Nouman Ashraf Senior Fellow Massey College University of Toronto Combating Hatred Conference February 4 th, 2010 ENABLING ENGAGEMENT IN A PLURALISTIC LEARNING COMMUNITY

Learning about our various communities is a critical part of a successful strategy

3 3 Learning Defined A complex, multi- centric, holistic activity, centered in making meaning, that occurs throughout and across the educational experience 3

4 4 Learning Reconsidered...as a transformative process that integrates academic learning and student development -- which can no longer be considered separate, but, instead,interact and shape each other as they evolve. 4

5 5 Learning has to be contextualized 5... included in a larger context that requires consideration of who students are, what they know, what their values and behavior patterns are, and how their family, social, and work experiences have influenced and affected them

6 6 Learning in context 6 Gilligan hooks Mezirow Friere Habermas GirouxDewey Knowles Cross Life is an institute of learning; the life experiences of individuals comprise the framework of, opportunities for, and barriers to learning. Learning is never abstracted from the person and their experience.

7 7 What does transformative learning feel like? 7 Perspective transformation is the process of becoming critically aware of how and why our assumptions have come to constraining the way we perceived, understand, and feel about our world; changing these structures of habitual expectation to make possible a more inclusive, discriminating, and integrating perspective; and, finally, making choices or otherwise acting on these new understandings. Mezirow

8 8 Develop ment 8...the function of education, the goal of education -- the human goal, the humanistic goal, the goal so far as human beings are concerned -- is ultimately the “self-actualization” of a person, the becoming fully human, the development of the fullest height that the human species can stand up to or that particular person can come to... Maslow, Competence 2.Emotions 3.Autonomy 4.Identity 5.Interpersonal relationships 6.Purpose 7.Integrity Chickering Self-actualization [development] depends reciprocally on learning

The Student Experience Defined The student experience is a confluence of conditions that exist in and around campus environments that impact the degree to which students engage with others, their environments, and develop knowledge and skills, and their own sense of themselves.

Growth in immigration is expected to be significant with real effects…

By 2017, 1 in 5 Canadians could be a member of a visible minority…

The most direct impact will be felt in the GTA

IDENTITY Nationality Ethnicity Perspectives Educational Background Community Leadership Class Languages Life Experience Life Experience Local Knowledge Sexual Orientation Gender Thinking Style Passion Hobbies Faith Religion Family Status Age Level of Ability Skills Sexual Preference

Cultural Learning: What’s the Value? To engage in cultural learning is hard, sustained work…. Difference is confusing and threatening because we are forced to confront ideas and lives that often bring into question our own commonly held assumptions and beliefs. If we are unable to participate in dialogues that question our views of the world, then we have not been engaged in cultural learning. William Tierney, Building Communities of Difference: Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century

Can we align disparate interests? Position Feelings Beliefs Values Needs Experiences Interests

So, How do we create an organizational culture of engagement? After all, I’m just one person?

As a matter of fact, engagement of diverse communities in not a new notion… “ Observe the nature of each country; diet; customs; the age of the patient; speech; manners; fashion; even his silence...one must study all these signs and analyze what they portend ”. - Hippocrates

I WOULD WELCOME YOUR QUESTIONS