2010 Schedule of Events

Four sessions are planned for the 2010 Season:

June 27 - July 1, 2010

"Empowering Our Youth"

This session will:

• Apply five principles that distinguish “living systems to the way we as individuals, groups and organizations carry out our work.
• Use the simple language of river systems to explain how efforts grow and sustain.
• Build interpersonal relationships in our community among youth and adults.
• Build relationships beyond our comfort zones.
• Use new ways to get youth and adults talking about what they care about.

July 11-15, 2010

"Teaming Up to Improve College Learning Assessment, Part 1"
A Summer River experience in Maupin, Oregon on The Deschutes River

Our many years of consulting with colleges throughout North America have taught us important things about how change happens in educational organizations –here’s one: More important than any other thing a college can do to improve learning assessment practices across the college is to grow and continue to develop an assessment leadership team. New models for learning assessment require systemic re-design from the classroom to the boardroom. Unfortunately, few faculty and administrators are prepared to provide this level of leadership.

Using the river as a model for systemic thinking this four-day event is designed to prepare college assessment teams to do the following:

• Apply systemic principles to college curriculum reconstruction: envisioning learning outcomes, creating key assessments, designing and developing assessment tools, creating a flow of evidence that can be tracked from course to institutional reporting;
• Provide on-campus assessment expertise to students, faculty and administrators;
• Increase the integration and sustainability of new assessment practices across the campus; and
• Prepare the college to meet emerging assessment accreditation standards.

A typical day at this institute will involve formal classroom instruction, private team tutoring, hands-on work sessions, risk-taking physical and mental exercises including navigating rapids on a natural river, discussion of organization logjams and dams and creating assessment plans --- to say nothing of making geologic discoveries, hiking around water falls, exploring native American fishing grounds and cultural rituals, sleeping under the stars (optional) and eating organically grown foods – all contributing to an interdisciplinary "greening" of organization planning.

We invite you to send small teams of 3-6 participants representing the college at-large or a specific program in the college. We anticipate that participating teams will continue to function as leadership teams upon the return to their campuses.

July 25-29, 2010

This session is currently open to be designed to meet participant need choosing from either our community college assessments program described above or our community initiative described below.

August 8-12, 2010

Community Initiative "Communities as Natural Contexts for Learning"

Recommended for community leaders from business, industry, education, social service, government, and others connected to a specific community issue. Community teams use the river to learn to think systemically by creating learning community networks to achieve intended outcomes.

Currently focused on Clatsop County, Oregon this session uses community conversations facilitated by The White Water Institute staff to help community teams focus more deeply on:

• Apply five principles that distinguish “living systems to the way we as individuals, groups and organizations carry out our work.
• Use the simple language of river systems to explain how efforts grow and sustain.
• Build interpersonal relationships in our community.
• Build relationships beyond our comfort zones.
• Use new ways to get people talking with each other about what they care about at for themselves, work, home and in the community.

September 7-11, 2010

Exploring Deeper Streams -- A collaborative session with W2I and The Center for Transformative Learning

Recommended for individuals and or small groups who view themselves as change agents or “stewards of change” in their organization, and who want to understand the concept of change not as a random chaotic event, but as part of a living organism seeking balance and fuller expression. As a small group, we will spend time rafting the river as well as time reflecting on what the river has to teach us about why change is important, how to successfully guide a change process, how to prepare people for the unknown (rapids), and why the 21st century skills of interdependence, trust, listening, dialogue and safety make the critical difference.