It was a non academic audience, so he kept it light, or “lite” actually. He is associate director at the Curb Center at Vanderbilt. He spoke about the importance of creative habits. I’m trying to track down the working definition of creativity that they are using. I found some hints at the Curb Creative Campus website. Ambiguity and the non-routine were important parts as well.

Not just art.  While many people jump to the conclusion that “creative” is a synonym for the arts, we focus on the common creative process that threads through art, design, media, the physical and biological sciences, engineering and computer science, the performing and dramatic arts,  entrepreneurship and technology development.  Developing the capacity for creative problem solving and implementation of innovative solutions is the focus of our initiative. Creativity involves more than the generation of ideas.   We focus on four creative capacities essential to the creative problem solving and innovation process: 1) the ability to invent and imagine; 2) the expressive agility to pitch and communicate an innovation’s advantages using an array of media, 3) the dexterity to lead collective creativity–the ability to harness multi-disciplinary expertise and integrate multiple ideas, interests, and perspectives, and 4) the capacity to negotiate and implement innovations and solutions to problems. Creativity cannot be developed in a single class.  Rather, we believe that creativity must be developed as a practice—an everyday habit of creative seeing, thinking, making, and doing. To that end, we seek to embed engagement of creative capacities across the entire student experience—from orientation to graduation, across campus and in our classroom—and in the campus experience of faculty and staff. We develop students who can ably engage the creative process—just at a time when these capacities are needed by employers and society. To do so, we focus on building students’… …Resilience. Willingness to experiment and take risks. Empathic listening and inquiry skills. Capacity to manage ambiguity. Dexterity with design thinking and prototyping. Ability to tell their stories, pitch ideas, and reflect on their emerging narrative. Implement their ideas.  Fluency in negotiating and co-creating across disciplines, organizations, and cultures. Imagine and realize creative projects…in a way that is engaging, rigorous, and fun.