Cross-Cultural Innovations

Considering this past summer quarter was Melissa Mcghie’s first time teaching at PC, her class is getting quite the buzz. Most new instructors tip-toe in quietly and spend a little time getting their bearings. Not Ms. Mcghie. She came in gangbusters, like a twenty-year veteran high school English teacher, no-nonsense and knowing her class was going to by-god change their lives.

She asks pointed questions. She makes students ask them of each other. Her goal is to help each student figure out their own true identity. In her class objective, she writes:

"As a designer in a competitive landscape, it’s important to differentiate yourself from your peers…What makes you different? What is unique about your identity as a designer? Forget your fears, forget the standards set by society, forget the status quo, you can even forget thinking outside the box. For 9 weeks you will be challenged to stretch…grow… It’s all about being OPEN, thinking conceptually and being able to articulate your decisions.

"It’s not the pretty, polished piece that is important. In this class what matters most is how much of yourself you put into your work--the thought you exhibit, the plans, the attempts, the failures, the growth & the depth of your thought process…if you stumble, that means you are moving forward. Get ready to fall flat on your ass…pick yourself up and fall again."

Beyond the objective, she won’t give up the details and won’t share the assignments, so we had to do some investigating. We found this posted on one of her students’ personal blogs:

"...after splitting us into two groups of four, she sent each group on our merry way to a TOP SECRET place. My group's destination was 25 minutes up I-85 (in rush hour traffic, awesome) to Super H Mart, a Korean grocery--no, superstore. … the journey brought me well up to the boondocks, to a much cleaner and more organized (and well stocked) market than I had imagined. My three teamsters and I quizzically approached the store, dragging a shopping cart with us just so we didn't look so out of place. (Our attempts to "blend" didn't fool anyone. They all stared.)" Read the entire post here.

One goal, then, is to get the students out of their elements. Emphasis on cultural anthropology, understanding others, and entrepreneurship are intrinsic to the course.

The victories come when students see new ways of approaching problems and realize that the only boundaries that exist are the ones they put on themselves.

Melissa says, “…the challenge with the course is getting students not to think of classes with a task-execution mindset (i.e. 500 sketches completed by next week) but to actually THINK about the projects.” She reiterates that it’s the ‘thinking’ that’s important—more so than the deliverables.

Students learn to recognize their fears and weaknesses, and to begin conquering them through their work. Key quotes from last quarter: “Make the SHIT sandwich” and “Transcend the Bundt.”