Today’s interview features Karyn Newton, a three-time participant in Case Western Reserve University’s Books@Work programs. CWRU delivers Books@Work as part of a wellness initiative to encourage community and social connection between faculty and staff on campus. Karyn works in the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity. She is also pursuing her master’s degree in World Literature at the university.
We ask Karyn about her Books@Work experience – and why discussing books and short stories is a valuable use of company time.
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Today, we’re featuring an interview with Benne Hutson, the Director, Environmental and Deputy General Counsel for EnPro Industries, a global manufacturing company. Benne participates in Books@Work alongside leaders and staff from various departments in the corporate office. Together, the ongoing group has read and discussed over 15 short stories and counting.
When we asked Benne to share a little bit about his fellow Books@work participants, he said, “There were people from the legal department, internal audit, the payroll department, the tax department, the treasury department. So it was people that I would work with on a project every once in a while, but not on a day-to-day basis. Even if I worked with them regularly, I’m not sure I would’ve known them as a person in the way that you get to know them through Books@Work.”
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We recently had the chance to speak to Professor Michelle S. Hite about her experience as a facilitator with Books@Work. Michelle is an Assistant Professor of English at Spelman College. Her research and teaching focus on death and mourning in African American culture.
How is your role as a Books@Work facilitator different from your role in teaching in the university?
“What’s markedly different is that for Books@Work, I’m not committed to student learning outcomes, and I’m not committed to the professional obligations of preparing students to be responsible for certain standards. I don’t have to sit in judgment.
So I try to draw on other models that I have for interacting with people over ideas. I grew up with a front porch where people shared ideas and that typically is the metaphor that I often work with. That’s what I’m trying to do – extend my front porch and create a space where people can share ideas. We can think about things together and see where they go. The whole point is just to build community around our thinking. What I like about Books@Work is that it gives me that opportunity to just wonder with people.”
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“In your career, you’ve worked with numerous companies on cultural transformation. Is there anything about Books@Work that is new for you? Is there anything different in how the program nurtures individuals and the community?”
There are several dimensions that are different. In my McKinsey days, the cultural transformation was always embedded in a business transformation and a performance imperative. We would ask what role culture played in achieving tangible business goals, whether that is sales growth, cost reduction, responsiveness, whatever it is.
I was initially skeptical about Books@Work because it did not tie directly to a business outcome. How would I know that I was actually making progress?
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We are thrilled to feature an interview with the enthusiastic and thoughtful Alison Cochrane for today’s blog post. Alison is a technical writer at Nordson Corporation and a recent Books@Work participant.
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We recently had the chance to speak with Brock Spencer, who recently retired as the Kohnstamm Professor of Chemistry at Beloit College where he taught environmental and interdisciplinary courses in addition to a range of chemistry courses. Brock has been involved nationally in NSF-funded projects to develop and disseminate an inquiry-based approach and instructional materials to better engage students in their introductory chemistry courses.
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We recently had the chance to speak with Laura Baudot, an Associate Professor of English at Oberlin College who has facilitated Books@Work sessions at a private high school and an adhesive manufacturing company. Among other things, we discussed her experience as a facilitator and how it differs from her experience teaching at a university. How do the humanities translate out of the academic world?
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I recently had the opportunity to talk with Lela Hilton, Program Director of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, Inc., about the element of surprise in our respective programs. Founded by the late Earl Shorris, Clemente brings free humanities education to people living in economic distress. The foundational ideas for Clemente may be found in Shorris’ powerful 1997 article in Harper’s Magazine entitled “As A Weapon in the Hands of the Restless Poor (On the Uses of a Liberal Education).” I was fortunate to speak to Earl Shorris before he died about Books@Work. He inspired me deeply and supported my then-fledgling idea of partnering with employers to reach working adults. When Clemente and Books@Work became co-grantees in the Teagle Foundation’s special initiative, Liberal Arts Beyond the Academy, Lela and I were introduced. What follows is a snippet of our ongoing dialogue.
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In a recent conversation, Professor Theresa Grupico spoke reflected on her experiences teaching with Books@Work: “There are these moments, especially when working with a complex novel, where you really see the lightbulbs going on. These are ‘aha’ moments, and they come from discussing a character or a passage from a novel. Reading alone, they think they get it – but as they start to have a conversation, they ask themselves ‘why didn’t I see that?’ They learn from each other and grow together. It’s a wonderful way to approach teamwork, and it shows why meetings are important, why colleagues are important. You get something from those interactions that you don’t get on your own. It is so neat to sit in a room with people and learn about what they are thinking.”
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