Annual exchange tackles global issues
For the past seven years, students and faculty from Concordia’s Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability have been meeting with their counterparts in the Globalization Studies Program at Siena College to hammer away at the problems facing our planet.
While the discussions at the annual two-day Concordia-Siena Globalization Conference don’t have the power to change government policies, they do reveal the power of cross-border thinking.
Rosemarie Schade, principal of the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, says the two-day meeting provides students and faculty from both colleges with an invaluable opportunity to hear various perspectives on real-world political, social and environmental issues.
“For our students, it’s an opening into a world that’s very different from their own,” she says. “For us at the college, it’s very important that we have relationships that are personal and responsible with our international partners, because that way we can build small projects that are sustainable over a number of years. I think that’s really the strength of this collaboration.”
Adan Suazo, assistant to the principal of the Concordia-based college, has been heavily involved in organizing the conference over the years. He says it’s exciting to watch the conference attendees from both colleges (and countries) debate hot topics. “It’s amazing how similar, and yet how different we are, even though we’re neighbours and we share the longest land border in the world.”
The venue for the conference alternates yearly between the Loyola Campus and the Siena College campus in Loudonville, N.Y. This year, the American school is hosting the eighth edition of the conference, under the title The Future We Want: Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice.
Peter Stoett, director of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre, is among the presenters from Concordia. “I’ll make a short presentation on justice and ecocide, speaking about the need to link sustainable development, conservation, and peacemaking to social justice issues,” he says.
Students from both colleges will also have a chance to present at the conference. One Concordia professor, Matthew Anderson, has organized a course designed to prepare his undergraduate students for a speaking engagement at the international conference. He will select presenters from among the best performers in the class.
“It makes it a lot more accessible,” says student Maria Raskin, who plans to attend the conference. “Normally you hear about conferences or colloquiums, and it’s kind of daunting. I feel like having this as part of our coursework makes it easier to access it.”
Raskin says the conference’s theme fits perfectly with her studies and interests. “I think it brings up some really interesting topics, even just in speaking with people about the assignment we’ve been doing that is geared toward the conference” she says. “We’re working with the same theme, and it’s interesting the subjects that come out of that.”
For her assignment, Raskin decided to look at sustainable burial practices. One of her classmates is looking at the Plan Nord, an $80-billion, 25-year project to develop the northern part of Quebec. Another is looking at a local non-profit cycling organization.
The Concordia-Siena Conference has always had a strong environmental component, even before the Loyola International College became the Loyola College for Sustainability and Diversity. This makes sense, Schade says, given the urgency surrounding such issues as climate change and biodiversity. “As far as I’m concerned, sustainability is the biggest global challenge that we face at this point in time,” she says.
Concordia students attending the conference will end their trip down south with a few days in New York City — a welcome chance to unwind after two days spent tackling the world’s myriad problems. But there’s a caveat, Schade says smiling. “I always insist that the students do at least one cultural thing!”
Related links:
• Peter Stoett editorial — Montreal Gazette, February 17, 2013
• Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability
• Loyola Sustainability Research Centre
• 8th annual Concordia-Siena Globalization Conference