Murphy Learning Organization Project

Murphy Learning Organization Project
to Take Shape in ’05 –‘06

Murphy Tax Credit 2005

     We are proud to launch the Murphy Learning Organization Project website that includes CNN (Collaborative Network News) featuring news items about the project and upcoming events involving our 16 community-based partners. In addition, the website will feature a calendar page where everyone may access events taking place throughout the year at school and district sites; an artifact page that files documents associated with the project; and a partner page featuring a list of the project’s members and their contact information.

Since the summer session, Peter Senge has connected us with one of his collaborators – Linda Booth Sweeney, project leader of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL). Maggie, Debbie, Tamara, and Paul have had several conference calls with Linda regarding the next phase in developing the project. Our last conference included another collaborator – Dennis Sandow, a research member of SoL, who has conducted social action research for the Hewlett-Packard Corporation and social action research in China. Dennis suggests that  initial activities occur: 1) generate a research case study that documents student success as a result of the collaborative partners; 2) provide a ½ day training for partners on our desire to conserve practices that benefit students and the principles of performance in social systems; meet with ASU students and faculty to discuss and expand our research capability.
     To fund these initial activities, Tamara wrote a grant which resulted in the project receiving a $10,000 grant from the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. More to come on when the activities will take place.

     Peter remains committed to the Murphy Learning Organization Project and eventually the district will become a part of the organization he founded - Society of Organizational Learning.

     As a researcher, author & consultant, Linda is dedicated to helping people of all ages learn to develop their own insights about the nature of the complex & interdependent world around them. Linda investigates and develops methods and tools for defining, investigating and solving systems-based challenges.
      
     For the past ten years, Linda has worked with the Organizational Learning Center at M.I.T. (now the Society for Organizational Learning, SoL) as a project leader, helping member organizations to solve work challenges through systems thinking and its related disciplines and to integrate systems thinking into in-house professional development programs. Linda has published several books designed to simplify understanding of systems frameworks, concepts and tools and to provide visual and experiential examples of systems-in action. She is currently an instructor in education and doctoral candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

Since 1987 Dennis Sandow has been developing social action research as a process to promote social, biological and financial well-being, and to study Dr. Humberto Maturana’s biology of cognition and biology of love. Dennis is a research member of SoL and has been conducting social action research in China.

     Dennis Sandow has been working with Hewlett Packard for several years, helping the organization to develop the capacity to see, name, and leverage the network of human relationships that produce product innovation, environmentally sustainable design, and enviable business.

"We believe that a learning organization must be grounded in three foundations: 1) a culture based on transcendent human values of love, wonder, humility, and compassion; 2) a set of practices for generative conversation and coordinated action; and 3) a capacity to see and work with the flow of life as a system."
          (Peter Senge & Fred Kofman)