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ABOUT
The Soling Program stimulates creative and independent thinking among
undergraduate students in all schools and colleges at Syracuse University. It
was endowed by former University Trustee and Alumnus Chester Soling, and is
housed in The College of Arts and Sciences. It is presently being
reorganized to focus specifically on:
- Problem solving (including setting of goals, problem definition, process
questions)
- Experiential learning, including off-campus opportunities
- Creativity
- Collaboractive interdisciplinary work
- Developing written, oral and visual communication
- Fostering connections to the community in which we work and reside
The current focus is on innovative and collaborative interdisciplinary
courses, project and events that both explore and demand creative thinking
on the part of students.
- In the spring of 2004, Soling offered a course in “Creativity in the Arts and
the Academy” that gave students a chance to experience and document their
creative process through journal writing, and through developing a series of
characters that were conceived in their journals and brought to life as puppets,
designed under the guidance and instruction of Geoffrey Navias, artistic
director of the Open Hand Puppet Theater. Students created the characters and
wrote original scripts for two puppet plays. They also produced a video
documentary of the whole process, which was presented at the Seymour Elementary
School on a large screen.
The eleven students in the class also
held a performance for children in the local Westside community through "A Show
of Puppets" on Wed., April 28, for an audience of over 200 children from various
after school programs in that area including the ALAS Program, the Boys &
Girls Club, The Spanish Action League's Youth Center, Huntington and Catholic
Charities.
"The object of the course was also to share the experience
through involvement with the community, so we chose to work with children, not
just to present a puppet show for them, but to get them involved in the actual
production. They created their own puppets which have been integrated into the
scripts and they were in charge of building the sets that we designed," said
Tere Paniagua, instructor of this Soling course on Creativity.
- In conjunction with the Fall 2004 Syracuse Symposium on Humor, the fall
Soling course was 'Humor and Social Transformation' (SOL 300)
- In the spring of 2005, the Soling Program offered a
course on WEB Design for Novices aimed at students who wish to learn basic
programming of WEB pages. Students worked on projects for university departments
and for local non-profit organizations. Richard Waghorne, designer of websites
for The College of Arts and Sciences, taught this course.
- Also in the Spring of 2005, the Soling Program launched and coordinated the
University’s first all-campus festival celebrating creativity and discovery
titled “Mayfest.”
This event features performances, posters, and talks from all
around the campus.
You can learn more from the Soling website: http://soling.syr.edu
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