New series of webinars about the role of universities in confronting the ecological crisis
The Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities (SACRU) comprises eight institutions. It organizes webinars for students, academics, and the general public. This new series of webinars will focus on how universities can solve the planet's socio-environmental challenges.
The SACRU Alliance (Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities) will hold the series of webinars: "Integral Ecology and the Working Future: Re-imagining University Education."
The main goal is to reflect the role of universities in the ecological crisis and the necessity of finding systemic solutions to the latter from the academy.
The webinars will be held on Zoom at 8:30 AM (EDT/Santiago) on:
- May 18th
- June 15th
- July 1st
According to Román Guridi, one of the organizers and Coordinator of International Affairs of the Faculty of Theology, the webinars intend to deepen the conversation about the role of universities in this changing context, especially considering the socio-environmental crisis.
"We will pose the same questions to all the speakers. Revolving around not only how universities are preparing students for the future, but also how they are helping to generate this future", he says.
This series of webinars emerged from one of the SACRU working groups, called: "Catholic Universities Caring for Our Common Home and the Wellbeing of All People."
This working group takes as fundamental reference the principles proposed by the encyclical Laudato si'. For instance, integral ecology speaks of the necessity of systemic solutions and the interconnection between environmental and social challenges.
Guridi says: "We hope to talk about the kinds of transformations required to make that future possible. Wich kind of education and research, we have to in our universities to impact societies."
Among the speakers are experts from the SACRU universities and other universities, such as David Orr from Oberlin College and Conservatory and Mary Evelyn Tucker from Yale University.
These webinars will be interesting to students and faculty members who want to reflect on the role of universities in our present context.
The SACRU Alliance is composed by:
- Australian Catholic University (Australia),
- Boston College (U.S.A),
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile),
- Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil),
- Sophia University (Japan),
- Universidade Catòlica Portuguesa (Portugal),
- Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy),
- Universitat Ramon Llull (Spain).
