CRESP launches a significant new initiative, The CRESP Center
for Transformative Action, with three exciting events.
“From Protest to Power: An Innovative Model
for Transformative Action”
Tuesday, October 24th
5:15-6:30pm
Borg Warner Room
Tompkins County Public Library
“How David Conquers Goliath: The Power
of People to Overcome the World’s Largest Corporations
and Governments”
Wednesday, October 25th
6:30-8:00pm
Workers’ Center Space above Autumn Leaves
115 The Commons
How David Conquers Goliath: The Power of People to Overcome
the
World's Largest Corporations and Governments
Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a small
group of committed
citizens can change the world; in fact, it's the only
thing that ever
has." But how does this happen? How do the people
succeed when trying
to work on seemingly quixotic campaigns for social justice,
environmental restoration, and peace?
Scott
Sherman, the executive director of a nonprofit in
California,
has studied the factors that lead to success. In this
presentation at
Cornell, he will reveal the surprising findings from his
research. He
will tell many inspirational stories of how some of the
most
impoverished, politically powerless people have been able
to rise up
and win their campaigns against multi-billion dollar Fortune
500
corporations. He will also share case studies of success
where a
handful of citizens have been able to overcome some of
the world's
worst tyrants and dictators.
“Teaching to Transform the World: An Innovative
Approach to Education"
Thursday, October 26th
5:15-6:30pm
165 Statler Hall
Cornell University
During the past year, a nonprofit in California has launched
an
educational initiative that has already become the highest-ranking
course at UCLA, among other college campuses. Indeed,
in a recent
survey of students, 100 percent reported that this class
had "changed
their lives." This is a university course designed
to train a new
generation of leaders to become social entrepreneurs,
visionaries,
innovators, and problem-solvers.
In this workshop, Scott Sherman, executive director of
the
Transformative Action Institute, will present an overview
of this
innovative model of education for personal and social
change. He will
present students with materials and strategies for enhancing
their
own educational experience, including:
The "Transformative Way" - a portfolio of questions
and exercises
that help people to achieve their goals;
A number of improvisational comedy techniques that improve
creativity
and innovation;
The "Metanosis" program for personal and social
transformation - a
program that increases people's productivity and their
ability to
overcome adversity.
All events with special guest speaker, Dr.
Scott Sherman, UCLA
CRESP has invited Dr. Scott Sherman, UCLA, to speak about
an innovative approach to social change that draws on
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent
action. This model suggests that when social change agents
approach conflict with compassion rather than anger, and
with the intent to transform antagonism into cooperation,
enemies into friends, and adversaries into allies, that
they are more successful in achieving their goals.
Scott Sherman and his colleague Randy Parraz have been
named by Echoing Green among the world’s “Best
Emerging Social Change Entrepreneurs” for their
bold plan to train new leaders to address Southern California’s
most pervasive problems by applying this innovative model
for social activism called “transformative action.”
Moreover, Dr. Sherman's undergraduate course, designed
to train a new generation of leaders to become social
entrepreneurs, visionaries, innovators, and problems solvers,
has quickly become the highest-ranking course at UCLA.
As winners of the prestigious 2005 Echoing Green Fellowship,
Sherman and Parraz will receive $90,000 in seed funding,
as well as two years of technical support, leadership
training and strategic counsel, to develop the Transformative
Action Institute (TAI) in Los Angeles, California, for
training college students in innovative social change
strategies that break the “us versus them”
model. Using as a backdrop the many critical issues facing
Southern California (from labor and immigration to the
environment), TAI will train college students, starting
at UCLA, in how to start social movements based on these
new, innovative strategies. TAI hopes to be the 21st century,
West Coast version of the Highlander Center – the
social change school in Tennessee where individuals such
as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. learned how
to become more effective activists.
Dr. Sherman is here to help CRESP launch The CRESP Center
for Transformative Action.
