In order to enhance its culture and the cohesion and sense of belonging of teachers, the Faculty of Political Science and Law of the Open University of China (OUC) held a team-building “open space” event on 7 September 2021, brainstorming problems in the development of the faculty and solutions to these, and aiming to promote reform.

Liu Xianghong, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and secretary of the OUC Discipline and Inspection Committee, attended.

Led by Sun Jiangtao, a teacher in the School of Social Sciences, the event broke with the conventions for similar meetings, and was divided into three sessions: ice-breaking, discussion, and sharing.

The purpose of the ice-breaking session was to relax participants and make them familiar with one another. Mr. Sun led simple exercises to accomplish this, including an activity to create groups at random, regardless of the affiliations or titles of members, and another to encourage communication and mutual understanding within these groups.

The discussion session was the core of the event, and began with each participant writing down on a card his or her thoughts on the theme, "Problems facing the development of the Faculty of Political Science and Law". Each group then created a summary of the problems raised, merging these where there was overlap, and putting them in order from greater to lesser. The advantage of this approach was to place all participants on an equal footing in discussing and summarising the problems, and allowing consensus on planning for Faculty development to be reached.

Finally, in the sharing session, each group reported its results, allowing common ground to be identified. The problems named included  insufficient room given to teachers to exercise their professional skills, poorly structured teaching teams, and lack of support for the development of younger teachers.

After the final session, Gu Xiaohua, vice dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Law, addressed the participants, and praised the event for its innovative form and its success in identifying problems. He pledged that the faculty would work toward solutions to these, and toward better opportunities for teacher growth.

Liu Xianghong pointed out that the event, with its novel form, provided a good platform for discussion, not only enhancing teacher cohesion, but also uncovering real problems, and providing a basis for reform of the Faculty. She expressed the hope that the practice would be made use of by other faculties as well, allowing them to face their problems and seek ways to solve them, as she expected the Faculty of Political Science and Law to do now, and even the OUC itself, for any problems requiring the attention of the university as a whole.

Written by Sun Jiangtao; photos by Yu Qingyao, OUC