Remembering Lessons Learned: knowledge management techniques for building generational memory

A presentation made at the CAUT Librarians Conference in Ottawa, Ontario in October 2005.

View from balcony of one building of Davis Community Center and Apartments, chapman College, Orange, California

View from balcony of one of five three-story apartment buildings of Davis Community Center and Apartments. The complex opened September,1974 at 625 North Grand Street, Orange, California, named in honor of Chapman College's fourth president, Dr. John L. Davis. The apartment buildings were designed by Harold Gimeno & Associates of Santa Ana and built by the J. Ray Construction Company, Inc. of Costa Mesa.

Old Student Union building and patio remodel, Chapman College, Orange, California

Old Student Union building and patio remodel, Chapman College, Orange, California, 1973. Originally the manual arts building and bus repair garage for Orange Union High School. Building annex additions through 1975 increased the size to 19,680 sq. ft. Used as a student union by Chapman College. In 1996 the building became the Cecil B. DeMille Hall, housing the Film and TV department.

The role of leaders in building organizational learning capacity

In a world in which social, economic, and environmental circumstances are continuously evolving and increasingly complex, leaders face the challenging prospect of navigating their organizations through unpredictable operating conditions. Finding a way to tap into the learning capacity of the people who comprise their organizations may be the answer to adapt and to survive. This qualitative research study explored the role of leaders in building this organizational learning capacity. The literature identified three domains of personal, interpersonal, and organizational capacity for learning in an organizational setting. Interviews with three senior leaders who had successfully built learning capacity in their respective organizations revealed four elements of leader commitment: (a) to the process of building learning capacity, (b) to organizational objectives and results, (c) to personal actions and behaviours, and (d) to the people of the organization. Each of the four elements of leader commitment spans the three domains of learning capacity that can guide leaders as they build organizational learning capacity.

First building of Orange Union High School, Orange, California, now Wilkinson Hall, Chapman University

Orange Union High School, located at 333 N. Glassell Street, Orange, California, 1905. Constructed in 1905 and designed by local architect, C.B. Bradshaw, image shows main building, now called Wilkinson Hall, which moved north prior to 1921. Acquired in 1954 and currently operated by Chapman University; it was renamed Wilkinson Hall in honor of J. E. Wilkinson, a former trustee, chairman of the board, and acting president. View shows front and south elevations across North Glassell Street.

The role of education in building individual human capital : How do professionals look at it?

This study followed a qualitative research approach to investigate how welleducated professionals see the role of formal education in building human capital. Individuals need to understand the relationship between education and their human capital to justify the time and money they invested to get their education. Colleges and universities need to know the value of their output, to better value and promote the process of knowledge production and transmission and help the general public appreciate their work more. While the importance of a good education is a key factor in the success of learners, this study revealed the power of social capital in making this success a reality. It may not be enough for an individual to acquire good education to guarantee a better future. The power of social connections can be the main determinant in one’s wellbeing. This study shows that it is important to address students’ life outside school beside the importance of a classroom education.

Automatic evolution of conceptual building architectures

This thesis describes research in which genetic programming is used to automatically evolve shape grammars that construct three dimensional models of possible external building architectures. A completely automated fitness function is used, which evaluates the three dimensional building models according to different geometric properties such as surface normals, height, building footprint, and more. In order to evaluate the buildings on the different criteria, a multi-objective fitness function is used. The results obtained from the automated system were successful in satisfying the multiple objective criteria as well as creating interesting and unique designs that a human-aided system might not discover. In this study of evolutionary design, the architectures created are not meant to be fully functional and structurally sound blueprints for constructing a building, but are meant to be inspirational ideas for possible architectural designs. The evolved models are applicable for today's architectural industries as well as in the video game and movie industries. Many new avenues for future work have also been discovered and highlighted.

A Home at School: Building Stronger Indigenous People through Cultural Resurgence in an Urban Ontario Public School Context.

In this thesis, I work through the educational narratives of young Aboriginal women and men as I explore the relationship between cultural programming and student engagement. My analysis is structured through a collaborative Indigenous research project. My overarching task is to explore how a cultural support program, the Native Youth Advancement with Education Hamilton (NYA WEH) Program, offered at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School, located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, attempts to re-imagine Aboriginal education in ways that directly challenge the residential school legacy. In particular, I work to illuminate how particular forms of Aboriginal education are connected to the graduation rates of Aboriginal youth. I argue that the ways in which the NYA WEH Program navigates Native Studies curriculum, relationships, and notions of culture and tradition are significant to the engagement of Aboriginal youth. This research develops theoretical connections between the contemporary experience of Aboriginal social inequality and educational initiatives which attempt to reverse that legacy. By placing the NYA WEH Program narratives side-by-side with literature supporting Aboriginal education for Self-determination, I work to learn how to best support and encourage Aboriginal student engagement in secondary schools across Ontario.

Passive Solar Building Design Using Genetic Programming

Passive solar building design is the process of designing a building while considering sunlight exposure for receiving heat in winter and rejecting heat in summer. The main goal of a passive solar building design is to remove or reduce the need of mechanical and electrical systems for cooling and heating, and therefore saving energy costs and reducing environmental impact. This research will use evolutionary computation to design passive solar buildings. Evolutionary design is used in many research projects to build 3D models for structures automatically. In this research, we use a mixture of split grammar and string-rewriting for generating new 3D structures. To evaluate energy costs, the EnergyPlus system is used. This is a comprehensive building energy simulation system, which will be used alongside the genetic programming system. In addition, genetic programming will also consider other design and geometry characteristics of the building as search objectives, for example, window placement, building shape, size, and complexity. In passive solar designs, reducing energy that is needed for cooling and heating are two objectives of interest. Experiments show that smaller buildings with no windows and skylights are the most energy efficient models. Window heat gain is another objective used to encourage models to have windows. In addition, window and volume based objectives are tried. To examine the impact of environment on designs, experiments are run on five different geographic locations. Also, both single floor models and multi-floor models are examined in this research. According to the experiments, solutions from the experiments were consistent with respect to materials, sizes, and appearance, and satisfied problem constraints in all instances.

Conceptualizing Institutional Capacity Building Through a Learning Process Set in Motion by a Foundation

Employing critical pedagogy and transformative theory as a theoretical framework, I examined a learning process associated with building capacity in community-based organizations (CBOs) through an investigation of the Institutional Capacity Building Program (ICBP) initiated by a Foundation. The study sought to: (a) examine the importance of institutional capacity building for individual and community development; (b) investigate elements of a process associated with a program and characteristics of a learning process for building capacity in CBOs; and (c) analyze the Foundation’s approach to synthesizing, systematizing, and sharing learning. The study used a narrative research design that included 3 one-on-one, hour-long interviews with 2 women having unique vantage points in ICBP: one is a program facilitator working at the Foundation and the other runs a CBO supported by the Foundation. The interviews’ semistructured questions allowed interviewees to share stories regarding their experience with the learning process of ICB and enabled themes to emerge from their day-to-day experience. Through the analysis of this learning process for institutional capacity building, a few lessons can be drawn from the experience of the Foundation.

Relationship Building with Aboriginal Elders in the Publicly Funded Secondary School Classroom: A Study of Ethical Space from an Aboriginal Persepective

This is a current story of ethical space in education that is often neglected in the design of educational experiences for Aboriginal students. This story is told through an Aboriginal lens rooted in the structured Two Row Wampum Belt relational agreement between Aboriginal peoples and Settlers. Through ethnographic narrative based on an extensive literature review, individual in-depth interviews, and a personal journal, this study documents the processes of acceptance, silence, complications, and then rejection to position Aboriginal Elders as inclusive bodies of knowledge in publicly funded secondary school classrooms. Aboriginal Elders are valued as Knowledge Holders, as Aboriginal teachers, guides, and mentors. Yet, the complexities of colonial rights, politics, and policies continue to intrude deeply into the lives of Aboriginal peoples to cause silence, confusion, and struggle rather than an evolution of new knowledge amongst two co-existing solitudes under the original terms of the Two Row Wampum Belt. The study was delayed and then came to an end when the school boards and local schools scrutinized its operating policies and unresolved funding issues. This study demonstrated that despite the Two Row Wampum Belt agreement that promised a co- existent relationship between Aboriginal peoples and Settlers, the strategy of inviting Aboriginal Elders to work alongside teachers in the classroom was viewed as being in conflict with the Settler’s institutional/educational objectivities, and, as such, was denied to Aboriginal students.

Photograph - Baie Comeau, Administrative Building, etc.

A photograph of the Administrative Buidling, staff dining room and cement sewer as construction continues at Baie Comeau.

Exploring Capacity Building of Ontario Dental Hygiene Educators During National Curriculum Reform

In times of educational change, educators are given the task of implementing new initiatives that meet the needs of a changing environment; yet, they are often dismissed from developmental phases of the reform. This top-down structure deters educators’ personal capacity building as their knowledge, values, assumptions, and beliefs are not acknowledged or explicitly developed as part of the initiative. This study explored Ontario dental hygiene educators’ perspectives of how they may build personal capacity during an externally mandated national curriculum reform, the Entry-to-Practice Competencies and Standards for Canadian Dental Hygienists (National Competencies). Narratives were collected from 5 dental hygiene educators of diverse educational training and teaching organizations. Three themes emerged that included perceptions of structural influence, perceptions of learning access, and perceptions of identity. Each theme was linked to tasks that were required to build personal capacity for sustainable school change. The theoretical framework and the required tasks demonstrated the interconnectedness between educators, leaders, and the organization for building educators’ personal capacity.

Sketch of John Gibson Brick Building

Sketch of John Gibson brick building and adjoining lots. This is a hand drawn sketch, n.d.

Printed blank of Statement of Security Form naming the bond as Jones County Texas Bonds for the purpose of building a courthouse

Printed blank of Statement of Security Form naming the bond as Jones County Texas Bonds for the purpose of building a courthouse. It is made out to S.D. Woodruff and dated June 12, 1885. An envelope addressed to Mr. S.D. Woodruff is also included. The postmarks are Kansas, 1885 and St. Catharines, June 13, 1885.