Student creativity to be recognized

Students, faculty and staff with a knack for creativity may submit a proposal before the end of the day to be eligible for the OSU Creativity Festival, March 25.

The festival showcases creative booths and demonstrations, and winners from the Creative Community Challenge.

Colleges, organizations and clubs must submit a one-page proposal to have a booth highlight its creativity.

People with talent in the arts are encouraged to demonstrate their work.

“I love making wooden bowls, plates and kitchenware,” said Kip Kelley, MBA student and member of the Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Scholars.

Kelley and the other scholars have been busy looking through more than 100 proposals turned in for the “Building a Creative Community Challenge.”

Last year’s grand prize winners received a $5,000 grant towards their proposal called “Farm to University Dining.”

The OSU Racing Team will show a compressed natural gas car and an E85 Ethanol Racer, said Matt Villarreal, Entrepreneurship Club president. His proposal would create scholarships to apply alternate fuel sources to the race car.

The OSU Creativity Festival is part of the School of Entrepreneurship’s Creative Initiative, and last year included guest speaker Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor for The New Yorker.
“It’s really about helping people take creative ideas to creative action,” said Dr. Melanie Page, associate professor, director of the Ph.D Program in Lifespan Developmental Psychology, director of the Creative Initiative, and Riata Entrepreneurship fellow through the School of Entrepreneurship.

“We really want to foster the idea on campus for people to be creative, to be innovative, to be entrepreneurial — that’s sort of the wave of the future — no matter what your major is,” said Page.

There will be an iPod giveaway for attending three of five events beginning at 11 a.m. with the Creativity Showcase at the Student Union and the Bartlett Center, Creativity Cuisine on Library Lawn, guest speaker Ravi Naidoo and presentations by the Creative Challenge Finalists at the Student Union Little Theatre. The day will end with a free concert by the Sherree Chamberlain Band at the Student Union Ballroom.

Naidoo helped bring the 2010 FIFA World Cup to South Africa and will speak about “Using Creativity to Transform a Nation.”

Half of the proceeds for the Creative Cuisine lunch will go toward feeding people in Haiti.
Anyone interested in showcasing their talent may submit proposals or demonstration ideas to melanie.page@okstate.edu. For more information, join the “Creativity Festival” group on Facebook.