Education Collaborative Update

Hi everyone!

Please bear with this long but very informative email and be sure to
CLICK ON THE DOODLE at the end of the message.

The Education Collaborative had a great meeting last Friday.
Unfortunately, the Happy Hour didn't work out as planned, but we'll
keep you posted for the next gathering very soon.

As of right now, we have a name, a mission, potential positions for
group members and proposed projects for the semester and beyond. We're
also exploring possibilities for funding and/or creating our own group
for this next semester.

1.      Group title:
Education Collaborative

2.      Mission:
We are a community of students and professors united by a common
belief that education is fundamental to international and public
affairs. We aim to highlight the importance of education for human
development and develop a platform for collaboration between SIPA,
Columbia, and New York City to build on our diversity of experiences
and interests in education.

3.      Positions:
-Head Coordinator (**Once the group grows, this position may need to be split into two parts: an External Coordinator and an Internal Coordinator; for now, though, the responsibilities for the one position include organizing EDU Collaborative meetings, overseeing various activities, corresponding with SIPASA, UNSPWG and other SIPA groups, etc)
-Internal Communications Chair (Taking notes at meetings, sending out
emails, etc)
-External Communications Chair (Maintaining the blog, calendar,
resource sharing, etc - basically what Pablo has been doing already)
-Treasurer (Self-explanatory)
-Outreach Chair (**May require two people: reaching out to larger
Columbia community including TC, School of Social Work, etc, to build
up our network)
-Academic Chair (**Up for discussion: compiling group lists)

4.      Projects:
-Building up our network across Columbia (TC, Social Work, Law,
Business, etc) perhaps through Happy Hours, outreach, etc
-Identifying and compiling group lists of the following:
     Students from each school interested in education
     Education courses across Columbia (and how to cross-register)
     Education-oriented professors across Columbia
     Education-oriented institutes and centers across Columbia
     Education-oriented student groups across Columbia
-Brown bags/Working lunches
-(in the long term) A one- or two-day Education Forum bringing experts
from around the University and beyond to speak (if you'd like more
details on this Forum, email Coli)

If any of you who weren't able to attend the meeting have ideas for
other positions we should vote on or other projects we should
consider, please respond to this email! Otherwise, we will go ahead
with our plan for the next meeting as is.

We would like to schedule another meeting sometime next
week to vote on these positions. We will then decide on a
regular time for our group to meet so that our proposed projects can
move forward.

Now for the doodle...please let us know when you'll be free to meet!
See below:

http://www.doodle.com/7v63wnc5zw6ewxwx

And check out our Official Blog (We're ONLINE, thanks to Pablo!)

http://sipaec.blogspot.com

Thanks so much!!

Education Entrepreneur Fellowship

The Mind Trust is offering a $250,000 fellowship for Educational
Entrepreneurs with educational venture ideas for implementation within
the United States. There appears to be a strong preference for charter
school-type interventions, but I would love to see the ideas of
domestic-minded SIPA Education Collaborative members represented in
this kind of forum

Check out more at:
http://www.themindtrust.org/fellowship/apply.aspx

Happy studying!
Debi

SIPA Education Collaborative End of Semester Update

Hi Everyone!

   I apologize in advance for the length of this email.  However, we wanted to announce that between the meetings we held last week and today we have officially decided on a few things:

1. Name of the group - SIPA Education Collaborative.  After much debate, we decided this name best reflected the mission and atmosphere of our group.

2. Description of the group:
 We are a community of students and professors united by a common belief that education is fundamental to International and Public Affairs.  We aim to highlight the importance of education for human development and develop a platform for collaboration between SIPA, Columbia, and New York City to build on our diversity of experiences and interests in education.
While this description may not be 100% perfect, we thought it did an accurate job of reflecting the common thread among our ideas for the group while still being open to other possible initiatives (research, consulting, etc.).  We can definitely revisit the description after we see what initiatives emerge as being the core focus of our group.

3. Posts (Administrative Responsibilities):
There are three main categories of administrative responsibilities:
i) Co-coordinators - external coordinator (responsible for contact with UNSPWG, SIPASA, and any other SIPA student groups we may want to collaborate with in sponsoring activities, etc.) and internal coordinator (responsible for coordination within the larger group - keeping track of what various activity groups need, etc.)
ii) Treasurer
iii) Co-communication Chairs - external communication and outreach chair (This will likely involve outreach to TC, but really this person will be responsible for the blog, a calendar, resource sharing, etc. - basically everything Pablo has been doing) and internal communication chair/secretary (this person will be responsible for taking notes of meetings and sending out emails/posting decisions to the larger group, sending emails to the large group for meetings, etc.)

As soon as we come back in January we will make final decisions on people to fill these posts.  In the mean time, though, if you really want to fill any particular post, please email me back and let me know just so that we can get an idea of whether there will be any competition for the positions and decide from there how we should go about making decisions for filling them for the next semester. 

In the mean time, I believe Pablo has created a blog for the group and will be posting some items, gathering some information, etc. over break (please correct me if I'm wrong!).  We will also decide in January on what activities we will pursue next semester, who will be responsible for them, and what the broad but measurable 2nd semester goal for each activity will be.  Over break, if you want to do any work on a particular activity you are interested in the group taking on or if you want to send out an email with an idea for an activity in order to get an idea of group interest, feel free!!

And finally, thank you to everyone who took time out of these crazy last weeks of the semester to help make decisions for the future of this group! 

Good luck studying/writing!!  And have a terrific vacation! 


Cory

Education Task Force Planning Meeting v2.0 @Lehman study group

Hi, SIPA Education Task Force members,

Based on the information on our Doodle, finally we will meet this Monday Dec 12th, 1pm-3pm. We are going to meet at Lehman Study Group, because we didn't have enough time for scheduling a room for the meeting.

If you can come to the meeting, but you can't stay the whole two hours, it's ok!

See you there!
Pablo

Education Task Force Planning Meeting v2.0

Hi, SIPA Education Task Force members!

We had a great meeting today, planning the mission/ambition of the group, discussing our focus. Many things were part of the discussion: how to build a SIPA community with focus on education, including professors and students? how to collaborate with TC students and professors? what are the next steps? activities? dual degree?

Since there was a lot to be discussed, we decided to schedule a second meeting to continue the conversation. Paraphrasing what Cory said in a previous mail: these are incredibly busy days, but if you have strong feelings about the direction this group should take, we hope you'll be there!

If you are interested, please tell us when you are available, and we'll try to find a slot that works for everyone:
http://www.doodle.com/bmvcgi76a3fhb747

Cheers,
Pablo