Learning Matters: a Bridge to Practice

What do you get when a Communication Scholar, Historian, Geographer, and a Biologist walk into a room during Black History Month?

Today we have with us Divine Agodzo, Robynne Healey, Maxwell Ofosuhene and Laura Onyango to discuss and celebrate intersections of black contributors to history and issues of diversity, inclusion and reconciliation across the full spectrum of our educational offerings and scholarship.  Answering questions such as, What do you believe are some of the unique challenges facing Black students in Christian universities today, and how do you work to support and empower them? In your opinion, what can be done to address systemic racism and discrimination within Christian universities and communities? What are some books or movies  that you consider helpful in exploring or learning about black history?

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Today we have with us Sydney Dvorak, Angela Konrad and Kate Muchmore Woo to talk a student practicum project where over 100 theater posters spanning 50 years were digitized and archived in TWU’s Special Collections.

For more information about the project and to access the archive please see:

https://create.twu.ca/library/2022/03/09/search-twu-theatre-production-posters-online/

 https://archivessearch.twu.ca/posters-3

 https://www.twu.ca/news-events/news/history-student-digitizes-over-100-theatre-production-posters-twu’s-archives-and

Learning Matters: a Bridge to Practice

Discussing matters of learning and building bridges to practice.

https://tinyurl.com/learningmatters-twu

Podcasting from Studio Yarah at Trinity Western University – hosted by Scott Macklin.

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 Today we have with us Monika B. Hilder who teaches in the English Department at Trinity Western University.  Monika is an author, teacher, and speaker who specializes in Fantasy and Children’s Literature with a particular focus on the writings of C.S. Lewis and other Inklings-related writers.  She edited The Inklings and Culture: A Harvest of Scholarship from the Inklings Institute of Canada (Co-edited with Sara Pearson and Laura Van Dyke).

How did five twentieth-century British authors, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Dorothy L. Sayers, along with their mentors George MacDonald and G. K. Chesterton, come to contribute more to the intellect and imagination of millions than many of their literary contemporaries put together? How do their achievements continue to inform and potentially transform us in the twenty-first century? 

Monika serves as the Co-Director of the Inklings Institute of Canada  (IIC).  IIC encourages the advancement of Inklings scholarship through literary criticism and related collaborative research across the disciplines; investigates how these authors critiqued their own cultures and therefore help us to respond to our own historical/cultural context; promotes the publication of research and scholarship in peer-reviewed journals, books, and other suitable venues appropriate to the various disciplines; fosters undergraduate and graduate student involvement in such research and scholarship; seeks funding for Inklings research; contributes to the current return of religious language to public discourse—and does so within the campus, with associated members nationally and internationally, and with the general public.

https://www.twu.ca/research/institutes-and-centres/university-institutes/inklings-institute-canada

https://monikahilder.com/

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Today we have with us  Erica Grimm, Joshua Hale, Alysha Creighton, and Patti Victor, to talk about the opening their exhibition at the Langley Centennial Museum, titled "Upstream/Downriver: Walking the stɑl̓əw̓ Watershed," a collaborative research-creation project that addresses climate change at the local scale of the lower Fraser River watershed.

TWU faculty partnered with experts from a wide range of science, humanities, and Indigenous knowledge backgrounds to walk the stɑl̓əw̓ Watershed, experts including Dr. Heesoon Bai (SFU), Dr. Katharine Bubel, Dr. David Clements, Dr. Tim Cooper (UFV), David Jordan, Dr. Maxwell Ofosuhene, Dr. Sam Pimentel, Dr. Bruce Shelvey, Annelyn Victor (Xwchíyò:m Nation), and Chief Andrew Victor (Xwchíyò:m Nation). 

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Today we have with us Russ Rosen discussing the Bez Arts Hub as a place for nurturing creativity and planting seeds for the harvest of ones life’s work.

Learning Matters series on convening methodologies for holding space for hope, healing and restoration.

Russ serves the artistic director at Bez Arts Hub in Langley, BC where he and his wife (Sandy) train and mentor emerging artists, host live music events, dance shows, workshops and all manner of arts and community interactions.  Bez is an intimate live performance venue which hosts some of the most notable artists from all around North America and beyond. With an inspiring sense of community, the warmth of great sound and the close personal engagement with the artists, Bez offers a unique and inviting atmosphere for enjoying live performances. Russ began his piano lessons at 4 years old, got kicked out at 7, took up drums at 10 and at 12 started a short lived band with Michael J. Fox called “Walrus”. Later he wrote the inspirational songs, “Got a Song in My Heart”, “Wind of the Spirit”, “Dancing in a Field” and many others for a year round “camp in the city” program called Rise Up.

https://www.bezartshub.com/

https://russrosenband.bandcamp.com/

http://www.russrosen.ca/

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Today we have with us Karam Dana discussing implementing creative critical pedagogies.

Learning Matters series on convening methodologies for holding space for hope, healing and restoration.

 Karam’s serves as the The Alyson McGregor Distinguished Professor of Transformative Research at University of Washington Bothell.  He was selected as the recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Teaching Award. His scholarship explores the evolution of transnational political identities and their impact on civic engagement and political participation, with a focus on Palestinians and American Muslims. As an interdisciplinary social scientist, he examines social contexts related to religion, identity, and politics to describe, explain, and provide answers to persisting theoretical and policy questions. The overarching theme of his scholarly journey is centered on how ethno-, socio-political, and religious identities are formed, evolve, and transform under different socio-economic and political circumstances. 

 Hie is the founding Director of The American Muslim Research Institute (AMRI), and the co-Principal Investigator of The Muslim American Public Opinion Survey (MAPOS), which remains one of the largest surveys of Muslims in the US, a decade on. He also led The Middle East Public Opinion Project (MEPOP) and directed more than a dozen public opinion surveys in the Arab world, including “The 2013 Palestinian Public Opinion Survey,” which explores Palestinian opinions and attitudes on various socio-economic conditions and political issues 20 years after the signing of the Oslo Accords.

 https://www.uwb.edu/ias/amri

https://www.uwb.edu/ias/mepop

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Today we have with us Amanda Fenton discussing holding space to spark new thinking and to foster collaborative leadership.

Learning Matters series on convening methodologies for holding space for hope, healing and restoration.

Amanda Fenton (she/hers) hosts participatory processes such as The Circle Way, Open Space Technology, World Café, Collective Story Harvest and others to spark new thinking, foster collaborative leadership, navigate uncertainty and possibility, accelerate learning, and move to wiser action. She is teacher of The Circle Way and the Art of Hosting, and is a co-designer and facilitator with Decolonizing Practices, inviting fellow settlers in the journey of learning and unlearning to transform colonial impacts and de-centre whiteness. 

Meeting Planner Tool Guide to the Meeting Planner Tool  and video Guide to the Meeting Planner Tool
How to Use the Web Version of Jamboard
How to Host Open Space Technology Online Using Zoom + Google Slides

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Today we have with us Benjamin Hunter discussing curiosity, flow, alchemy and music.

Learning Matters series on convening methodologies for holding space for hope, healing and restoration.

Benjamin has been busy cross pollinating multiple artistic disciplines for more than a decade, the Seattle based polymath and multi-instrumentalist has dedicated his life to transforming the world’s stale status quo into a vibrant, inclusive, communal, and compassionate society.  Hunter’s first tool was the violin accompanying him on laps around the world. Playing since age 5, he was fortunate to travel the world and absorb various musical styles at a young age. Receiving his degree in Performance Violin, with keen interest in politics and philosophy, Hunter set his sights on the intersection between art, community, and a rapidly evolving clash of culture. Touring with his band mate Joe Seamons in the internationally acclaimed, award-winning blues duo, Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons, Hunter’s stirring instrumentation and timbre brought tales of the slave trade, reconstruction, racial reconciliation, and America’s still broken promises to the uninclined.

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Seeking to formalize the education he received in school and delivered in music venues across the world, Hunter then founded Community Arts Create. In a time when music and arts education is being surgically extracted from school curriculums, the non-profit seeks to create space and opportunity for people of all ages and backgrounds to engage with their individual and collective creative identities, using that as a lens to view their connection with social justice.  However, schools only provided a temporary sanctum for Hunter’s gospel of changing the world through art. He needed a headquarters that existed for the sole purpose of bridging divides, filling knowledge gaps, and fostering a community around those ideals. 

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The Hillman City Collaboratory was soon formed. Housed in South Seattle’s Hillman City neighborhood, the “social incubator” has brought and maintained camaraderie, inclusiveness, education, and social wellbeing to the residents in and around an area that is seeing rapid shifts due to unrelenting displacement. His ultimate wish is to inspire a Collaboratory in every underserved community in the nation, showcasing the collective might of community members defying precarious economic circumstances through creativity, engagement, and dialogue.  That still wasn't enough for Hunter, and in 2016 he co-founded the Black & Tan Hall, a co-operatively owned restaurant and performing arts venue, shifting the for-profit paradigm to an alternative platform that is hyper-local, built by and for people rooted in community, and serves as an anti-gentrification model that combats displacement and sustains good jobs.  More specifically, B&TH supports and elevates arts that give voice, agency, and power to those too often ignored. A place where art and the artists are dignified, valued, and heard!  

To find out more about Benjamin’s work, check out: www.benjaminhuntermusic.com

Community Arts Create collective education

Hillman City Collaboratory social incubator

Black & Tan Hall co-operatively owned restaurant and performing arts venue

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Today we have with us Lisa Levine discussing helping people to get unstuck and reconnected to  limitless possibilities.

Learning Matters series on convening methodologies for holding space for hope, healing and restoration.

 Lisa is a Certified Life and Health Coach at Audacious Health & Wellness. She helps women who are approaching midlife to create new and healthy habits in the way they think, eat, sleep and move, empowering them to live their lives fully and audaciously. After a successful career as an Executive Producer of music videos, commercials and other media, she currently resides in Seattle spending much of her time writing, enjoying the beauty of the PNW and playing in the kitchen, creating healthy fare for her family and friends.  Lisa helps women create new and healthy habits in the way they think, eat, sleep and move, empowering them to live their lives fully and audaciously. She says, “I really think of myself as a Possibility Coach because that’s the ultimate goal of coaching; helping people get unstuck and reconnected to the limitless possibilities that exist for all of us.”

Lisa’s new book Midlife, No Crisis: An Audacious Guide to Embracing 50 and Beyondis now available.

 Check out her musings at The Audacious Life www.audaciouswellness.com

Podcasting from Studio Yarah at Trinity Western University – hosted by Scott Macklin.

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Learning Matters series on convening methodologies for holding space for hope, healing and restoration.

Today we have with us Martha Diaz discussing the creation cyphers of inquiry and becoming dealers of hope.

Martha Diaz (MD) is a community organizer, media producer, archivist, curator, and educator. MD is one of Women’s eNews distinguished 21 Leaders for the 21st Century whose work has traversed the hip-hop entertainment industry, the public arts and education sector, and the academy over the last 25 years. Her passion is advancing human rights and transforming communities through Hip-Hop media, technology, and social entrepreneurship. She has associate produced and consulted on numerous hip-hop documentaries including, Where My Ladies At? by Leba Haber Rubinoff (2007), Black August: A Hip-Hop Concert by Dream Hampton (2010), and Nas: Time Is Illmatic by One9 (2014). In 2002, MD founded the highly acclaimed Hip-Hop Odyssey (H2O) International Film Festival, the first and largest festival of its kind. She was invited to curate the first Hip-Hop movie series presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and served as a guest curator at the Museum of the Moving Image. 

In 2010, MD formed the Hip-Hop Education Center to research, cultivate and formalize the field of hip-hop-based education. Through her publications of research reports, books, and curricula, she has chronicled hip-hop history to preserve its cultural value and memory. A graduate of New York University’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program, MD has worked on archival projects with Parkwood Entertainment (Beyoncé Knowles-Carter), Tupac Shakur Estate, and National Jazz Museum in Harlem, to name a few. She was a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History – Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, Fellow at Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship, Curator/Scholar at The Schomburg Center, Community Scholar at Columbia University, and Nasir Jones Fellow at Harvard University. MD is currently completing the New School Creation Fellowship at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.

Hip Hop Education Center

 https://hiphopeducation.com/author/martha/

 Hip Hop Education Guidebook

 http://hiphoparchive.org/scholarship/bibliography/the-hip-hop-education-guidebook

 H2O Newsreel Film Catalog

 https://www.twn.org/h2o/responsive/h2ocatalog.aspx

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