Teaching Creativity at Ohio State

I am so glad to be teaching another section of my course on creativity, starting on September 22nd at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

Personal Creativity and Innovation (BUS-MHR 390)
With the guidance of Michael Camp, I've taken the best of more than a decade of creativity teaching experience and have revised this course further still. (The former students are a great source of continuous improvement for this course.)

If you're an OSU undergraduate business student — or in another college and interested in this course — here is an overview:

Personal Creativity and Innovation (BUS-MHR 390) explores how people, places and practices foster human creativity. Students discuss: What is creativity? How can I become more creative? How can we lead others to greater creativity? Readings include academic, management, spiritual, confessional, and self-development literature on creativity, productivity, happiness and the optimal experience. Assignments include private daily writings and self-assessments of personal creativity. In order to become more creative, students must be willing to look within themselves and share what they find.

A teacher of artists and MBAs, children and adults, Artie bridges the gap between right and left brains in the corporation and within the individual. Students read and discuss the science and art of creativity, share personal experiences, write daily, take weekly field trips, and look deeply within themselves to better understand how to become more creative. In the end, students are more creative, can better relate to highly creative people, and have a personal curriculum for lifelong creative development, including a goal statement on just how the student plans to change the world.

If you have any questions about the class (or want this class to be taught at your corporate offices), please email me. If you wonder whether creativity can be taught, read this.

Here are some comments from three wonderful recent students:

"A 'can-opener' for your mind and emotions. Intense and intriguing. Expect to test and develop your emotional maturity in an unorthodox business school setting. Each class is different. You can never get enough; you're not supposed to - this class merely sets things in motion to help you attend to your whole self beyond this class. Don't expect to be uncomfortable forever - you'll begin to like what you discover about yourself."

"This class challenged me, but also helped me grow as a person. I feel that the things I learned in this class can be carried with me forever. This is a class I will never forget."

"This was the most mentally stimulating course I have ever taken."

On the other hand, some recent students suggested that I offer some warnings to students who are thinking about taking the class. So, let your expectations be guided:

1. The course can be unpredictable. I will lead (and be led) as the classroom conversation strays. Do not expect predictability.

2. The course is deceptively difficult. There is much reading and writing. But the work does not have diminishing returns; incremental effort yields incremental gain.

The syllabus is new and improved (and always under renovation). In its current form, it is here.

If you want to send a flyer to a friend — or post it in a hallway bulletin board, here's an old one.

Comments

[Jon Myers]

Sounds like a really cool class. As a business owner and entrepreneur I have had the opportunity to interact with many Fisher students and graduates.

A criticism I often hear regarding Fisher can be summed up as this:

"They're educating and training WORKERS, rather than business owners and entrepreneurs".

If that criticism is accurate then it's fair to say that a course like yours could help steer students towards a mental model that is better aligned with the reality of the world beyond the school.

[Ann Marie Mecera]

Artie,
Are you really reading all the books you have listed under "What I'm Reading Now" at the same time? How so?
AM
[Artie replies: Bad habit of mine: starting books while I'm already reading other ones. Often I don't finish any of them. Bad habit. The list looks out of date. I'll update it over the weekend.]