CHARTING A THEMATIC PATH

The MAAS journey is a self-directed one, but to claim a premeditated, charted path would be to deny not only the truth but one of the most valuable parts of my experience these last four years: room to roam and follow where my curiosity led me. Through a combination of experimentation and chance (allowing “way to lead onto way” to quote the old Robert Frost saw), the courses I elected to take would lend themselves each to the individual thematic ideas that now shape the framework of this portfolio. Creative Expression: Poetry, Global Arts, Food and Film, and The Reel World all expressly dealt with our sense of empathy, aimed at either dissecting and understanding the emotional connection one has with artistic expression or wrestling with one’s own attempt to connect across the shared but vast and unique human experience. Revolutions in Scientific Thought, Passion of the Western Mind, and Simple Living in a Complex Age expressly dealt in humanity’s struggle with uncertainty to unlock not only the mysteries of the cosmos but the complexity of our interdependency. Design Thinking and Systems Thinking, an apt pair to be sure, offered both a theoretical and practical experience in enacting change.

Although gravitating to these courses was a natural and uncalculated process, it’s little surprise that I would zero in on such a thematic grouping. As a performing artist, I’ve spent much of my personal and professional life wading through the uncertainties of human emotions; as a teacher, a great deal of time and energy trying to inspire and create change. However, in retrospect what I did not fully anticipate was how as I progressed these courses and what I would ultimately take from each would prove so interdependent, informing one another not so much in their content (although that was certainly the case at times), but rather in the application of their ideas. Thus, in concluding my MAAS studies, creating change has come to mean engaging with uncertainty and emotion—embracing both approximate knowledge and deeper dives into an empathetic understanding of the struggles and achievements of others near and distant, and myself as well.

ON DESIGN AND STRUCTURE

In the webpages that follow, you’ll find an oral and written retrospective of four years spent laboring in the “old verities of the heart” as William Faulkner once termed it, the chaotic complexity of our contemporary world, and the possibilities for change in the future to come. The design conceit of this portfolio is in part modeled on the online learning platforms I found most effective in my MAAS study. As a capstone to a master’s program experience conducted entirely online, I have thus endeavored to create something of my own twelfth course: an interactive, self-guided portfolio experience designed to connect with its visitors and expand their understanding of the interdependency of empathy, uncertainty, and change—to offer an experience that mirrors my own.

One of the fundamental challenges of online study is overcoming the isolation of an asynchronous learning experience and connecting beyond the stilted nature of the platform. The courses that did this most effectively incorporated video of the instructor and encouraged students to interact over video as well. Not simply reading but seeing and hearing the thoughts of instructor and classmates alike created a richer experience and more earnest exchange, employing not only thoughtful content but expression, gesture, and the power of voice to bring that content to life and generate an empathetic connection to the material. As such, I have chosen to provide video readings from my writings to connect more directly with visitors.

Where I might have only reproduced the text of my poetry, I have instead offered a reading of the work. When considering the power of art, film, and narrative to engage an audience and connect empathically, I opted to speak directly to my audience as well. When arguing for change through design and systems methodologies which invest much of their resources in understanding the complexities of human experience, I sought to invest mine in connecting with that experience in real time. However, should the visitor wish for further study, in addition to the video readings, the complete works from which excerpts have been taken are available in the Works-In-Full section.

Thus, I begin now where I began four years ago, narrating a piece of my own story above in excerpts from my MAAS (then MALS—change abounds!) admission essay. From there, the journey through my portfolio is yours to take as mine was: from course to course, theme to theme, following links and your own curiosity and unraveling the interdependent notions of empathy, uncertainty, and change as I did. I wish you, at least in some small way, as rewarding a journey as I have been fortunate enough to experience.

-AS