Wednesday – September 25
12 pm to 1 pm
Multipurpose Room, Saint Paul University
Universities are anchors of hope in our communities. We need hope now more than ever as we grapple with unprecedented pressures – from climate crisis to geo-political instability, political polarization and a myriad of other crises. Hope is not merely a stance: it is a mindset we can build and then deploy in our communities and institutions.
As members of the academy, we are wired for hope – to teach it, to share it, and to imagine a better future.
Universities are complex organizational systems with robust social missions to the broader society. And yet they are also slow to change and reluctant to innovate. We must re-wire systems with hope circuits to better fulfill our mandate at a time where human and biotic flourishing are endangered.
Focusing specifically on the areas of learning, teaching, and leadership, this talk will outline ten conceptual tools that help us all build hopeful systems for human flourishing individually and in community with one another.
Dr. Jessica Riddell
Dr. Jessica Riddell is the founder of Hope Circuits Institute, a think tank dedicated to systems re-wiring and renewal in the post-secondary sector. She is a Full Professor of Early Modern Literature in the English Department at Bishop’s University (Quebec, Canada). She holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence at Bishop’s University; in this capacity, she leads conversations about systems-change in higher education that shifts the focus from resilience to human flourishing. In her research, teaching, leadership, and administration, she participates in a wide range of interchanges at the national and international levels about how universities fulfil the social contract to a broader society.