Cafe West: An unlikely gathering place

My wife and I had a new addition to our family early on Monday morning.  Her name is Ashlyn and she weighed in at a hearty 6 lbs. 10 oz. (which, surprisingly, is a pound heavier than our first daughter).  Needless to say, it has been an exciting and tiring week as we've adjusted to having both an infant and a toddler at home.  But, she slept nearly 6 hours without interruption last night and our two year-old has only had a minor show of jealousy, so we are feeling like things are going well.

In between holding Ashlyn and watching a ridiculous amount of baseball while my wife recovered in a hospital room, I discovered "Cafe West," what, at first glance, appears to be a typical hospital cafeteria at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah.  I had eaten at Cafe West three years ago when our first daughter was born and knew the food was good, so I went back the night after Ashlyn was born.  It was nearly 11:00 p.m. when I walked down from the hospital room, so I expected things to be pretty quiet.  However, when I got to the cafeteria, I was surprised to find nearly 30 college-aged students camped out in a corner of the cafeteria eating, laughing, and just hanging out.  And, it was fairly obvious that none of them were patients at the hospital or there to see patients.  I went back the next night (mostly out of curiosity, but also for the most amazing onion rings I have ever had in my life) and there was a completely different (and smaller) group of students there.

Provo is a college town, so to see a group of students  out enjoying a late night meal at a local gathering place isn't uncommon at all.  But, I would never have guessed that gathering place would be a hospital cafeteria.  Let alone a cafeteria whose web presence is 4 lines on the general visitor info page of the hospital, who has no signage visible from outside of the hospital, and which a large percentage of the full-time citizens of Provo probably don't know about.  What has made Cafe West a gathering place?

I'm guessing here, but these are my hunches:

1.  Really good food.  No one hangs out at hospitals unless they have a good reason for it.  The food is what brings students to Cafe West (and keeps them coming back).  Not only does it give them a reason to gather, but facilitates conversation and connection.  And, yes, the food is that good.  I wasn't lying when I said their onion rings are the best.  They make my top 5 milkshake list as well (although there are only 4 flavors to choose from).  It also helps that their menu is very simple and easy to navigate--an idea I have blogged about before.  

2.  Cheap prices.  College students, particularly those in Provo, don't like to spend much money on their food (I know this from suffering through six months as a server at a local restaurant where a "good" tip was around 7%).  They gather to places where they can hang out, get full, and do it without taking too much of a dent.  

3.  Unique environment.  As far as cafeterias go, Cafe West isn't really all that unique at all (aside from the onion rings & milkshakes).  But, as a college hang-out, it's as different and unique as you can find.  College students like to feel different and to feel like they have insider knowledge.  When you eat at Cafe West for the first time, you feel like you have discovered a hidden gem amidst the relatively boring Provo landscape.  I think this adds to the allure and appeal for students.

4.  Small and intimate setting.  Cafe West couldn't have chairs & tables for more than 60 people and it is tucked away in a back corner of the hospital (just as you come in the "Labor and Delivery" entrance, which is how I found it).  What's more, the staff that run the cafe have a knack for making you feel like your welcome there and they're happy to see you (I have a hunch that this is a very intentional effort on the part of hospital administration--Utah Valley Regional Medical Center is part of Intermountain Health Care (IHC), who are well known for their patient-friendly culture and their efforts to embed that culture throughout all parts of the organization, from the housekeeping staff to, apparently, the 20 year old kid who makes shakes in the cafeteria).  When I went back on my 2nd night at the hospital, it was the same staff working behind the counter and I got the distinct feeling that they remembered me from the night before.  It was also obvious that they were familiar with the "regulars" and called them by name.  That's the kind of place people want to go back to and feel comfortable gathering to.

5.  Openness and accessibility.  Cafe West is open 23 hours a day, which makes it an ideal gathering place for college students who rarely sleep.  And, architecturally, it is wide open which facilitates larger groups and makes it easy to see late arrivals, acquaintances, etc. as they walk in (the large group I saw on my first night started with about 10 people and grew and grew as others came).  The lightweight, easy-to-move tables and chairs also provide flexibility in accomodating whatever size of group is there to gather.

The thing that I couldn't get over as I watched students and enjoyed onion rings was that Cafe West was never intended to be a gathering place for this demographic, but it happened rather serendipitously because the right conditions were in place.  What makes me laugh is that most of the gathering places we try to create inentionally aren't even close to this successful.   

How much has technology really helped us in education?

I just finished reading Atul Gawande's latest book, Checklist Manifesto.  In a nutshell, Gawande argues that the right kind of checklist (it turns out that good checklists aren't easy or quick to produce) can lead to vast improvements in the way we do things, and for very little cost.  It's a great read and one of the most practically useful books I've read in a while.

Gawande is a physician and uses stories from medicine to illustrate the effectiveness of simple checklists (there are also some fascinating examples from building construction and finance).  One of the areas where checklists have made the most difference are in operation rooms.  It turns out that for even the most developed countries--those with great hospitals, state-of-the-art medical technologies, and highly-trained physicians--surgical complications are a fairly significant problem.  Gawande and his team have managed to develop simple checklists that, when used properly, have drastically reduced complication rates.  It is important to note that these have not been modest findings, the results have been startling and and hard to argue with.  

The interesting thing in all of this is that the vast majority of physicians and hospitals have refused to use the checklist.  Instead most have opted to invest in $1.7 million remote controlled surgical robots that have driven up costs massively, without producing any significant improvements.  Meanwhile, the low-tech, low-budget checklists are saving lives.

There seems to be a parallel here to education.  More and more, institutions are adopting technology with the hope that it will revolutionize learning.  In my graduate work I spend a fair amount of time with instructional technologists, some who tout technology as the saviour of schools.  I should also confess that I am sometimes a sucker for cool ed tech gadgets because they seem to make learning fun and engaging.  That's not to mention my reliance upon technology for some of the most basic functions of my job (just last night I made a presentation to a group of parents of incoming students and used the bells and whistles of a fully-mediated auditorium to "enhance" my remarks).

The nagging question I keep having, though, is whether the very expensive technology we use has really improved the learning experience for students.  It likely cost thousands of dollars to outfit the auditorium I spoke in last evening.  And, I would estimate that there are at least 100 other rooms of various sizes just like it across the rest of my campus.  In many ways this is nice.  It means that instructors can use PowerPoint slides, show media clips, play music, etc.  These things are entertaining for students and can deepen engagement.  But, how much more did the parents in my session learn because I used technology?  What if the computer had crashed mid-presentation?  Would I have been prepared enough to make the remaining 15 minutes useful?  Would a low-tech "technology" like a "minute paper" have been just as beneficial as a data slide?

I'm not arguing for the elimination of technology in higher education (or any setting for that matter).  But, I wonder how often we falsely assume that twitter, tech classrooms, and iClickers will simplify the educational process and prevent educational failures.  Could it be that simple pedagogical tools, processes, or philosophies could be just as impactful and at a much lower cost?  And, what sorts of new failures does technology introduce?  Gawande frames this question well:

"We have most readily turned to the computer as our aid.  Computers hold out the prospectof automation as our bulward against failure.  Indeed, they can take huge numbers of tasks off our hands, and thankfully already have--tasks of calculation, processing, storage, transmission.  Without question, technology can increase our capabilities.  But there is much that technology cannot do:  deal with the unpredictable, manage uncertainty, construct a soaring building, perform a lifesaving operation.  In many ways, technology has compicated these matters. It has added yet another element of complexity to the systems we depend on and given us entirely new kinds of failure to content with."

What are our "educational checklists?" (i.e. those simple and frugal things that can make signficant differences in learning).  And, what are the "surgical robots" in education that look cool, but deplete budgets without making any meaningful improvement to the educational landscape?  And, maybe most importantly, how do we know when we're dealing with an expensive failure or something that, while expensive, truly will revolutionize learning?

What are our institutions learning?

Higher education, by definition, is about learning. Students attend lectures, work on group projects, and write exams. Faculty members deliver instruction and conduct research. And, attending professional conferences to stay abreast of developments is standard practice. All of these behaviors are, in theory, intended to facilitate learning. I wonder, however, what and how our institutions are learning. Ironically, in our efforts to educate students we seem to occasionally neglect our own collective education. There was a time when doing things the same way year after year probably didn't pose a significant problem for universities and colleges. But, to stay relevant it will be critical that institutions find ways to drive their organizational learning.

Institutions that learn don't need to reinvent the wheel every year--there are some educational practices that have worked for hundreds of years and those things shouldn't be meddled with--but, there are some things that I would like to see happen a little more often in higher education.

Learning from other successful organizations and industries. Too often we make excuses for our failings with the refrain "Education is just too different; what works in business, healthcare, government, etc. (you can fill in the blank) just won't work for us." While education is a unique setting, closing our eyes and ignoring best practices from outside our field will ensure that we stagnate. One excellent example of an organization that has increased quality while driving down costs is Intermountain Healthcare (IHC). IHC uses data to trigger reminders to physicians and nurses of "care guidelines" that have been shown to make a difference in patient care. Data also drives the decision-making at IHC hospitals and clinics. The result? Better healthcare and lower costs for patients and insurance companies (interestingly enough, at times this practice has decreased revenue for IHC). For a slightly more abstract discussion of learning from other settings, see this TED talk by biomimicry expert Janine on what designers can learn from nature.

Learning from disasters and failures. This article describes a study performed on the mining industry and whether or not mining professionals learn from fatal mine accidents. Two very interesting recommendations are made by the researcher (Peter Madsen) that could be applied to education: 1) organizations should seek to learn more from minor accidents/failures, creating a culture of continual improvement and 2) investigations into organizational failures should focus more on determining what went wrong and less on scapegoating or finger pointing. Imagine how much more could be learned from our institutional failures if we were more concerned with improving and stopped trying to find someone to blame. Essentially, these practices help organizations adopt the "growth mindset" described by Lois Dweck in Mindset.

Learning from the stories and lives of those within our institutions. There is likely a great deal of wisdom and intellectual capital in places we wouldn't normally look (e.g. students and staff members). On most campuses the only members of the institution with a seat at the decision-making table are faculty members and high-level administrators (who some might argue have the most narrow and biased perspective). It would be interesting to explore ways of involving those on the margins of the academy in meaningful ways, particularly in telling stories about their experiences on our campuses. A qualitative analysis of those stories might yield some interesting lessons for organizations. See "Unexpected Philosophers" and/or The Philosopher Kings for an example of what I'm talking about.

My sense is that higher education is going to need to adapt and change over the next few years. To do that we'll need to be much more vigilant in trying to drive organizational learning than we have in the past.