Rose Cameron Answers Key Questions About Innovation

This October at Converge 2015, our focus is to bring the best and brightest together to revolutionize higher education. In this series of blog posts, Content Marketing Intern, Mikayla Wilson, asks our speakers key questions. Read on to find out more about our passionate speakers and the importance of their topics.

Name: Rose Cameron

Organization: Penn State University

Session: How to Introduce Change Without Getting Kicked Out of the Classroom

Date & Time: Wednesday, October 21 | 10:00-11:00AM

Summary: Committees, risk management departments, fractured and distributed power bases – they’re all central to the power structures of universities. How do you introduce and manage change without getting “kicked out of the classroom?” Rose Cameron will illuminate how she has found traction in her first year as Director of Innovation at Penn State – engendering innovative practices across the organization.

MW: Tell us more about yourself.

RC: I’m a quiet, self-contained person…NOT. Let me see:

• Born in the States, raised in Scotland
• Airforce brat
• Got MA Hons 2:1 from University of Glasgow in Scotland (established 1451)
• On 5^thcareer –
  • Started life in the theatre (performer, vocalist, light & sound designer, director)
  • Became cultural anthropologist (specializing in NW Pacific Coast Native Americans)
  • Went into integrated marketing to avoid deportation from Britain, only to then move to Canada and then the USA; worked on top brands as global brand strategist – McDonald’s, Nintendo, IBM, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, etc
  • Moved to Washington state to explore the world of design and innovation
  • Decided my legacy was to be found in education and left the commercial world to explore innovation at Penn State University

• From a family where mental elasticity and acuity trump all other skills
• Driven to understand the workings of the human mind and the dynamics of human behavior; daughter’s autism created learning lab of everyday life to tackle this subject
• Lover of learning, food, travel, reading and music
• Lifelong scholar; allergic to term “expert”

MW: What is new and next in innovation in higher ed?

RC: I always start from the why vs. the what.

We’re no longer just addressing the expectations of the digital generation – Millennials. We now must grapple with the learning demands of the mobile generation – Centennials. Institutions move at a glacial pace, and expectations and their resultant behaviors are shifting at a rate we’ve never seen before. The issue for all of higher ed is how we can address these groups’ needs swiftly enough to stay relevant when our organizations are not built to do so.

We need to break from the confines of our archaic committees and move to more agile decision making groups composed of not only educators and learning designers, but also our existing and future students. This means engaging students across a wider spectrum of ages like never before; including them in the ideation and builds of our advances, having them test the durability of these solutions and having them as critical authors in our marketing.

I believe we are witnessing one of the greatest shifts in education since the foundation of Florence. And it makes me giddy with the possibilities.

MW: What challenges have you seen in higher ed with innovation?

RC: Innovation can be very intimidating for people who consider themselves experts because it calls into question definitions on which they’ve built their status. One of my top priorities is to wake these people up. Everyone here has some innovation locked inside all the shelters and protections they’ve built up over the years. My job is really to open their windows and let in the fresh air. Reawaken their potential and get them to, once more, explore new lands. It’s a really fulfilling challenge.

MW: What are you most excited about for Converge 2015?

RC: I’m new to this world, so I’m really excited to meet the players in a creative setting like New Orleans. Bring on the jazz!

MW: Attend Converge 2015 to hear Rose and many other great speakers. We hope to see you there!