Like Leading a World-Class Orchestra: The FLEXspace Community

• 11/14/22

Grush: How long has FLEXspace been bringing the community together? Of course, you were there right from the start…

Stephens: It's been nearly a decade! It really began while I had the privilege of leading a SUNY provost's advisory council on teaching and technology. It was our provost at the time who started the initiative by questioning, with all the money invested in building spaces, whether the right people were around the table. He opened the question of how to share ideas better, about these often costly projects when building or renovating spaces.

Though initially it was a SUNY project, it attracted early interest from hundreds of people throughout higher education who got involved right from the start. Members of SUNY EdToa (the Educational Technology Officers Association) and CCUMC (which recently re-branded as the Education Technology Collaborative, or ETC), were instrumental in helping us figure out how to go about describing spaces in terms that could be easily and consistently shared among different types of professionals and stakeholders. And FLEXspace was born!

Investment from major university partners in addition to SUNY (including the CSU system, Penn State, Foothill De Anza Community College District, and Drexel University), the forming of our advisory board, and valued support from industry-leading corporate sponsors followed as FLEXspace quickly matured. We've especially benefited from our partnership with MERLOT over the years — they have had decades of experience working in open projects and OER. And as always, the FLEXspace community has continued to refine ways to come together to share their spaces for the benefit of all.

The FLEXspace community has continued to refine ways to come together to share their spaces for the benefit of all.

Members will also find us highly accessible through our own content, both on social media and in more traditional formats. We develop workshops, present regularly at conferences, and publish in relevant journals and newsletters, now including a monthly column in the Higher Ed A/V (HEAV) online site.

Grush: With all that you've learned over the years of guiding FLEXspace in mind, can you give us a peek at just a few of the things you're setting your sights on for the future?

Stephens: We've learned valuable lessons about leading large initiatives along the way. There is always a lot of work to be done, but mapping it out into bite-sized chunks, while being cognizant that people are volunteering their (or their institution's) time, is critical to improving FLEXspace for all.

We're considering how to formalize more recognition for those who contribute. It's easy for us to share the credit, because my FLEXspace partner Rebecca Frazee at San Diego State University and I are clear that we don't build the collection; we organize and curate what has been generously contributed to help education improve environments for all different kinds of learners.

Looking ahead further, we're also laying plans to expand the portal to begin to include software tools that complement teaching in built environments, and we're exploring ways to view spaces within immersive environments. So we can only imagine the milestones that will mark the growth and success of the FLEXspace community over the next decade. It's such an exciting time to be involved.