EDUCATION
SFU’s Semester in Dialogue drives social change
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by Charlie Smith
imon Fraser University has registered a few firsts over the years. One of those came when the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue opened in September 2000. According to its executive director, Shauna Sylvester, it made SFU the first Englishlanguage university in the world to create a centre devoted to dialogue. When Sylvester’s predecessor, Mark Winston, launched the Semester in Dialogue in 2002 on Nature, Environment and Society, it was the first program of its kind in the world. The Morris J. Wosk Centre also hosted the first citizens’ assembly on electoral reform in Canada, in 2004, chaired by former SFU president Jack Blaney. “We offer something unique in the world,” Sylvester told the Straight by phone. She pointed out that Canadians have often played the role of convenor in foreign affairs on everything from human-rights issues to environmental councils to facilitating the first international treaty on land mines. But until the Semester in Dialogue program was created, there was nowhere in Canada for undergraduates to develop those skills. “It’s all about learning and building through community engagement,” she said.
It’s all about learning and building through community engagement. – Shauna Sylvester
In the summer of 2018, students (above) enrolled in SFU’s Semester in Urban Energy Futures with instructors Shauna Sylvester and Michael Small; this summer’s focus will be philanthropy.
According to Sylvester, the Semester in Dialogue has been an incubator for many ideas, policies, and programs over the years, including the Radius SFU social-innovation
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centre and the CityHive youth-engagement organization. It operates on a “cohort model”, where students guide their own learning on a different theme each semester. Sylvester has been an instructor for two of the semesters, but she emphasizes that she doesn’t teach the students. “I introduce them to certain people and facilitate a process for their learning,” she said. Students host thought leaders, who are invited to come in and make a presentation. The students moderate dialogues, engage in self-directed learning projects, and develop skills in workshops. Sylvester will be one of three instructors on the upcoming summer semester in Trust, Money and Power: Funding Change course, which offers students 10 credits. They’ll be enrolled Mondays to Fridays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., for seven weeks in May and June. The early bird deadline for enrollment is February 18. Prior to joining SFU, Sylvester worked in international development and climate action, raising millions of dollars for various organizations over the years. The two other instructors also bring a great deal of expertise to the class. Jacqueline Koerner is the founder and cochair of Ecotrust Canada. In addition, she’s a director of Foundations for Social Change, a director or trustee of three private foundations, and has conducted doctoral research on the world’s largest microfinance organization, the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. “She has a deep understanding of the practicalities from so many different vantage points of what philanthropy is,” Sylvester said. The other instructor, Kris Archie, Ts’qescenemc ell Seme7, is CEO of the
Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada and previously served as project manager on the Vancouver Foundation’s groundbreaking Fostering Change initiative focusing on young people aging out of government care. “She’s not just rethinking philanthropy,” Sylvester said, “she’s shifting the whole terrain in which it exists.” One of the objectives of the Semester in Dialogue is to ensure that students gain confidence in their own capacity to create change. “They also become more curious and they’re more capable of initiating a conversation, particularly with people they may not agree with,” Sylvester added. Through students’ participation in dialogues, they also gain greater listening skills. And Sylvester hopes that they realize that they can rethink and reshape philanthropy, which should not be seen as the exclusive preserve of the wealthy. Plus, they’ll come out of the class knowing what questions to ask about this subject in the future. Sylvester added that students will also become better writers, as one of the program’s goals is to write a publishable piece. But if they feel that podcasting is their preferred form of communication, that will also be encouraged. Last November, Sylvester attended the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue hosted a panel discussion with Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman and former Toronto mayor David Miller, who’s now with the C40 Cities organization. It was launched by the Cities and COP26 initiative. A former student, Fergus Linley-Mota, came up with the idea while doing directed studies in the Semester in Dialogue course and he’s now program coordinator for Cities and COP26 for Moving in a Livable Region. Another creation of the Semester in Dialogue program was the Keys to the Streets program, where pianos were placed in outdoor locations for the public’s enjoyment.”These are all things that emerged from student projects related to our city,” Sylvester said. g
