What Is the Hairball? and How Do You Orbit It?

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Networking Conference, April 21 2004 1 What is the Hairball? And how do you Orbit it? Vignettes of engagement by Maggie Haase, Sharon Lezberg, Jan Poppendieck, and Alesia Swan ArroyoFest By Maggie Haase Maggie serves as Director of the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Background Sixty-four years ago, amid much fanfare, groundbreaking took place to construct what was then called the Arroyo Seco Parkway, a scenic “pleasure drive” that was to be part of a complex and multi-varied transportation system along the Arroyo Seco corridor stretching from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles. Within a few years, the pleasure parkway and multi-modal transportation system had given way to the notion of a high-speed freeway (“the first freeway of the West”) as the dominant transportation mode. Plans for greening the surrounding communities and creating a more environmentally sensitive landscape design both on and off the freeway largely disappeared. A vision In 2002, the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) at Occidental College assembled a group folks from local communities and organizations with a vision of a community-building and awareness-raising event, at which folks from throughout the region could bike and walk ON the Arroyo Seco Parkway (AKA Pasadena Freeway), celebrate the rich heritage of this historic road and support current efforts to improve quality of life in the area. For 18 months, these people and organizations worked to plan, organize and fund raise to close the freeway for a day, successfully raising 250,000 in cash and in-kind support and jumping over hurdles and through hoops along the way. Through this process, UEPI emerged as the organization with the capacity to handle the financial and logistical requirements of organizing the event. This meant Occidental College would be the official host of the event. A Hairball Less than two months before the event date and despite the monumental efforts of the group, the event appeared as if it might not come to fruition. Occidental College was unwilling to assume potential liability for having thousands of people walking and biking on a Los Angeles freeway. They would not allow the event to occur under their name. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food System Higher Education-Community Partnership Program The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Networking Conference, April 21 2004 2 A Successful Orbit UEPI devised a plan. A new non-profit organization would be established under which the event could be sponsored and insured, independent of Occidental College. Recognizing the value of the coalition that had been built and involvement and support of local politicians, Oxy agree to facilitate and fund this process of establishing the new organization. Because the new organization, ArroyoFest, includes academics from Oxy and community members who have worked with closely with UEPI, the heart of the organization is remains close to its origins and remains as evidence of a successful orbit. A Magical Outcome On a Sunday morning in June, silence echoed through the Arroyo Seco’s canyon for the first time in 63 years. An early morning mist adorned the Parkway as more than 3,000 cyclists took to the road at 7 a.m. This was followed by blue sky for the several thousand walkers who emerged from four locations along the historic road. Ninety full-length banners prepared by students from schools in the area hung along fences lining the Parkway. Down at Sycamore Grove Park in Highland Park, cyclists and walkers were greeted with water, music, food and 70 exhibitors from all corners of the Arroyo and the region. To be ON the Parkway without a car, as so many people later described their experience, was transformative. The feeling of connection – with other people, with nature and with the past – was tremendous. Many felt empowered – “we owned the freeway,” as one cyclist described it – imagining what the Arroyo was once like and what it could be in the future. Cliff notes on Orbiting By Sharon Lezberg Sharon is Executive Director of the Friends of Troy Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin. I. Doing my hairdo First, I was born with no hair. Life was carefree and fun The wind blew over my head, and tickled my skin. Then my hair grew in. Thick. Curly, Wild. Uncontrollable. The wind blew through this mop, and tangled it. As I grew older, My hair started to fall out. Got tangled up in its own momentum - creating the hairball The hairball of my own experience. Yikes, I’m trapped. Trapped in the expectations, standards, goals, rules. Trapped in the daily routine and the endless tasks. Trapped in the roles I play at work and at home. Trapped in the structures we create to manage the frenzy. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food System Higher Education-Community Partnership Program The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Networking Conference, April 21 2004 3 I need to redo my hair… II. Daily Life in the Hairball I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date The traffic snarled me up again and then the phone it rang and now … I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date No time to say hello, goodbye - I’m late I’m late I’m late. This grant is overdue I’m really in a stew Three reports to write And bills to pay Another meeting late tonight And decisions to make yesterday! Employee supervision And project evaluation I need to talk to him and her To get that project going wow And then there’s funders to lure Not tomorrow, it must be now! You see I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date I should have budgeted more time, but I seem to be running on a dime and so… I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date No time to say hello, goodbye – I’m late I’m late I’m late. III. Becoming the Hairball and Untangling it When he said we could try it this way I said that it couldn’t be done We didn’t have funding to try anything new We didn’t have time to have any fun When she said we could be innovative I said we should stick to routine It’s tried and it’s proven and has worked in the past It’s for the best - not to be mean. They snickered and whispered together They were planning some sinister plot I saw the sparks flying, the energy mounting This coup I could tolerate not! The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food System Higher Education-Community Partnership Program The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Networking Conference, April 21 2004 4 While I busied myself report writing They were having a party of sorts Plotting and planning each new enterprise While awaiting my likely retort. Then, eureka, the light flashed before me I was ensnarled within my own rules And my traps tangled everyone within my reach We were bungled and old-fangled fools. Then an idea unfolded before me The more outrageous for simplicity We’d trash the old plans and do it anew I’d join them in complicity So without changing my tone or my manner I said “that concept could move us ahead Let’s try that new route, the one you suggest Let’s do it just like you said.” And they jumped up for joy in their freedom Our excitement reached to the sky my worries abated, my hopes gained in stride while we followed our strategy of dreaming up high. Letting Go By Jan Poppendieck Jan is professor of Sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York, in New York City. Twas the night before due-date and all through my house Not a creature was stirring, not even my mouse. My laptop was nestled all snug in its case, While visions of poetry danced o’er its face. My stories were down in my notebook with care In hopes that Erato-Muse soon would be there But No poem emerged; I decided on prose To tell you my story; here’s how it goes. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Food System Higher Education-Community Partnership Program The W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Networking Conference, April 21 2004 5 I really did not want to read this book! I found the title disgusting. Further, I have an antipathy to corporate work settings that made me think I had little to learn from anyone who had been foolish enough to spend his adult life in one. Why would anyone want to orbit a giant hairball, and if that’s what University-Community partnerships are all about, what am I doing here? But I’m a team player, so I bought the book. I sat down to read, and pretty soon I was absorbed, because I began to see all the similarities between his corporate hairball, composed of “accepted models, patterns, [and] standards” and the ruling orthodoxies of my own, academic milieu. Deeper, I began to see the internalized hairball, the hairball within. I could tell you lots of stories of creative ideas stifled by academic dogma or plain old fashioned bureaucracy. But most of these stories don’t have happy endings, so I’ll tell you one that does not yet have an ending at all. It is about what MacKenzie calls “letting go.” He says, “To be fully free to create, we must first find the courage and willingness to let go: Let go of the strategies that have worked for us in the past...” Once upon a time there was a professor of Sociology who had spent a long, long time researching and writing what turned out to be a relatively successful book.

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