• Welcome
  Stan McKenzie, RIT Provost 
• Introduction
  Anne Coon, CIWG Coordinator and Sr. Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts
• Keynote Speaker
  Gerard Puccio, Department Chair and Professor of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College State University of New York
  http://www.buffalostate.edu/centers/creativity/index.html
• “Creative Thinking: An Imperative for Higher Education in America”
  

  In the face of an increasingly complex and globally competitive business environment, creative thinking is now recognized as an essential workplace skill.  Organizations have realized that innovation is absolutely critical to success and that the creativity level of their employees drives organizational innovation.  There is an increased call for our educational systems to ensure that the students we graduate have the capacity to use their imaginations to resolve complex problems.  The purpose of this presentation is to define the nature of creativity and examine ways in which it can be deliberately enhanced.  This presentation will also explore the degree to which creative thinking is considered a core leadership skill.

• Introduction
  Lynn Wild, RIT Assistant Provost for Teaching and Learning Services
• Facilitator
  Gerard Puccio
• “Principles and Procedures for Improving Creative Thinking and Problem Solving”
  The purpose of this hands-on workshop is to provide participants with proven methods for enhancing creative thinking.  Participants will learn and apply tools for clarifying problems, generating ideas, developing solutions and creating action plans.  Principles for encouraging more divergent and metaphorical thinking skills will also be experienced.  Participants will be challenged to identify ways in which these Creative Problem Solving principles and tools might be specifically applied in their classrooms.
  
  Workshop participants will receive a copy of Creative Leadership: Skills That Drive Change, by Gerard J. Puccio, Mary C. Murdock, and Marie Mance.

Check out the exhibits and watch the “Tip the Can” demonstration by Engineering students!

Developed and presented by Duane Palyka, School of Film and Animation

An exciting, interactive demonstration of the software that will be used in “Handamation: A Collage of  Perspectives,” a performance featuring the RIT/NTID Dance Company, blending dance, visual theatre, video animation, performing and video artists in Panara Theatre of NTID, May 10-13.

Handamation

Moderator John Roche, with Linda Reinfeld and Bill Klingensmith 

A brief introduction to the exciting and remarkably varied field of digital or new media poetics, a field that includes everything from visual and kinetic poems utilizing software such as “Flash” or “Shockwave,” to poems written in code, programmed poetry that goes far beyond random poem generators, poetry games and interactive software, and  “networked participatory poetry” (Adalaide Morris's phrase). Key to this enterprise is the Web as a new kind of poetic forum, creating a vast number of unexpected communities of readers and writers, in what cyber-theorist Hakim Bey calls “Temporary Autonomous Zones.” How is poetry “embedded” in such sites? How might poetic technotexts relate to digital photography, video, installation art, music, or gaming?

Walk-Through and Vote on Student Team Projects

Featuring speakers from College of Liberal Arts, Imaging Arts & Sciences, Golisano, CAST, NTID, Engineering, and Academic Support Center. Introduction by Anne Coon

“Creative Process Across the Disciplines”
Moderator Susan Donovan, with Alex Bitterman, Zerbe Sodervick, Al Biles, Jon Schull, and John Cox

What are the common elements of the creative process that are understood across diverse disciplines? A panel of faculty and staff from areas as seemingly different as art, information technology, and administration will explore their shared perceptions of creativity and the ways it impacts their work.

“Unlikely Partners” RIT Faculty Collaborators 
Moderator Lisa Hermsen, with Margaret Bailey, Jeff Wagner, John Retallack, and Tom Moran

Why would a Professor of Economics show up in an Environmental Communication class in the character of a man of independent wealth intending to stage a Farm Aid concert on Bureau of Land Management property? And why is a Mechanical Engineer reciting 19th-century poetry while covering a topic like power generation? Perhaps, in the words of Professor Jeff Wagner, it is because when he leaves his “home” in Economics and returns, he sees the concept of inter-disciplinarity more clearly than before. Or as Professor Margaret Bailey says, “to provide new perspective on an old topic.”

Join our panel of Unlikely Partners, faculty who have built teaching relationships out of the most unlikely, yet surprisingly effective, creative connections. All characters welcome!!!

Followed by open discussion with panelists and audience

Question: “What is F’loom?” http://www.floom.com/
Answer:  “An avant cappella vocal trio presenting cutting-edge ‘language music’” 

Music by Al Biles and GenJam, “an interactive genetic algorithm that learns to play jazz solos and may well be the only evolutionary computation system that is a working musician”

Click to view larger version

Al Biles and GenJam
http://www.it.rit.edu/~jab/GenJam.html

Presented by Dean Ganskop
http://digitalarts.rit.edu/

The RIT Digital Arts Competition & Exhibition is founded upon the ideal of promoting the expression of the arts through digital media. Students and artists from across the Rochester community submitted art in many categories including digital photography, animation, digital video, graphic design, and 3D installations. These pieces were consequently judged by artists and professors from around the region. Join us as we announce and congratulate our winners.