Mission and Values

Fostering connection through a life of creative integrity

·       Sustainable organizations for a new economy

Many worthy non-profit and academic institutions suffer chronic underfunding, wearing staff thin and straining their ability to fulfill their missions.  We need an economy that balances both personal and planetary sustainability with fiscal viability.  I see my role as “connective tissue” in the interstices between organizations, communities and landscapes; creating consortiums, collectives and cooperatives to share resources across permeable institutional boundaries.

·       Bridging the distance learning

Learning begins with attention; what gets noticed can be responded to; compassionate response is at the root of responsibility.  My work in teaching, instructional and program design, advising/mentoring, and academic administration seeks to bridge the distance and deepen the relationship between people and place.  Combined with my information systems background, “bridging the distance” also involves the design of on-line learning and collaboration environments.

·        Our words can change the world

W.S. Merwin wrote "It could be that there's only one word and it's all we need.  It's here in this pencil.  Every pencil in the world is like this."  Beyond creating my own radical (”to the root”) and transformative writing and art, I seek to inspire and encourage other’s personal discovery, interpersonal insight, and planetary service through teaching and mentoring; editing; conference/event planning; and facilitation of creative communities.

·      Socially and environmentally conscious information systems

My background in ecology has informed the way I relate to information systems design.  I call myself a “data whisperer;” drawing implicit connections between disparate data and facilitating explicit flow of information to integrate and serve both people and places.  Projects within this framework include the Interdependent Scholar Network; Community Exchange; and Taxonomy of Nature Writing.

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