Host Andrew Vosko, associate provost and director of transdisciplinary studies at Claremont Graduate University, welcomes Gwen Garrison, a faculty member in the School of Educational Studies.
Garrison describes the characteristics that define her academic path and life journey, including the search for truth and the passion for storytelling – from English literature to data visualization. She also describes her doctorate work at Claremont which included quantitative and qualitative methods, now called mixed methods – in other words, a transdisciplinary approach.
Vosko describes his own first steps in understanding different modes of meaning-making as an undergraduate Asian language and literature major.
Understanding as a woman the need for advanced degrees to contribute at an executive level, Garrison describes her journey from CGU to Washington DC, how she became part of several large educational associations, and how she now works as a consultant to large national and international organizations.
She describes the need to understand administrative data; becoming conversant in economics, political science, sociology, and other disciplines; and opening herself to other ways of seeing.
She shares how an encounter with a grandfather clock as a teen gave her a love of challenges as well as an appreciation for the value of humility.
Vosko shares his own experience with “epistemic humility” through inter-professionalism and the training of medical students.
He asks Garrison about her theological training and the notion of developing and integrating different types of knowledge.
Responding to the question of how the data field has evolved over the last decades, Garrison describes working with different types of data.
They discuss the challenge of managing change and the "arc of innovation".
Vosko and Garrison discuss the need for multiple modes of reception and educational work as co-creation.
