Creative Campus & What If

The Creative Campus is a framework for designing and evaluating the extent to which a campus is organized around maximizing creative exchange, the development of creative capacities among its faculty, staff, and students, and the use of creativity in its approach to building community, advancing belonging, engaging across cultures, and bridging divides (art/science, generational, class, race, etc.). A Creative Campus is defined by work at intersections; serendipity and improvisation; entrepreneurialism, in and outside the classroom; the embrace of creative expression in all areas of campus life; and a spirit of experimentation and prototyping. A creative campus embraces the non-routine; it encourages revision and continuous adaptation; it welcomes failure; and it rewards collaborations that allow new ideas and practices to emerge. President Tepper helped introduce the idea of the Creative Campus throughout higher education beginning in 2004. No campus, yet, has made creativity an organizing principle for its design. Hamilton has a history of embracing creativity – from the creativity of its founding trustee, Alexander Hamilton, to the creativity at the core of Kirkland College, which merged with Hamilton in 1978.