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We held the last of our sessions on “seeing with different eyes” on April 29th, with the intention of reviewing what we have done over the past two semesters, and thinking together about where we might go from here, how we might build on what we’ve done to move forward.

Anne opened the discussion by asking participants to name our “image for Bryn Mawr”: What picture comes to mind when we think of the College? What scene do we see? What metaphor best describes our sense of who we are, what we are doing?
• chastity belt
• country club
• dinner party
• magician’s “poof!”
• closed spaces
• airport
• convergence of streams in a life-giving river
• our math department
• a rock band (Rolling Stones? R.E.M? Sex Pistols?
• “Besieged”
• amoeba
• a symphony by Charles Ives (two bands, each making beautiful music, converge; the result is cacophony)
• old buildings transformed into new uses (the Owl Bookshop→ Admissions; the old gym-->Campus Center
• a quarry, with schist
• bubbles
• television show (E.R.? Friends?)
• flock of starlings.

Darla then asked the group to look through the archive listing all the conversations we’ve had as a group since last September, jogging our memories and filling in the gaps. What did we see? What has been the point of our discussions? What have you carried forward? What did we remember as important? What was missing? What questions were raised that still linger? What traces are left?

• vulnerability – in risk taking and in sharing perspectives
• sorrow that participation was intermittent, reduced
• problems with scheduling
• startled, during a conversation about our roles, to hear a faculty member say he felt “safe in a pyramid,” didn’t want to be “in a flock,” always having to be responsive to the changes around him
• “preaching to the choir”
• who are we? how do we function? how can we function better?
• how we are not communicating across cultures
• how self-revelatory some of the sessions were; how courageous to speak
• being “blown away” by others’ willingness to be vulnerable, to take risks
• lack of continuity in the sessions
• why did fewer faculty attend this semester?
• how can we link this community to faculty agendas?
• how can we do better P.R.?
• shall we “add sex” (in this context: focus on teaching or research)?
• who presents?
• who is at risk?
• most shocking: that faculty are not curious about staff’s experiences here
• the theme behind all the conversations: fear.

Anne then asked what structures we need to put into place to address these needs. Where else do the conversations need to go? What actions might follow from them? Do we want some on-going version of this group, or something else? What form(s) should it take?

• brown bags focused on topics (“Education and the Internet,” etc.)
• accountability groups
• outside speakers, to kick off a series (ex: Karen Stephenson)
• introducing readings/a book (on international globalization?)
• splitting, if we get too big
• being change agents for the larger community
• being mindful of “good behavior” outside this room
• using the Concept Plan for Bryn Mawr to reinvision this place:
where are the intersections? where are the risks?
• informing other discussions
• being task-focused, having a project

Darla closed the session by asking us to go ‘round once more, offering up our images and metaphors for this thing-to-come, the morphed version of this group. These metaphors far more “porous,” much less “closed” than our first set:

• an “unconference” (people gathered without a pre-set agenda, and then connect with one another based on shared interests)
• a virus (inserting itself elsewhere, to reach a tipping point)
• a GIS map (picking up layers and adding to them)
• intersecting paths
• flocking birds and pyramids
• magnetism (a positive charge, attractiveness)
• trekking on the Himalayas.