Jefferson’s Distinctive Creativity Core Curriculum Prepares Students With Skills for Today and Beyond
Primed for the future, undergraduates from all disciplines benefit from the expanding program.
As part of Jefferson’s Creativity Core Curriculum, students learned the traits of nine major plant families in a special workshop run by a University biology professor. (Photos by Wesley Hilton)
On a recent Saturday afternoon on Jefferson’s East Falls Campus, dozens of students tested their acting skills, explored creative problem-solving through puzzles, planned a mock trip to Italy and learned how to identify thousands of plants.
Through Creative Making Workshops like these—one component of Jefferson’s Creativity Core Curriculum—all Jefferson undergraduates learn that creativity doesn’t just apply to specific disciplines.
“While creativity is essential to art and design fields, it doesn’t stop there,” stresses Maribeth Kradel-Weitzel, assistant provost for academic affairs. “Creativity has relevance in any context that requires novel and valuable concepts. As emerging technologies and other innovations continually force the redefinition of workplace roles, all students must have a strong foundation of creative skills relevant to their discipline. This flexibility allows them to adapt to change and recognize new opportunities for the duration of their careers.”
For one design challenge run by Dean Dr. Ron Kander, students collaborated to build a structure with spaghetti, tape and string to support a marshmallow. The group with the tallest tower won.
Kradel-Weitzel serves as the director of the Creativity Core Curriculum, a distinctive initiative that speaks to Jefferson’s lifelong commitment to students and the belief they will be leaders in their fields, she says.
Everyone possesses a natural capacity for creativity, she notes, but external influences might negatively impact how a person views their abilities.
“The curriculum helps students recognize what was there all along by providing experiences that support creative confidence,” Kradel-Weitzel says. “It goes further to help students recognize that one’s creative skills also can evolve. When students understand this, their ideas about what they can achieve may expand.”
The Creativity Core Curriculum has grown since its 2020 launch. It now consists of a lecture series and creativity fair plus two courses and an experience component—the Creative Making Workshops.
Instructor Dave Ebersole provided some pointers during the intro to acting workshop.
First, every undergraduate major at the East Falls Campus features a required Creativity-Intensive Course designated to examine creative strategies relevant to their discipline. Some classes include Finding and Shaping Opportunity, Principles of Genetics, and Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences.
Second, all undergrads take a common senior-year course, Philosophies of the Good Life from the Hallmarks Core, which marks the completion of their liberal arts education. By reading, discussing and writing about the works of historical key thinkers, students explore how transformative ideas about living a meaningful life can be applied far from their original contexts to guide them as ethical professionals, engaged citizens and inspired individuals.
Third, the Creative Making Workshops allow students to experiment in an environment outside of expectations and deadlines and in a context beyond their discipline. Jefferson will offer some 125 sessions this year, including the physics of light, the history of the blues, exploring aerospace innovation, creating a startup, and Korean drama and kaleidoscopic writing.
Jefferson’s Dr. Dolores Bartholomew filled her classroom with flowers for her plant identification session.
In her workshop, interior design student Mahalia deDios learned how to plan a trip to an unfamiliar location by breaking down the process into manageable steps. Travel can support creativity by providing exposure to new perspectives and engaging critical problem-solving skills. She explored budgeting, selecting destinations and finding unique experiences that reflect the culture.
“It really helped me understand how to make my travel ideas a reality,” deDios says.
Down the hall, architecture student Tonya Mingo called the intro to acting workshop fun and engaging. Improvisation requires flexibility and adaptation within uncertain circumstances. “At first, I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but now I can confidently say I wouldn’t mind trying it again,” she says. “I learned how to read others.”
This positive feedback doesn’t surprise Kradel-Weitzel. In a recent survey, nearly half of students said their workshop experience inspired a new or renewed interest in the program’s subject matter, she says, noting the curriculum’s continued growth.
The curriculum helps students recognize what was there all along by providing experiences that support creative confidence.
Since its inception, the Creativity Core Curriculum team wanted at least 20% of workshops’ content to represent interests and views of non-dominant cultures and people and/or directly encourage thinking and behaviors that support the valuation of diversity, equity and inclusion, Kradel-Weitzel says.
“We’ve now moved to create a similar goal for workshops primarily STEM-discipline relevant because we want to consciously highlight creativity as a critical skill in these fields,” she says. “I’m also excited by the growing list of qualifications and backgrounds of instructors from the University and external partners like Lockheed Martin Space, the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center, Boeing, the Japan America Society and the Clay Studio.”
Dr. Ron Kander, dean of the Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce, taught the workshop on creative problem-solving through puzzles and design challenges. A frequent workshop instructor, he appreciates connecting with students in a low-stakes environment.
“We have a bit of fun, which allows students to relax and focus on something different from their traditional classes,” Kander says. “These workshops are a real differentiator at Jefferson and help to define our focus on creative problem-solving as a professional skill that we stress in all our majors.”
In instructor Dr. Corrado Minimo’s session, students learned how travel can support creativity by providing exposure to new perspectives and engaging critical problem-solving skills.
To Kradel-Weitzel’s knowledge, no other university has prioritized creativity for all students holistically like Jefferson. “This underscores that we’re a unique institution unafraid to chart a new course in higher education,” she says.
Excited by the opportunity, Jefferson adjunct biology professor Dr. Dolores Bartholomew arrived on campus hours before her plant identification session started to fill her classroom with different flowers. The elaborate setup showed that nature has patterns that can be easily recognized at the taxonomic level.
“The workshops allow us to engage in real time with someone’s learning and give hands-on experiences,” she explains. “This interaction brings out innate curiosity and breaks down any potential teacher-student barrier in a class. Additionally, the workshops allow each person’s personality to shine.”
For Dr. Bartholomew’s five-hour session, students learned the traits of nine major plant families, which make up over 45,000 species found globally. The group—including pre-medical studies student Dax Kruvczuk—fashioned bouquets and resin jewelry with dried flowers. They also walked around East Falls Campus to practice identifying plants.
“It was entertaining the whole time,” Kruvczuk says. “I would definitely recommend it.”
