At the Ronin Institute, we’ve been thinking a lot about our institutional purpose, and how we can make sure that we stay on track. Here are some things that we try to keep in mind:
The Ronin Institute is reinventing academia, but without the academy.
The key word there is “reinventing”. It’s actually harder than you might think to try to stay out of the same rut that the conventional academy has taught us is the norm. We remind ourselves constantly that “that’s how others do it” is not good enough.
To create a new model for scholarly research that recognizes that the world outside of traditional academia is filled with smart, educated, passionate people who have a lot to offer to the world of scholarship. We want anyone who is interested in pursuing high-quality scholarly research to be able to do so. Moreover, we want these people to be able to pursue their research in a way that is consistent with all of their life’s priorities.
Our mission highlights equity in scholarship (for more on this, read Jon’s blog post from 2012). This is where it gets tricky in regards to “staying on track”. There are no easy solutions here–not least of all because so many sectors in our society fail tremendously at this. Some specific ways that we’ve been trying to tackle this at Ronin include our: Code of Conduct, volunteer leadership approach, membership model, and virtual infrastructure plan. The equity question really does permeate every major decision we make at Ronin. Rather than aiming for equity as a destination, we seek to embed it within the Institute. Ronin Research Scholars can help us all stay the course by sharing their diverse perspectives and challenging our (own) world views.
Arika is a Research Scholar and Community Director of the Ronin Institute. She is a social-ecologist who works with human-environmental issues including, community resilience, natural resource management, and the application of science. In addition, she is the Founder of Middle Path EcoSolutions, a consulting firm that helps organizations with community building.
This post is a perspective of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Ronin Institute.
