edu. You may also submit a hard copy of your application and/or any supporting documents in person or by regular mail to Dorothea Collins, SEM II D3105. DEADLINE: 5pm Friday, Jan. 18th

    1. MAKE IT COLLABORATIVELY: Each member shares in idea development, proposal writing, design, permission/logistics, and making the piece/space. Scope and scale is important – it has to be doable in the time allowed for this aspect of your academic work. Presentations will happen in class during weeks 9 and 10 of winter quarter. This is about 3 credits of your program work. 3 credits at 9 hours per week over ten weeks equals about 90 hours of work per student. This may include more or less hours per week so please plan accordingly.

    1. COMMUNITY SERVICE ELEMENT: based on program study of engaged Buddhism and the article “Generation Awakening,” community service is a required element of this project. This is a temporary public/community art piece or space for contemplation. Again, what constitutes “public,” “community,” “collaborative,” “activism” and “service” in relation to your creation of contemplative art? How is your work engaged with others, with a community or the public? Your group may decide to inform your work by simply doing community service related topically to your project. (You may want to spend part of your 90 hours doing community service – say ten to twenty hours total over the quarter.) Or the “public,” “community” aspect may be an element of the art piece itself. It is up to your group to decide and articulate how your creative work is informed by and/or engages others beyond the individual members of your pod. This will be documented in your reflection/evaluation and pod log.

    1. Reflection/Evaluation: You are required to observe how your space or piece works as engaged, embodied, contemplative experience. In a short, no more than 400 words, piece of ethnographic-like writing, describe to us, your audience, what you observed. Similar to the reflective writing assignment for the Kennedy Creek field trip, use language in such a way as to transport us to your space or piece of art so as to see through your eyes how this work was or was not engaged with contemplatively. How did you recognize in others the presence (or absence) of the contemplative mind? Was it necessary for you to talk with people? Why or why not? How did your community service work inform the piece? How was the piece engaged with notions of the “public,” “community,” “collaborative,” “activism” and “service?” Finally, your concluding paragraph should tell us what you learned about what kinds of objects, spaces and practices evoke a non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling that takes us outside the self to that which is numinous or “wholly other.” Perhaps the all-time classic piece of ethnographic writing is Clifford Geertz’s Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Please, check it out prior to crafting your own: www.si.umich.edu/~rfrost/courses/MatCult/content/Geertz.pdf

    1. Ethical Considerations: Is your work covered by the MFC program’s approved application to Evergreen’s Human Subjects Review Board? Please read the application that is on reserve in the library. The yoga nidra/iRest research group worked with Sarah to submit and have approved a Human Subjects Review Policy regarding assessment work in Made for Contemplation. If you choose to identify the names of those you observed and to make your observations public, you must obtain signed release forms from these observers. These forms are included with the Human Subjects Review Application and available for photocopying.

    1. Pod log or blog: Keep a record of your weekly meetings and activities with your pod group, including recording your community service or activism related to your creative collaborative piece. The log simply lists times, dates, participants, and summarizes/comments on activities. You may choose to do this in an online blog. If so, send the blog address to the MFC list so others can access it. If you choose this option, make sure to make print outs of the blog for your portfolio.

    1. Presentation to the full program (weeks 9 & 10). You must either facilitate our actual engagement with your creation or present to us detailed documentation of your creation. Structure your presentation according to the following components of the assignment as outlined above:
    • Research: How your work was inspired and informed by the library & online research your group did?
    • Proposal: Did you collaboratively complete and submit on time an Evergreen Foundation Activity Grant proposal? What revision work have you done in response to faculty & student response or the actual process of completing the work?
    • Collaboration: Reflect with all honesty on just how effective your pod’s collaboration has been. Did each member share in idea development, proposal writing, design, permission/logistics, and making the piece/space? Was the scope and scale of your project appropriate for the time and schedule required?
    • Community Service Element: Describe your community service element. What made the work public and/or engaged with community?
    • Reflection/Evaluation: You were required to observe how your space or piece worked as an engaged, embodied, public/community, contemplative experience. Present your 400 word essay (described above).
    • Ethical Considerations: discuss any ethical considerations or issues you encountered.
    • Image Documentation: if we are not actually experiencing or looking at your piece, present photo documentation of the work in a PowerPoint presentation. Video documentation is also acceptable – but make sure you bring a short DVD (5 minutes maximum) – please DO NOT bring low quality compressed images on a flash drive or computer. Make sure the DVD works on several players before presenting it in class.