The summit will bring together education leaders (administrators, superintendents, principals, deans, faculty, teacher-leaders), private and not-for-profit sector leaders for a dialogue and discussion about involving people in the change necessary to achieve new learning cultures that are supported by the effective use of technology.

The one-day summit consists of two sessions in the morning ("Exploring the Leadership Required for New Learning Cultures – A Personal Experience" and "Learning and Leading: A Practical Approach to Engage Change"). Delegates will split into break-out groups in the afternoon to discuss Leading a New Learning Culture – Becoming a Narrative Champion. 

"This summit is a great leadership learning opportunity for 91ŃÇÉ« employees involved in the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF) projects that began earlier this academic year," noted Janet Murphy, ABEL program director. The AIF initiative provides support to faculty in order to advance innovation and change at 91ŃÇÉ« in the areas of teaching, learning and the student experience.

"This innovation and change on campus perfectly complements the topics that will be discussed at the summit," said Murphy.

Speakers and facilitators for the summit include: Dean Shareski, a digital learning consultant for Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan; Alec Couros, a professor of educational technology and media and the coordinator of information and communications technology at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina; and George Couros, the division principal of innovative teaching & learning for Parkland School Division in Alberta.

Right: Dean Shareski

In addition to the face-to-face event in February, delegates are also invited to participate in two virtual learning sessions happening in the spring – “Understanding the New Learning Culture and Learner Footprint” and “Celebrating and Planning the Way Forward”.

Left: George Couros

These virtual sessions will be easy to join, and details on how to participate will be provided the day of the summit. The virtual sessions will be hosted by the speakers and facilitators from Feb. 10. Descriptions of the virtual sessions are as follows:

Understanding the New Learning Culture and Learner Footprint 

This session will explore the specifics of citizenship in a digital context. Rather than focusing upon prevention, participants will develop ideas to create and contribute to purposeful, engaged citizenship while learning online. These ideas will be explored and shared within the context of digital literacy, job-embedded learning, and engagement with parents, family and community.

Right: Alec CourosĚýĚýĚýĚý

Celebrating and Planning the Way Forward  

This session will provide delegates with an opportunity for “show and tell”, sharing their successes and challenges in implementing new learning cultures. This session is about reflecting upon your own professional growth and learning from fellow participants’ strategies that engaged systems in change and learning more about the road ahead.

To learn more or to register you and/or your team, please visit the website.

As part of the Professional Learning Program, ABEL offers two face-to-face conferences every year – the Leadership Summit in the winter and the ABEL Summer Institute.

Look for information about the ABEL Summer Institute .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Convened by the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at 91ŃÇÉ«, the theme of the institute is “Slavery, Memory, Citizenship”. It marks the International Year for People of African Descent, as designated by the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

As part of the proceedings, MichaĂ«lle Jean (right), former governor general of Canada, current UNESCO special envoy to Haiti and the recipient of a 2007 honorary doctor of laws degree from 91ŃÇÉ«'s Osgoode Hall Law School, will announce the launch of the UNESCO Slave Route Project: Itineraries of African Canadian Memory initiative during her keynote address on Aug. 23.

The project is a long-term initiative to identify important sites of memory that relate to people of African descent in Canada. The (part of the organization's Division of Cultural Policies & Intercultural Dialogue) has recognized that historic sites associated with people of African descent in Canada constitute a UNESCO “Itinerary of Memory”. 

“We are pleased that 91ŃÇɫ’s Harriet Tubman Institute is hosting the program on slavery, memory and citizenship, with presentations by many distinguished guests, including Canada’s former governor general, the Right Honourable MichaĂ«lle Jean,” says 91ŃÇɫ’s President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “Our Tubman Institute has played – and continues to play – a leading role in fostering debate, informing public policy and striving to resolve current social injustices as they relate to racism and slavery.”

The Itineraries of African Canadian Memory initiative will detail how the experiences of Africans and their descendants “have contributed to building this nation from 1604 through the present day,” says 91ŃÇÉ« Distinguished Research Professor Paul Lovejoy, Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History and director of the Harriet Tubman Institute. “The goal of the project is to raise consciousness about the diversity of the Canadian past.”

Lovejoy, along with noted Underground Railroad historian and award-winning author Karolyn Smardz Frost and historian and genealogist Hilary Dawson, are working with community partners, government agencies and heritage organizations to identify sites evocative of the African Canadian experience. The purpose of the Itineraries of African Canadian Memory initiative is to establish the process by which Canadian sites related to slavery and slave resistance can be officially recognized by UNESCO. Eleven sites designated by the Ontario Heritage Trust have already received UNESCO recognition.

Delegates at the 2011 Summer Institute will explore African migrations, slavery and the slave trade from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Ongoing research projects by scholars at the Tubman Institute and its partners will be highlighted as part of the institute's proceedings. The event is associated with a Major Collaborative Research Initiative funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The week-long Summer Institute will provide a forum for senior scholars, junior researchers, teachers from all levels of education, librarians and public policy-makers to discuss historic and contemporary issues of forced servitude (slavery); the ways in which slavery is researched, taught and publicly presented (memory); and the impact of this public memory on status, placement and recognition in the national policy (citizenship). The Summer Institute will be broadcast via video podcasts to off-site workshops held simultaneously in Haiti.

Plenary sessions will be delivered by 91ŃÇÉ« Professors Lovejoy, Smardz Frost and Annie Bunting; Toyin Falola, distinguished professor, University of Texas; Francine Saillant, CELAT, Laval; Amani Whitfield, University of Vermont; Myriam Cottias, CNRS, Paris; Sir Hilary Beckles, principal, University of the West Indies, Barbados; Maria Elisa Velázquez, president, UNESCO Slave Route Project; and Blaise Tchikaya, executive board, the African Union. These sessions will be held daily from Aug. 22 to 27, between 9am and 11am.

Jean Augustine (left), Fairness Commissioner of Ontario and the first African Canadian woman to be elected to the Parliament of Canada, will be the keynote speaker at the closing luncheon on Aug. 26. Augustine is the recipient of a 2011 honorary doctor of laws degree from 91ŃÇÉ«, and has donated her archival and parliamentary materials to 91ŃÇÉ«'s Faculty of Education, thus creating the opportunity to establish 91ŃÇɫ’s Jean Augustine Chair in Education in the New Urban Environment.

“The Summer Institute showcases the strength of interdisciplinary research at 91ŃÇÉ«,” says Robert HachĂ©, 91ŃÇɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “Researchers work together with partners, community groups, international and external organizations to disseminate new knowledge and improve the accessibility of information across various sectors in society, while addressing complex social issues.”

For more information, including a list of speakers and sessions, visit the ·É±đ˛ú˛őľ±łŮ±đ.ĚýĚý

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Can universities cure political indifference? Yes they can, according to 91ŃÇÉ« Professor . “Universities must address the democratic deficit,” said Fallis, this year’s Giambattista Vico Lecturer. They can play a critical role in confronting the democratic deficit pervading politics at every level – declining voter turnout, strident and polarizing debate and public decision-making dominated by business elites and experts.

Right: George Fallis

In a lecture titled “Democratic Deficit: Universities and the Future of Democracy”, delivered Feb. 15 at Founder’s College Assembly Hall, Fallis, who is professor of economics and social science in 91ŃÇÉ«'s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), argued that the problem of political indifference must be confronted not just by political parties and parliaments but by universities. Universities are not just institutions of teaching and books, not just institutions of the economy, but institutions of democracy, he said.

The current disconnect between the interests of citizens and those in positions of power, Fallis believes, creates widespread skepticism towards our institutions and a lethargy around political participation – known as “the democratic deficit”.

In examining the sometimes-uneasy relationship between universities and the growing movement towards democracy over the centuries, Fallis stated that universities initially resisted democracy: “Democracy and the university did not develop in parallel.”

“The background is great economic change. We’ve moved from an agricultural to industrial, then service-based and now a knowledge-based economy,” said Fallis.

These momentous economic changes moved the university from a more peripheral role – preparing a small number of elites – to the new role of central engine to the economy, providing mass education. This transformation has resulted in the phenomenon of the “multiversity”, with no central theme but many diverse responsibilities.

Above: Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Dean Martin Singer introduces Fallis to the capacity crowd at the 2011 Giambattista Vico Lecture

While originally seen as a democratizing force, especially in the decades immediately following the Second World War, Fallis argues that this mission creep is now forcing universities to all but abandon their role of preparing highly engaged political citizens. Instead, universities’ movement closer to government and to business has created a meritocracy ruled by a class of new patricians – highly accomplished and successful individuals who feel less responsibility for the general population because they have “earned” their status through intense competition. He describes these new patricians as moving within a privileged Davos culture – named for the Swiss town where political, business and academic elites retreat each year for the World Economic Forum.

An edited recording of Fallis’ presentation is posted on the .

The fifth annual lecture in the series, it was sponsored through an endowment created by Elvio DelZotto, his brothers Angelo and Leo DelZotto, and other friends and family members. The lecture was created as a tribute to the late Fred Zorzi, Elvio DelZotto's friend and law partner.

has published widely on housing, urban policy and constitutional reform. His current research focuses on universities: their roles and responsibilities in the 21st century; the value of undergraduate liberal education; and the role of university-based research in national innovation. His most recent book is .

At 91ŃÇÉ«, the Princeton-educated Fallis has served as chair of economics, dean of the former Faculty of Arts and chair of the Senate Academic Policy & Planning Committee. He has been academic colleague on the Council of Ontario Universities and an auditor of degree programs at Ontario universities.

The annual Giambattista Vico Lecture was named after an 18th-century Italian philosopher of history, culture and myth whose ideas had a profound influence on the humanities and social sciences.

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In his lecture, “Asian Identity: Becoming Canadian”, Choy will review his personal insights into life as an in-between citizen, living as a hyphenated Chinese-Canadian for most of his life. Choy – born in Canada in 1939 – will explore how he feels now that he has "become a Canadian." No more hyphens. He will expose the prejudices and racism that still prevent many people from feeling that they belong in Canada as full-fledged citizens. The irony is that these prejudices and racist attitudes are found from both inside and outside one's ethnicity and colour, Choy says.

The event, which will be held May 25, from 7 to 9:30pm in the McLean Performance Studio, 244 Accolade East Building, Keele campus, will be chaired by Vivienne Poy, Canadian senator and patron of Asian Heritage Month in Canada.

Right: Wayson Choy. Photo by Raymond Lum.

Choy, a member of the Order of Canada, has appeared as a subject in Wayson Choy: Unfolding the Butterfly, a full-length documentary film by Michael Glassbourg, and is featured on the co-produced China-Canada documentary . His latest book is  and he is currently working on his third novel and fifth book. His other publications include , and , which was called one of the 100 most important books in Canadian history by the . His work has been translated into Hungarian, French, German and Dutch.

He is a professor emeritus of Humber College, where he is currently a faculty member for the Humber School for Writers Summer Program. In 2002, he was made companion of Fronteir College in recognition of his outstanding services for furthering literacy awareness.

The discussant for the Asian Heritage Month Lecture will be English Professor from 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

The lecture will be paired with a performance of OrienTik/Portrait, which features the intricate and mesmerizing choreography of former 91ŃÇÉ« student Alvin Erasga Tolentino and fellow dancer and 91ŃÇÉ« grad Andrea Nann (BFA Spec. Hons. '88). The pair will be joined by taiko drummer Jordy Riley and classical pianist Alison Nishihara.

Their performance will explore an Asian identity that is diverse in culture, creating a bridge between the identities of Canadians and the rest of the world. In OrientiTik/Portrait, sound and movements integrate and weave together in an enriching layer of moments in time. It highlights the experience, mediums and high artistry of each artist. Their aim is to capture the resonance and transparency with the meeting of two performing mediums.

The event is presented by the 91ŃÇÉ« Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) as a part of the 2010 Asian Heritage Month Festival with support from the following groups: 91ŃÇÉ«, the Office of the Vice-President Academic & Provost, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Graduate Program in Dance, the Asian Heritage Month Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc. (partially funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage), the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and community partner the .

Light refreshments will follow the event. Due to space restrictions, RSVPs are required. Contact YCAR at ycar@yorku.ca or call 416-736-5821. For more information, visit the YCAR Web site.

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