For about 11 years I was a faculty member and Division Chair for the
Human Resource Development division teaching courses in personal growth,
leadership, creative learning skills, group facilitation, and counseling
skills and issues. Last spring I got an opportunity to move to the
district office and establish an organizational learning office for the
college as a whole.
We have about 26,000 students each semester at ACC and teach classes at 4
campuses and numerous other locations in the greater Austin area. As I
began to focus on what my task was, I was struck by the particular
relevence of the learning organization model for educational institutions.
My hope is to help us to become a "learning" organization as well as a
"teaching" organization since the two cannot be separated for long without
debilitating results.
We are initiating a series of six "future search conferences" over the
next few months, and hopefully that will provide a collective vision of
where we (and our community!) want to be some twenty years from now.
Learning how to get there (and beyond) will give us plenty to do in the
meantime.
If anyone has experience with Future Search conferences in higher
education--or in doing a series of conferences in a single organization--I
would love to hear from you. Otherwise, I look forward to listening,
learning, and pitching in when I can.
Tobin Quereau
Coordinator, Staff and Organizational Learning
Austin Community College
5930 Middle Fiskville Rd.
Austin, Texas 78752
USA
(512) 483-7821
quereau@austin.cc.tx.us