Vision

To give you a sense of my vision for Trillium, I thought I'd offer here the Rationale I gave to QEP when asking for more funds to support the journal.  I tried here to outline the unique role Trillium plays on our campus.  I'll only add that recently I had a discussion with a business professor at the college, and she spoke about how vital she sees creativity to success in business.  Without it, how can one be innovative?  How can one see new ways to solve old problems?  I often wonder if the American education system puts enough stress on creativity--something no standardized test is able to measure.  I'm honored to be a part of one of Piedmont's creative outlets.

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The updated version of Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy created by his former student Lorin Anderson recognizes “creating” as the highest form of thinking (see Fig. I).

Fig. I Bloom’s Taxonomy, from http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm


Trillium’s goal is to encourage this highest order of thinking campus-wide.  Our journal encourages students to use their knowledge, whether scholarly, extra-curricular, or personal, to create works of literary and visual art for publication.  As the updated taxonomy suggests, this work demands a solid knowledge basis not only in the artist’s or writer’s subject matter, but also on the conventions of his/her chosen media.

Our team of student editors, working under the guidance of an experienced literary journal editor (Dr. Sian Griffiths), evaluates each work, building on their understanding of craft.  Our discussion of each piece leads to comparisons with other published works.  Again, these students are applying their understanding of literature to both analyzing and evaluating the work of their peers, which employs the highest orders of thinking.
Finally, our graphic design team is working under the supervision of graphic design professor Kaitlin Wilson-Bryant to create a logo and website that will best represent Piedmont’s campus and our students’ work.  They’ve met with the student editors to establish a vision for the journal that guides the designers in their creative efforts.

Trillium has a wide-ranging impact on student learning across all disciplines on our campus, and this grant would greatly enhance our ability to reach all Piedmont students.