May 9, 2024 • 55 mins
Robert Ame from Laurier’s Human Rights and Human Diversity delves into his comprehensive approach towards enriching educational experiences through internationalization. He shares his journey as an international student from Ghana to Norway and Canada and how those experiences shaped his teaching philosophy centered on the value of cross-cultural knowledge. Robert highlights the significance of creating inclusive educational environments that embrace a global perspective and shares his belief in the potential for academic pursuits to lead to meaningful societal change. He talks about establishing bi-directional international partnerships and illustrates the profound impact of these programs on fostering community among international students, combating isolation, and promoting cultural exchange.
Laurier’s Donald F. Morgenson Awards for Teaching Excellence honour those who, through their commitment to exemplary teaching, have made significant contributions to the educational experience of Laurier students. Learn more about award-winning teaching at Laurier.
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(00:00):
Welcome to Laurier's Teaching Excellence Conversation series.
I'm Deborah VanNijnatten, academic director of teaching excellence and innovation at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Today I'm with Robert Ame from lawyers Human Rights and Human Diversity program,
and Robert received the 2023 Excellence in Internationalization Award.
(00:22):
Robert is a deeply committed educator whose passion in the classroom is matched by his thoughtful and deliberate approach
to internationalizing his courses and crafting unforgettable learning experiences for students at home and abroad.
Robert is dedicated to promoting more inclusive approaches to knowledge,
(00:43):
knowledge generation and knowledge sharing, and I'm excited to talk to him today.
(01:09):
It's wonderful to be with you here today, Robert.
And I was really struck by a line in your, nomination dossier that that really stood out for me.
And it's something that you tell your students, just as no one individual has a monopoly over knowledge,
no single country or society has a monopoly monopoly over knowledge.
(01:31):
And we see this manifesting itself through your whole professional life, you know, from your work with students in the classroom here, your,
work with the Laurier-Ghana Partnership and your mentorship of colleagues who also want to do internationalization work in your courses.
So can you unpack for us a little bit what that statement looks like in terms of how you approach your courses,
(01:58):
and your life as an academic, this idea that, you know, no single country or society has a monopoly over knowledge.
Thank you. Deborah. yes, that is true.
That's, a common, statement I make in my classes.
And, well, that was borne out of my, experience as a foreign student, in Norway and, in, Canada here.
(02:33):
even though, as an undergraduate, anthropology student, well, anthropology was my minor.
I, that discipline exposed me to different cultures around the world.
Right. However, it was when I left the shores of Ghana, you know, to, Norway and to Canada as a foreign student.
(03:03):
That was when I got what I call my lived experience, you know, of, other societies.
And then one of the things said, the first thing that, I noticed was how,
different societies, address, the same problem, but in different ways.
(03:30):
So, for example, if you take the concept of human rights or even the practice of human rights,
you know, I discovered as a foreign student that, you know,
human rights meant different things to different societies and also the human rights practices that they had,
(03:53):
around the same issues, around the same problems.
It differed from society to society.
So that was, one of the first things.
The second thing was, the observation that, you know, whether we like it or not,
(04:13):
the world has changed so much that, whether at work, at school, at the hospital,
you know, you are bound to work or to be served, you know, by people from different cultures,
different societies, you know, who have different perceptions of things.
(04:37):
So cultural diversity, to me, is not a cliche.
you know, that the world has become a global village for me.
It's not a cliche. It's a fact of life. Exactly.
Yeah. It's a reality of all countries, all societies, in the world today.
(04:59):
And so from these two observations and experiences, I learned that well
having different perspectives, you know, on the same issue is not a bad thing.
You know, what I learned actually from it was that it rather enriches our knowledge
(05:22):
and from that we can, develop or create best practices, you know, from different perspectives,
different experiences, you know, best practices could be developed, from, that experience.
And so for me, that then has informed my teaching, my research, in the sense that,
(05:51):
it led me to what, today is referred to as internationalization.
Yes. Interculturalizing these, things informed by my lived experience as a foreign student
(06:12):
and, I've come to accept that it's not a bad thing to have different perspectives
and I've come to accept that it's good, you know, especially when you are teaching and especially at the,
at the tertiary level, it is good for students to be exposed to different ideas, different perspectives.
(06:35):
and as I tell my students, well, we expose you to all of these different things,
but it's up to you to use your critical thinking skills, you know, to determine what you think is good.
So then what does that look like when you're designing your courses?
Right. And and I think there's two of them in particular that you have very intentionally put together using this perspective.
(06:59):
What does it look like when you're designing your courses? The key concept here would be, the comparative approach.
Right. The comparative approach, whereby I, developed my courses intentionally such that, I have required reading materials.
(07:20):
There are required reading materials from different societies.
So let me use, two of my courses to illustrate that. My fourth year course, Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Human Rights.
You know, on the first day of classes, I tell the students that we are going to take a tour of the world.
(07:40):
You know, we are going to go to different continents, different countries, different regions of the world,
and to see what they understand, what they define human rights to be and how they practice human rights.
And so basically, I tell them is the students who, determine the destinations in that role in the sense that they have,
(08:08):
a research paper that they have to write, but they have to select a particular country and a particular,
human rights practice in that country.
so, the students then determine the destination,
and then they go and do their research and come and present ... the sharing of the global insights.
(08:32):
Right. The global village brought to the classroom. Yes, yes.
And so it's a similar thing that I do in my graduate, comparative youth justice class.
The issue is the same youth crime. Youth crime is everywhere.
Every society has youth crime. But the question becomes, how do other societies, you know, address the problem of youth crime?
(08:56):
So once again, the students select, you know, a particular country,
and then they research the youth justice system, and then they come and share, you know,
with the rest of the students in the class during the presentations.
The students must really enjoy that because it's very open for them
they can go anywhere in this global village. Definitely.
(09:18):
Yeah. Definitely.
especially, because, I've come to realize that it gives many students the opportunity, even those born in Canada, you know,
it is just so happens that they tend to choose, countries related to their heritage, you know, even if they were born in Canada.
(09:40):
So someone says, oh okay, I was born in Canada, but my parents come from Turkey,
and so now they want to study the Turkish juvenile justice.
So it becomes personal for them. Exactly. That's what makes it interesting. Right?
Right. Wonderful.
One of the things that is really important about your contribution to Laurier is the fact that you have been a driving force behind the Laurier-Ghana
(10:07):
Partnerships. and under that umbrella,
you've been able to facilitate exchanges of both students and faculty between the institutions and, at both the undergraduate and the graduate level.
So it's it's really is a diverse, partnership that offers lots of opportunities, I think, for, for folks on both sides of that partnership.
(10:32):
Can you talk a little bit about what led to the creation of the Laurier-Ghana Partnership?
I talked a little bit about internationalization.
and that was a big part of it.
But also I can add that to, you know, three other observations, that led up to the creation of the partnership in particular.
(10:59):
And, and the first was my observation and not only observation, but lived experience as a foreign student.
One of the things I noticed was the loneliness of foreign students during holidays and vacations.
(11:20):
we have Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and all that.
You know, a university of 20,000 students, the local students, they all go.
They go home. The foreign students, left by themselves.
And and what I, observed.
(11:43):
Well, my experience was that, it's a really difficult time for foreign students.
And, if we take Brantford, for example, in the summer, this campus is quiet, even though it's in the downtown.
The campus is quiet, the residences are quiet.
And then for a whole floor, you have just a few, foreign students, living, in the dorms.
(12:10):
I think this has potential, distant mental health and, you know, problems.
I mean, it could lead to, that.
So that was one observation, the loneliness of, foreign students, during holidays.
And, you know, I recall the help that I received from the Ghanian Association in Oslo,
(12:39):
in Vancouver. They would invite us to their homes.
They will, you know, invite us for meals that will invite our children for sleepovers, and all that.
And so that is why, my wife and I, we have opened our home to international students, and I live in Waterloo.
(13:04):
So it's not only those on exchange programs, but also, Ghanaian students at the University of Waterloo, Ghanaian students at Wilfrid Laurier.
Generally, our home is open to them.
Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, even weekends, sometimes after church, you know,
(13:25):
we go home for a meal, you know, as other people did for us when, you know, we were, you know, students.
And so that's one observation, another observation, was more academic.
I observed that, as a student abroad, I was able to access more academic material on Ghana
(13:51):
than when I was in Ghana.
In Ghana? Yeah, yeah. And even materials that the libraries did not have, they will get it from wherever in the world that they can,
you know, they will get it for me, you know, to write my assignments, my thesis and all that.
And so that part of it set me thinking (14:13):
would it be a good idea to give Ghanaian students an opportunity,
you know, to travel abroad, abroad in the course of their studies,
you know, to learn, at least to experience this, you know, get much more material about their own country. And new perspectives, right?
(14:38):
Yeah. And new perspectives in addition to that. And then thirdly, the third factor for me was the observation that so little was known about Africa.
Yeah. Generally. Yeah. I observed as a student that, you know, my classmates didn't know much about Africa.
(15:01):
And even now, as a professor, that some of my
colleagues and students who do, some will be talking about, you know, some will, for example, say, oh, the country of Africa.
And I said please please there are 54 countries in Africa.
Yeah. So these three observations, though, the loneliness, two the
(15:28):
academic material that is available, and then also knowledge about Africa said no,
it will also be nice, but well, if African students come over here,
then it would also be nice for you, the students in, Norway, in Canada, you know,
to also go down there to experience, the culture and to be exposed to the knowledge systems and,
(15:56):
the practices that they develop to address the social problems and issues that the have
so that was, I would say the orientation that informed my creation of the Laurier- Ghana Partnership.
Now, let, let let me, make this, point emphatically that,
(16:20):
it was the creation of the Laurier-Ghana Partnership was a collaborative effort.
Yes. I want to acknowledge, that my colleagues in the Human Rights program, my colleagues at Laurier International,
you know, they all were part of, the creation of this partnership.
(16:48):
but, yes, it's true that, I also, contributed a lot to these because of my knowledge of the country, Ghana.
I was born and raised in Ghana, and I was an adult, before, you know, stepping out of Ghana for the first time, in my life.
(17:13):
So, yes, I can say that I know that country and all that.
And so that contributed a lot to, you know, the creation of the partnership.
because, when, the time came for these to be done and I had to, you know,
contact my former professors back in Ghana, and then use your network exactly.
(17:37):
network and network to bring these
about and in terms of the NGOs that the Laurier students go to Ghana to do their internship with
many of them were NGOs that I researched during my PhD dissertation, research.
(18:02):
And so I had, you know, established, you know, that contact with them.
And, of course, there were other others that, came on board there later.
but, yes. that was the, the context of creating it and, yes, Laurier International,
(18:25):
the Human Rights program and the Faculty of Social Work and
Global Studies at the Waterloo campus and most recently, even the Faculty of Music has been wonderful, you know, part of these.
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And so I always say that, oh, what started from one of the smallest, you know, programs.
at,Laurier, you know, our faculty, full time, faculty equivalent is just 3.5.
What started from one of the smallest, programs has engulfed, you know,
(19:13):
all these departments and Faculties at Laurier and that excites me, a lot.
But in terms of the program itself, the partnership itself, what it entails,
I can, share, some of this, one, is that Laurier
(19:40):
Undergraduate students spend about 90 days in Ghana in the summer doing internship with, human rights, NGOs.
How do you get them to go to Africa?
So I know sometimes it's difficult to get Canadian students to go and, you know, to also to a place that is so
(20:05):
far away. How do you how do you encourage them, you know, to experience this?
When I think about that, I think, three factors, are involved, in, in this.
One is that all the internships, in fact, all the participants in the partnership are fully funded.
(20:32):
So from, visa fees and, just name it transportation.
the airfare and ... And you did fundraising for this?
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And so I think we've been so fortunate since 2011, we have had steady funding, external funding for the partnership.
(20:59):
But I can say that, so far we've raised about $1.5 million.
You know, and ... that's amazing ...yes. And so that makes it possible for us.
Yep. Makes it easier. Fully fund all the participants.
The aspect that even you know, excites me most is the fact that you know
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students who would otherwise not have been able to, you know, partake in these partnerships.
In fact, the literature on international service learning shows that, minorities and students from lower socio economic classes,
you know, because of the fees involved are not able to partake in international internships, but because it is fully funded
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you know, this makes it possible for as many of them to go.
So that's one, factor, involved. The other is I think,
former participants have now become what I call our best ambassadors, the best ambassadors for these programs.
(22:15):
Because what happens is that, well, is based on the requirements we built into the partnership.
One, you have to, be able to return to Laurier and, take another year of classes before graduation.
So very often it is either second year or third year students who participate.
(22:40):
Right. Then.
Closely related to that is when you return, you have to engage in community engagement, which basically translates into doing presentations.
and very often they do it in their classes.
The courses they are taking or very often do approach a professor and ask if, oh,
(23:05):
can I come and do a presentation, you know, in your class for, less than.
And so, I think the popularity of the program has been mainly through these ambassadors,
you know, fellow students who come and tell them about their experiences this past summer.
This is what I did. So the word of mouth, you know, advertisement has been very, very, effective for us.
(23:38):
And then thirdly, one other thing that gets them going is the proverbial Ghanaian hospitality.
Ghanaians are very friendly. they will give their best to foreigners and strangers.
And you know many of these students, you know, by at the end of their
(24:02):
internship, they've already started planning how they themselves could return.
Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. So, and generally, Ghana is a peaceful country.
It is an oasis of peace in the, you know, sometimes turbulent West African region.
So, I think this three factors have been very effective ... in pulling new recruits into the program.
(24:31):
That's right. And in terms of impacts from the program, you know, you've noted a few things already,
but maybe you could talk a little bit about the impacts you've seen, both for students and some of the faculty that have gone over as well.
You know, you just intimated that, you know, the internships for students are really key in terms of them thinking about what do they do next,
(24:55):
right, with their lives, finding a mission. Right.
But there's probably other impacts from the program. The program has had.
I, what I will call a very important impact on, Laurier students not only Laurier students,
(25:15):
the participants, because our, yeah, because you're bringing students from Ghana here as well.
Exactly. And so our partnership is what we call a bi-directional partnership.
You know, when you look at the literature on international service learning, the norm has been for students from the global north,
(25:35):
you know, to travel to the global South and come back, but very little movement from the other direction, the South to the global North.
But ours, based on all the factors I talked about earlier, we created a bi-directional, movement of, students and faculty and even staff.
(25:58):
And so in terms of the impact, I think two words, describe this, life changing,
life changing, because, many of these students return and they want to go back.
Many of these students return. And, when they graduate from Laurier, they have been able to,
(26:25):
get employment, jobs that require them to use some of the skills that,
they acquired and they learned and the experience of exposure to, other societies and, but,
talking more specifically in terms of, the achievements and the impacts of the partnership.
(26:53):
I can say at the end of, the, current funding that we have, at the end of that funding,
87 Laurier students, you know, have, participated, in, internships, in, in, Ghana.
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and then also about 23 Ghanaian graduate students have also come.
And then in terms of faculty, faculty from each of the three universities have visited Ghana.
And then, one staff from one of the universities, has also visited Canada. About five.
(27:46):
Laurier graduate students have also gone to Ghana.
not to do internships, but to do research or to take courses.
And so, yes, that is one specific impact.
another is that about four PhD students have come out of this program, this partnership, two have become,
(28:21):
lecturers at the University of Cape Coast, which is one of the, which was the university that actually sent them to Canada.
so two have become, professors there.
there is one from that same university who is now an associate professor at the University of
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at the Kwami Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.
KNUST, I think you're deepening that network, right?
Yes, yes. And, so, yes, it's been very effective because one of the,
objectives of the program was to build capacity of our partners down in the Global South.
(29:08):
And so now here we have, you know, three PhD students who have become professors.
And a fourth actually was funded through the partnership to do his four year PhD in Social Work right here.
(29:29):
Right. and he graduated in 2021.
And he is also now an Assistant Professor. So, yes, the program has been very impactful.
If, you don't mind, I could read some of the letters, testimonials, from some of the students.
(29:56):
so, for example, this is an excerpt from the letter of support from, one of the human rights students.
Sarah Damico, a former Laurier student who participated in the partnership, I could.
in 2016, I partook. I partook in the Ghana Internship summer program in Accra with other Laurier students.
(30:22):
After my graduation, I believe the opportunity that he created with his fellow professors helped me in my career pursuit.
Currently, I'm a permanent federal employee living in Ottawa.
You know, and then, one of the, Ghanaian students, this was what, she said today I'm pursuing a doctorate with a focus,
(30:54):
with a focus on juvenile justice, so that I can use my scholarship to advocate for reform in Ghana's
system of youth justice in the same way that he does.
And this would not have been possible without his guidance.
And it's not only students, you know, who, make this. Staff at Ashesi University.
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[name] Kimani, a Laurier alumnus and former employee of both Laurier International and the International Program Office at Ashesi University,
described the impact of this partnership.
When I joined Ashesi University in Ghana
Doctor Ame's name came up very often for his innovative approach to remotely co-teach a class through Skype
(31:52):
this was long before online teaching became popular.
Yes, he is respected by Ashesi faculty for this commitment to teaching and giving students
brilliant opportunities to learn from various intercultural perspectives and you know context,
(32:13):
but it's not only faculty and staff, uh in the global South, in Ghana,
you know, who, you know, have felt the impact of, this partnership even right here
at Laurier, you know, many of the students who come to Laurier
(32:35):
hosted by the criminology department here, and they are graduate students.
And this is what, Dr. Carrie Sanders former graduate,
coordinator in the criminology, department, you know, stated in her letter of support,
the Ghana student participation in our graduate program has led to richer in class discussions and experiences for the students and faculty alike.
(33:03):
I can say in all honesty that it is, it is a great opportunity for our students and faculty to understand,
critique, and reflect upon the applicability of criminological theorizing in a global and international context.
(33:24):
I wonder if I can pick up on something that you brought up there, and that is the virtual teaching bit, because long before the pandemic,
you were doing this under the terms of the partnership, you were connecting people, Canada and Ghana, online.
Right. Connecting these classrooms in the two countries.
(33:46):
Can you talk about the early experiences in doing that, and why did you start doing that though?
When we started, because of the bi-directional nature of the partnership, it was important that,
it was not only Laurier's students, you know, going down to, Ghana to do internships or to do research or to take courses.
(34:17):
and so we had to think about how to get, the Ghanaian students involved as well.
I already I've already mentioned that, yes
they are graduate students. They come they spend a semester at Laurier and work on the thesis under the supervision of Laurier faculty.
(34:41):
Yes. Another thing that, we, we developed was, these joint classes, joint classes with students.
And so I offered, my children's rights class.
(35:03):
It was a class I had originally created, that focused only on children's rights, in Canada.
but when this opportunity came, I opened up my class that,
I shall see university students in, a cognate discipline, could, you know, join.
(35:27):
And so we discussed it with Ashesi University.
They identified a class that, was similar to, ours.
And then we, um, we decided on that joint partnerhership
So great. Yes. Very interesting.
because, you know, we, adopted the two classes that week
(35:53):
approach instead of a three hour class.
We adopted the two classes per week.
And so what we did was that for the first class, of the week, I either lectured on a topic on children's rights in Canada.
Then for the second class, an Ashesi Professor, you know, lectured on the same topic,
(36:20):
but from a Ghanaian perspective. Oh amazing! Again, that's your comparative approach.
Exactly. Yes. You know, and there were two required textbooks.
One was on children's rights in Canada. The other was children's rights in Ghana.
And so students in, from both universities were required to read, you know, the two textbooks.
(36:45):
And so, yes, that was exposure to another culture
and it was interesting that you mentioned the technology.
at the time, it was, quite a challenge.
I was going to say that would have been very cutting edge for, well, 2016, 2015 or even earlier. 2012 to 2014.
(37:12):
Yeah. So that's even earlier. That was very challenging in the sense that, at the time, Ashesi was just a young university.
They had just started, I think they were within their first ten years.
And so in terms of the technology and facilities that they had
(37:34):
first of all, they didn't even have, a wide enough screen,
you know, to receive, the lectures from my classroom here in Brantford.
but that we quickly, we were able to resolve that. We built that into our funding application.
(37:57):
And so we bought a wide, huge, you know, TV screen that all the 35 students, you know, could easily view.
but the second challenge was the internet.
We are talking about 2012 to 2014. Right?
No. See, all these things we don't even think about anymore, right?
(38:19):
We take for granted. Yeah. So did it keep cutting out on you?
Well, this is what happened. The band with that Ashesi had was not strong enough, right, to receive the signals from, right, here,
especially if others at the university were also working using the internet at the same time.
(38:40):
Of course they were. And so the solution.
Interesting solution, but which was very inconvenient for all the others except the students in my class.
The solution was that anytime that my class was going on, anytime that the joint class was going on,
(39:02):
no faculty, staff or other students could use the university internet at Ashesi. At Ashesi.
No. You're kidding. So they were actually able to do that?
They were able to do that. So for one, that would never work at Laurier.
And so for one and half hours, you know, each week, you owned the internet.
(39:23):
Yes. At Ashesi! I love that.
Oh, that's, you know, I recently, did some research, so in Ghana and I had to go back to Ashesi,
you know, to collect data and, you know, I learned that, oh, it's become a big issue.
(39:43):
It's a faculty, they they have a good laugh each time they, they remember this story, because of the blackout, the internet blackout.
I love it so because this was ten years ago.
Of course. Yes. Things have changed. And now they have everything.
I mean, yeah, yeah, but at that time it was quite an inconvenience for them.
(40:06):
And do you still have any connected classroom work in what you're doing now or a virtual interaction for teaching?
no, not currently. We don't have that.
but the good thing, what excites me, about these joint classes is that when we
(40:29):
when the joint classes ended, they continued to offer children's rights.
It was a course they have at face now.
they created. And so today, as of last, last year,
that I collected data at Ashesi that showed the children's rights class is still running, and again, capacity building.
(40:50):
And I'm just, I'm just going to build on what you just said because you are now you now have a SSHRC grant,
which is focused on measuring the impact of internationalization.
Can you talk just a little bit about that because that's really important.
Right. So that we know more about you know, what do we net from these efforts that Laurier is making toward internationalization?
(41:14):
Yes. That's right. yes. once again, with my colleagues from the Human Rights, program, we got a SSHRC
grant to assess the ten years of the partnership, though we started in 2011.
(41:34):
And so, yes, by 2021, we had clocked ten years.
And, so, the key objective of the partnership was to, assess, yes, the partnership and, and so, yes.
we finished collecting data.
(41:57):
We are currently on, we are currently doing our data analysis.
and, the plan is that come this summer, in August, my colleagues and I will be traveling down to the University of Ghana to
(42:19):
organize a workshop at which we will present the findings, you know, of this research.
So we are still doing the
data analysis is not yet complete. but definitely some of the, findings that, has come up so far is, first of all,
(42:43):
that the NGOs in particular would like to see this partnership continue, because basically what happens is when our students go,
down to Ghana to do the internship, you know, for three months,
they have free labor in the sense that we have the interns who work as staff with the NGOs,
(43:07):
and yet they are not paid because, but they bring skills and capacity. Exactly.
So the NGOs definitely want, the partnership to, to continue.
The universities want the partnership, to continue.
and so, yes.
but I think it will not be until maybe spring, early summer that, you know, all the findings from, this research, come together.
(43:37):
Yes, will come together. Well, we look forward to hearing about that.
So. Thank you. one of the other things that I was really struck by in your nomination dossier, is again,
a quote that's attributed to you by one of your nominators where you say that a scholar
from a developing country does not have the luxury of pursuing knowledge for its own sake.
(44:02):
Can you talk about that a little bit? Because that's a really important statement, that the knowledge has to be for some purpose.
Is what you're saying right? Can you talk a little bit about that?
That statement, came about, you know, when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Ghana,
(44:27):
majoring in sociology, with an anthropology minor.
and somehow at that young age, I just had this feeling, this question, you know, started welling up in me.
(44:49):
So what am I doing sociology for?
What am I doing anthropology for? Of what use will it be to first for myself, my family and then the society?
Yeah. You know, and then for someone who comes from a poor family and uh uh having observed that no matter what,
(45:18):
the, Ghanaian politicians, the leaders did, you know, did not change.
It did not change, the situation of the poor.
And so, you know, one day I went to the library to, get materials for an
assignment. and walking through the aisle, you know, is not, once again, the technology has changed.
(45:46):
And a lot those days at the library, you physically have to go walk through the aisles and pick your,
you know, your book or go through the card catalogs. We were talking about that the other day, right?
Yeah. So as I was walking through aisle, I don't know, the title of a book just attracted me and it was 'Knowledge
(46:08):
for what?'. I picked the book and realized it was authored by Robert S. Lynd, a professor at Princeton University.
And I just felt with that question, that was the question I've been grappling with.
Yeah, that was the question I had been grappling knowledge for
(46:30):
What? Why do we go to classes?
In fact, even until today, I asked when I learned about I have 8:30 a.m. classes or 7 p.m. classes.
You know, it's a question I ask my students. Why do you wake up so early?
To come here. To commute from wherever you know, and to be able to make it to class at 8:30 a.m.?
(46:55):
So what do they say when you ask that?. I'm interested in what the response is.
Oh, well, today's. Do. I need to get my degree?
Exactly. I want to get a job. But as I said, it was a question I grappled with from a very young age.
That must have been about my second year in, university for so long.
(47:18):
But when I saw, that title, I said, yes, it sums it all up.
but then at the same time, one other thing that happened was that I became convinced of the transformative power of people.
(47:39):
I somehow just had deep, this deep belief that given the right conditions and environment, people can change the situation.
And so when I put everything together, I came to the conclusion, in fact, the conviction that,
(48:03):
you know, scholars from the Third World should not pursue knowledge for just its sake.
In fact, knowledge must, you know, lead to action.
so it is a luxury for them, because how can you see all these problems that your people have?
(48:28):
majority of the people are poor, and then you instead you say you are a professor and you are just pursuing knowledge for its sake.
No. I became convinced that the acquisition of knowledge must be for the purpose of addressing the nagging problems, the problems that, you know,
(48:51):
the policy makers and, the politicians have been trying to address for years, and yet they've not been able to, you know, solve.
And for me, thinking about the rest of Africa, then I extended it that, you know, it's not just Ghanaian scholars,
African scholars because, you know, the problems are similar in all the, African countries, I said no.
(49:18):
Scholars from developing countries, especially in the social sciences.
Our focus should be to address those problems that face our people.
If we don't do that, then our knowledge is not achieving that well, which you know we are pursuing then knowledge.
(49:40):
And so for me, that is the orientation that informs my teaching philosophy, in the sense that, you know,
all my assignments and all that, the, policy oriented, the, focused on addressing the problem.
And so I talked earlier about, cross-cultural perspectives.
(50:04):
And. Yeah, It comes full circle to that, because your comparative perspective there is is fits right in with that primary aim.
Precisely.
So when you select the country, when you select the practice, and then you tell me that, okay, it violates international human rights, norms.
Then for me, I told them the most important section of your paper is for me is the recommendations.
(50:29):
What can we do? Right. To address the problem.
How do you convince, you know, my grandmother in the village that you know, a particular practice,
a particular thing that they do is against international human rights norms.
When first, of course, she's never heard anything about international human rights.
(50:51):
She doesn't know anything about the United Nations. She doesn't know anything about whether Ghana has signed or ratified in that type of thing.
How do you convince such a person? You know, knowledge must inform action.
What can we do to change, you know, the negative traditional practices that, you know, are part of the human rights?
(51:15):
Because at the end of the day, human rights are about human dignity, you know, and we have all these traditional,
and negative traditional practices, you know, that affect the health and welfare of mostly women and children.
How do we change that? You know, so it's that type of thing for the graduate students.
(51:37):
When you go into that foreign country, you go to Zambia or you go to South Africa, you study the youth justice system.
You see all the problems there where you don't end there.
How can you help the South African descended?
Let's say that, the Canadian, high Commission, you know, in Zambia, the Canadian High Commission, you know,
(52:02):
in Ghana, you are working there as the development officer and is said, oh, yes, you are a human rights scholar.
Now, how do we this address this problem of female circumcision in northern Ghana?
Yeah. Can you tell me in your research, you know, what you would tell them?
So my point is, knowledge must inform.
(52:27):
Knowledge must lead to action. So yes, it is a believe I have.
It is a conviction I have.
And I still believe that, you know, pursuing knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is a luxury for scholars from, developing countries.
Well, I can see why your students find your courses transformative, Robert.
(52:52):
that is very inspiring. Can I ask you one more question?
Because, you know, if you could provide advice for our colleagues at Laurier in terms of how to bring the global village into the classroom,
what would you say? what's one thing you can do to start?
(53:12):
Right? Yes. I think I've mentioned one already, which is the comparative approach.
Absolutely. because what that does is, it requires students to read materials from other cultures, from other nations.
And so for courses that, it will be possible to do that, they should,
(53:39):
you know, include required readings from other nations, other cultures.
And so I'm thinking particularly about the social sciences, you know, and all of that.
So, that is one. Another
is that because Laurier has so many exchange programs and partnerships, in fact, is not only Ghana, that,
(54:10):
our colleagues should encourage their students to participate either on these, exchange programs and, also,
that when the students return well, as we do in the case of the Ghana partnership, you know, because when they return,
(54:33):
they are often emailing professors asking, oh, can I come and do a presentation about my experience and all that?
I will, plead with my, colleagues to open up their classrooms to the interns who return,
and, so that they can, tell their colleagues, their classmates.
(54:57):
And what I've found, out is that, you know, students very often, when they hear things from their fellow students,
you know, they tend to take it more than when, you know, we professors stand there.
Oh, you should do this. But yeah.
So those are some of the ways that, I think, you know, our colleagues, at
(55:24):
Laurier could encourage internationalization and interculturalizing, in our classrooms.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for joining me here today.
It's been a great and fascinating discussion. Thank you.
My thanks to Robert Ame for joining me today, and I hope you will join me for more conversations that celebrate exceptional teaching practices,
(55:53):
explore diverse teaching philosophies, and discuss the future of higher education, teaching, and learning.
Welcome to Laurier's Teaching Excellence Conversation series.
I'm Deborah VanNijnatten, academic director of teaching excellence and innovation at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Today I'm with Robert Ame from lawyers Human Rights and Human Diversity program,
and Robert received the 2023 Excellence in Internationalization Award.
(00:22):
Robert is a deeply committed educator whose passion in the classroom is matched by his thoughtful and deliberate approach
to internationalizing his courses and crafting unforgettable learning experiences for students at home and abroad.
Robert is dedicated to promoting more inclusive approaches to knowledge,
(00:43):
knowledge generation and knowledge sharing, and I'm excited to talk to him today.
(01:09):
It's wonderful to be with you here today, Robert.
And I was really struck by a line in your, nomination dossier that that really stood out for me.
And it's something that you tell your students, just as no one individual has a monopoly over knowledge,
no single country or society has a monopoly monopoly over knowledge.
(01:31):
And we see this manifesting itself through your whole professional life, you know, from your work with students in the classroom here, your,
work with the Laurier-Ghana Partnership and your mentorship of colleagues who also want to do internationalization work in your courses.
So can you unpack for us a little bit what that statement looks like in terms of how you approach your courses,
(01:58):
and your life as an academic, this idea that, you know, no single country or society has a monopoly over knowledge.
Thank you. Deborah. yes, that is true.
That's, a common, statement I make in my classes.
And, well, that was borne out of my, experience as a foreign student, in Norway and, in, Canada here.
(02:33):
even though, as an undergraduate, anthropology student, well, anthropology was my minor.
I, that discipline exposed me to different cultures around the world.
Right. However, it was when I left the shores of Ghana, you know, to, Norway and to Canada as a foreign student.
(03:03):
That was when I got what I call my lived experience, you know, of, other societies.
And then one of the things said, the first thing that, I noticed was how,
different societies, address, the same problem, but in different ways.
(03:30):
So, for example, if you take the concept of human rights or even the practice of human rights,
you know, I discovered as a foreign student that, you know,
human rights meant different things to different societies and also the human rights practices that they had,
(03:53):
around the same issues, around the same problems.
It differed from society to society.
So that was, one of the first things.
The second thing was, the observation that, you know, whether we like it or not,
(04:13):
the world has changed so much that, whether at work, at school, at the hospital,
you know, you are bound to work or to be served, you know, by people from different cultures,
different societies, you know, who have different perceptions of things.
(04:37):
So cultural diversity, to me, is not a cliche.
you know, that the world has become a global village for me.
It's not a cliche. It's a fact of life. Exactly.
Yeah. It's a reality of all countries, all societies, in the world today.
(04:59):
And so from these two observations and experiences, I learned that well
having different perspectives, you know, on the same issue is not a bad thing.
You know, what I learned actually from it was that it rather enriches our knowledge
(05:22):
and from that we can, develop or create best practices, you know, from different perspectives,
different experiences, you know, best practices could be developed, from, that experience.
And so for me, that then has informed my teaching, my research, in the sense that,
(05:51):
it led me to what, today is referred to as internationalization.
Yes. Interculturalizing these, things informed by my lived experience as a foreign student
(06:12):
and, I've come to accept that it's not a bad thing to have different perspectives
and I've come to accept that it's good, you know, especially when you are teaching and especially at the,
at the tertiary level, it is good for students to be exposed to different ideas, different perspectives.
(06:35):
and as I tell my students, well, we expose you to all of these different things,
but it's up to you to use your critical thinking skills, you know, to determine what you think is good.
So then what does that look like when you're designing your courses?
Right. And and I think there's two of them in particular that you have very intentionally put together using this perspective.
(06:59):
What does it look like when you're designing your courses? The key concept here would be, the comparative approach.
Right. The comparative approach, whereby I, developed my courses intentionally such that, I have required reading materials.
(07:20):
There are required reading materials from different societies.
So let me use, two of my courses to illustrate that. My fourth year course, Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Human Rights.
You know, on the first day of classes, I tell the students that we are going to take a tour of the world.
(07:40):
You know, we are going to go to different continents, different countries, different regions of the world,
and to see what they understand, what they define human rights to be and how they practice human rights.
And so basically, I tell them is the students who, determine the destinations in that role in the sense that they have,
(08:08):
a research paper that they have to write, but they have to select a particular country and a particular,
human rights practice in that country.
so, the students then determine the destination,
and then they go and do their research and come and present ... the sharing of the global insights.
(08:32):
Right. The global village brought to the classroom. Yes, yes.
And so it's a similar thing that I do in my graduate, comparative youth justice class.
The issue is the same youth crime. Youth crime is everywhere.
Every society has youth crime. But the question becomes, how do other societies, you know, address the problem of youth crime?
(08:56):
So once again, the students select, you know, a particular country,
and then they research the youth justice system, and then they come and share, you know,
with the rest of the students in the class during the presentations.
The students must really enjoy that because it's very open for them
they can go anywhere in this global village. Definitely.
(09:18):
Yeah. Definitely.
especially, because, I've come to realize that it gives many students the opportunity, even those born in Canada, you know,
it is just so happens that they tend to choose, countries related to their heritage, you know, even if they were born in Canada.
(09:40):
So someone says, oh okay, I was born in Canada, but my parents come from Turkey,
and so now they want to study the Turkish juvenile justice.
So it becomes personal for them. Exactly. That's what makes it interesting. Right?
Right. Wonderful.
One of the things that is really important about your contribution to Laurier is the fact that you have been a driving force behind the Laurier-Ghana
(10:07):
Partnerships. and under that umbrella,
you've been able to facilitate exchanges of both students and faculty between the institutions and, at both the undergraduate and the graduate level.
So it's it's really is a diverse, partnership that offers lots of opportunities, I think, for, for folks on both sides of that partnership.
(10:32):
Can you talk a little bit about what led to the creation of the Laurier-Ghana Partnership?
I talked a little bit about internationalization.
and that was a big part of it.
But also I can add that to, you know, three other observations, that led up to the creation of the partnership in particular.
(10:59):
And, and the first was my observation and not only observation, but lived experience as a foreign student.
One of the things I noticed was the loneliness of foreign students during holidays and vacations.
(11:20):
we have Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and all that.
You know, a university of 20,000 students, the local students, they all go.
They go home. The foreign students, left by themselves.
And and what I, observed.
(11:43):
Well, my experience was that, it's a really difficult time for foreign students.
And, if we take Brantford, for example, in the summer, this campus is quiet, even though it's in the downtown.
The campus is quiet, the residences are quiet.
And then for a whole floor, you have just a few, foreign students, living, in the dorms.
(12:10):
I think this has potential, distant mental health and, you know, problems.
I mean, it could lead to, that.
So that was one observation, the loneliness of, foreign students, during holidays.
And, you know, I recall the help that I received from the Ghanian Association in Oslo,
(12:39):
in Vancouver. They would invite us to their homes.
They will, you know, invite us for meals that will invite our children for sleepovers, and all that.
And so that is why, my wife and I, we have opened our home to international students, and I live in Waterloo.
(13:04):
So it's not only those on exchange programs, but also, Ghanaian students at the University of Waterloo, Ghanaian students at Wilfrid Laurier.
Generally, our home is open to them.
Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, even weekends, sometimes after church, you know,
(13:25):
we go home for a meal, you know, as other people did for us when, you know, we were, you know, students.
And so that's one observation, another observation, was more academic.
I observed that, as a student abroad, I was able to access more academic material on Ghana
(13:51):
than when I was in Ghana.
In Ghana? Yeah, yeah. And even materials that the libraries did not have, they will get it from wherever in the world that they can,
you know, they will get it for me, you know, to write my assignments, my thesis and all that.
And so that part of it set me thinking (14:13):
would it be a good idea to give Ghanaian students an opportunity,
you know, to travel abroad, abroad in the course of their studies,
you know, to learn, at least to experience this, you know, get much more material about their own country. And new perspectives, right?
(14:38):
Yeah. And new perspectives in addition to that. And then thirdly, the third factor for me was the observation that so little was known about Africa.
Yeah. Generally. Yeah. I observed as a student that, you know, my classmates didn't know much about Africa.
(15:01):
And even now, as a professor, that some of my
colleagues and students who do, some will be talking about, you know, some will, for example, say, oh, the country of Africa.
And I said please please there are 54 countries in Africa.
Yeah. So these three observations, though, the loneliness, two the
(15:28):
academic material that is available, and then also knowledge about Africa said no,
it will also be nice, but well, if African students come over here,
then it would also be nice for you, the students in, Norway, in Canada, you know,
to also go down there to experience, the culture and to be exposed to the knowledge systems and,
(15:56):
the practices that they develop to address the social problems and issues that the have
so that was, I would say the orientation that informed my creation of the Laurier- Ghana Partnership.
Now, let, let let me, make this, point emphatically that,
(16:20):
it was the creation of the Laurier-Ghana Partnership was a collaborative effort.
Yes. I want to acknowledge, that my colleagues in the Human Rights program, my colleagues at Laurier International,
you know, they all were part of, the creation of this partnership.
(16:48):
but, yes, it's true that, I also, contributed a lot to these because of my knowledge of the country, Ghana.
I was born and raised in Ghana, and I was an adult, before, you know, stepping out of Ghana for the first time, in my life.
(17:13):
So, yes, I can say that I know that country and all that.
And so that contributed a lot to, you know, the creation of the partnership.
because, when, the time came for these to be done and I had to, you know,
contact my former professors back in Ghana, and then use your network exactly.
(17:37):
network and network to bring these
about and in terms of the NGOs that the Laurier students go to Ghana to do their internship with
many of them were NGOs that I researched during my PhD dissertation, research.
(18:02):
And so I had, you know, established, you know, that contact with them.
And, of course, there were other others that, came on board there later.
but, yes. that was the, the context of creating it and, yes, Laurier International,
(18:25):
the Human Rights program and the Faculty of Social Work and
Global Studies at the Waterloo campus and most recently, even the Faculty of Music has been wonderful, you know, part of these.
(18:49):
And so I always say that, oh, what started from one of the smallest, you know, programs.
at,Laurier, you know, our faculty, full time, faculty equivalent is just 3.5.
What started from one of the smallest, programs has engulfed, you know,
(19:13):
all these departments and Faculties at Laurier and that excites me, a lot.
But in terms of the program itself, the partnership itself, what it entails,
I can, share, some of this, one, is that Laurier
(19:40):
Undergraduate students spend about 90 days in Ghana in the summer doing internship with, human rights, NGOs.
How do you get them to go to Africa?
So I know sometimes it's difficult to get Canadian students to go and, you know, to also to a place that is so
(20:05):
far away. How do you how do you encourage them, you know, to experience this?
When I think about that, I think, three factors, are involved, in, in this.
One is that all the internships, in fact, all the participants in the partnership are fully funded.
(20:32):
So from, visa fees and, just name it transportation.
the airfare and ... And you did fundraising for this?
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And so I think we've been so fortunate since 2011, we have had steady funding, external funding for the partnership.
(20:59):
But I can say that, so far we've raised about $1.5 million.
You know, and ... that's amazing ...yes. And so that makes it possible for us.
Yep. Makes it easier. Fully fund all the participants.
The aspect that even you know, excites me most is the fact that you know
(21:21):
students who would otherwise not have been able to, you know, partake in these partnerships.
In fact, the literature on international service learning shows that, minorities and students from lower socio economic classes,
you know, because of the fees involved are not able to partake in international internships, but because it is fully funded
(21:52):
you know, this makes it possible for as many of them to go.
So that's one, factor, involved. The other is I think,
former participants have now become what I call our best ambassadors, the best ambassadors for these programs.
(22:15):
Because what happens is that, well, is based on the requirements we built into the partnership.
One, you have to, be able to return to Laurier and, take another year of classes before graduation.
So very often it is either second year or third year students who participate.
(22:40):
Right. Then.
Closely related to that is when you return, you have to engage in community engagement, which basically translates into doing presentations.
and very often they do it in their classes.
The courses they are taking or very often do approach a professor and ask if, oh,
(23:05):
can I come and do a presentation, you know, in your class for, less than.
And so, I think the popularity of the program has been mainly through these ambassadors,
you know, fellow students who come and tell them about their experiences this past summer.
This is what I did. So the word of mouth, you know, advertisement has been very, very, effective for us.
(23:38):
And then thirdly, one other thing that gets them going is the proverbial Ghanaian hospitality.
Ghanaians are very friendly. they will give their best to foreigners and strangers.
And you know many of these students, you know, by at the end of their
(24:02):
internship, they've already started planning how they themselves could return.
Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. So, and generally, Ghana is a peaceful country.
It is an oasis of peace in the, you know, sometimes turbulent West African region.
So, I think this three factors have been very effective ... in pulling new recruits into the program.
(24:31):
That's right. And in terms of impacts from the program, you know, you've noted a few things already,
but maybe you could talk a little bit about the impacts you've seen, both for students and some of the faculty that have gone over as well.
You know, you just intimated that, you know, the internships for students are really key in terms of them thinking about what do they do next,
(24:55):
right, with their lives, finding a mission. Right.
But there's probably other impacts from the program. The program has had.
I, what I will call a very important impact on, Laurier students not only Laurier students,
(25:15):
the participants, because our, yeah, because you're bringing students from Ghana here as well.
Exactly. And so our partnership is what we call a bi-directional partnership.
You know, when you look at the literature on international service learning, the norm has been for students from the global north,
(25:35):
you know, to travel to the global South and come back, but very little movement from the other direction, the South to the global North.
But ours, based on all the factors I talked about earlier, we created a bi-directional, movement of, students and faculty and even staff.
(25:58):
And so in terms of the impact, I think two words, describe this, life changing,
life changing, because, many of these students return and they want to go back.
Many of these students return. And, when they graduate from Laurier, they have been able to,
(26:25):
get employment, jobs that require them to use some of the skills that,
they acquired and they learned and the experience of exposure to, other societies and, but,
talking more specifically in terms of, the achievements and the impacts of the partnership.
(26:53):
I can say at the end of, the, current funding that we have, at the end of that funding,
87 Laurier students, you know, have, participated, in, internships, in, in, Ghana.
(27:20):
and then also about 23 Ghanaian graduate students have also come.
And then in terms of faculty, faculty from each of the three universities have visited Ghana.
And then, one staff from one of the universities, has also visited Canada. About five.
(27:46):
Laurier graduate students have also gone to Ghana.
not to do internships, but to do research or to take courses.
And so, yes, that is one specific impact.
another is that about four PhD students have come out of this program, this partnership, two have become,
(28:21):
lecturers at the University of Cape Coast, which is one of the, which was the university that actually sent them to Canada.
so two have become, professors there.
there is one from that same university who is now an associate professor at the University of
(28:41):
at the Kwami Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.
KNUST, I think you're deepening that network, right?
Yes, yes. And, so, yes, it's been very effective because one of the,
objectives of the program was to build capacity of our partners down in the Global South.
(29:08):
And so now here we have, you know, three PhD students who have become professors.
And a fourth actually was funded through the partnership to do his four year PhD in Social Work right here.
(29:29):
Right. and he graduated in 2021.
And he is also now an Assistant Professor. So, yes, the program has been very impactful.
If, you don't mind, I could read some of the letters, testimonials, from some of the students.
(29:56):
so, for example, this is an excerpt from the letter of support from, one of the human rights students.
Sarah Damico, a former Laurier student who participated in the partnership, I could.
in 2016, I partook. I partook in the Ghana Internship summer program in Accra with other Laurier students.
(30:22):
After my graduation, I believe the opportunity that he created with his fellow professors helped me in my career pursuit.
Currently, I'm a permanent federal employee living in Ottawa.
You know, and then, one of the, Ghanaian students, this was what, she said today I'm pursuing a doctorate with a focus,
(30:54):
with a focus on juvenile justice, so that I can use my scholarship to advocate for reform in Ghana's
system of youth justice in the same way that he does.
And this would not have been possible without his guidance.
And it's not only students, you know, who, make this. Staff at Ashesi University.
(31:23):
[name] Kimani, a Laurier alumnus and former employee of both Laurier International and the International Program Office at Ashesi University,
described the impact of this partnership.
When I joined Ashesi University in Ghana
Doctor Ame's name came up very often for his innovative approach to remotely co-teach a class through Skype
(31:52):
this was long before online teaching became popular.
Yes, he is respected by Ashesi faculty for this commitment to teaching and giving students
brilliant opportunities to learn from various intercultural perspectives and you know context,
(32:13):
but it's not only faculty and staff, uh in the global South, in Ghana,
you know, who, you know, have felt the impact of, this partnership even right here
at Laurier, you know, many of the students who come to Laurier
(32:35):
hosted by the criminology department here, and they are graduate students.
And this is what, Dr. Carrie Sanders former graduate,
coordinator in the criminology, department, you know, stated in her letter of support,
the Ghana student participation in our graduate program has led to richer in class discussions and experiences for the students and faculty alike.
(33:03):
I can say in all honesty that it is, it is a great opportunity for our students and faculty to understand,
critique, and reflect upon the applicability of criminological theorizing in a global and international context.
(33:24):
I wonder if I can pick up on something that you brought up there, and that is the virtual teaching bit, because long before the pandemic,
you were doing this under the terms of the partnership, you were connecting people, Canada and Ghana, online.
Right. Connecting these classrooms in the two countries.
(33:46):
Can you talk about the early experiences in doing that, and why did you start doing that though?
When we started, because of the bi-directional nature of the partnership, it was important that,
it was not only Laurier's students, you know, going down to, Ghana to do internships or to do research or to take courses.
(34:17):
and so we had to think about how to get, the Ghanaian students involved as well.
I already I've already mentioned that, yes
they are graduate students. They come they spend a semester at Laurier and work on the thesis under the supervision of Laurier faculty.
(34:41):
Yes. Another thing that, we, we developed was, these joint classes, joint classes with students.
And so I offered, my children's rights class.
(35:03):
It was a class I had originally created, that focused only on children's rights, in Canada.
but when this opportunity came, I opened up my class that,
I shall see university students in, a cognate discipline, could, you know, join.
(35:27):
And so we discussed it with Ashesi University.
They identified a class that, was similar to, ours.
And then we, um, we decided on that joint partnerhership
So great. Yes. Very interesting.
because, you know, we, adopted the two classes that week
(35:53):
approach instead of a three hour class.
We adopted the two classes per week.
And so what we did was that for the first class, of the week, I either lectured on a topic on children's rights in Canada.
Then for the second class, an Ashesi Professor, you know, lectured on the same topic,
(36:20):
but from a Ghanaian perspective. Oh amazing! Again, that's your comparative approach.
Exactly. Yes. You know, and there were two required textbooks.
One was on children's rights in Canada. The other was children's rights in Ghana.
And so students in, from both universities were required to read, you know, the two textbooks.
(36:45):
And so, yes, that was exposure to another culture
and it was interesting that you mentioned the technology.
at the time, it was, quite a challenge.
I was going to say that would have been very cutting edge for, well, 2016, 2015 or even earlier. 2012 to 2014.
(37:12):
Yeah. So that's even earlier. That was very challenging in the sense that, at the time, Ashesi was just a young university.
They had just started, I think they were within their first ten years.
And so in terms of the technology and facilities that they had
(37:34):
first of all, they didn't even have, a wide enough screen,
you know, to receive, the lectures from my classroom here in Brantford.
but that we quickly, we were able to resolve that. We built that into our funding application.
(37:57):
And so we bought a wide, huge, you know, TV screen that all the 35 students, you know, could easily view.
but the second challenge was the internet.
We are talking about 2012 to 2014. Right?
No. See, all these things we don't even think about anymore, right?
(38:19):
We take for granted. Yeah. So did it keep cutting out on you?
Well, this is what happened. The band with that Ashesi had was not strong enough, right, to receive the signals from, right, here,
especially if others at the university were also working using the internet at the same time.
(38:40):
Of course they were. And so the solution.
Interesting solution, but which was very inconvenient for all the others except the students in my class.
The solution was that anytime that my class was going on, anytime that the joint class was going on,
(39:02):
no faculty, staff or other students could use the university internet at Ashesi. At Ashesi.
No. You're kidding. So they were actually able to do that?
They were able to do that. So for one, that would never work at Laurier.
And so for one and half hours, you know, each week, you owned the internet.
(39:23):
Yes. At Ashesi! I love that.
Oh, that's, you know, I recently, did some research, so in Ghana and I had to go back to Ashesi,
you know, to collect data and, you know, I learned that, oh, it's become a big issue.
(39:43):
It's a faculty, they they have a good laugh each time they, they remember this story, because of the blackout, the internet blackout.
I love it so because this was ten years ago.
Of course. Yes. Things have changed. And now they have everything.
I mean, yeah, yeah, but at that time it was quite an inconvenience for them.
(40:06):
And do you still have any connected classroom work in what you're doing now or a virtual interaction for teaching?
no, not currently. We don't have that.
but the good thing, what excites me, about these joint classes is that when we
(40:29):
when the joint classes ended, they continued to offer children's rights.
It was a course they have at face now.
they created. And so today, as of last, last year,
that I collected data at Ashesi that showed the children's rights class is still running, and again, capacity building.
(40:50):
And I'm just, I'm just going to build on what you just said because you are now you now have a SSHRC grant,
which is focused on measuring the impact of internationalization.
Can you talk just a little bit about that because that's really important.
Right. So that we know more about you know, what do we net from these efforts that Laurier is making toward internationalization?
(41:14):
Yes. That's right. yes. once again, with my colleagues from the Human Rights, program, we got a SSHRC
grant to assess the ten years of the partnership, though we started in 2011.
(41:34):
And so, yes, by 2021, we had clocked ten years.
And, so, the key objective of the partnership was to, assess, yes, the partnership and, and so, yes.
we finished collecting data.
(41:57):
We are currently on, we are currently doing our data analysis.
and, the plan is that come this summer, in August, my colleagues and I will be traveling down to the University of Ghana to
(42:19):
organize a workshop at which we will present the findings, you know, of this research.
So we are still doing the
data analysis is not yet complete. but definitely some of the, findings that, has come up so far is, first of all,
(42:43):
that the NGOs in particular would like to see this partnership continue, because basically what happens is when our students go,
down to Ghana to do the internship, you know, for three months,
they have free labor in the sense that we have the interns who work as staff with the NGOs,
(43:07):
and yet they are not paid because, but they bring skills and capacity. Exactly.
So the NGOs definitely want, the partnership to, to continue.
The universities want the partnership, to continue.
and so, yes.
but I think it will not be until maybe spring, early summer that, you know, all the findings from, this research, come together.
(43:37):
Yes, will come together. Well, we look forward to hearing about that.
So. Thank you. one of the other things that I was really struck by in your nomination dossier, is again,
a quote that's attributed to you by one of your nominators where you say that a scholar
from a developing country does not have the luxury of pursuing knowledge for its own sake.
(44:02):
Can you talk about that a little bit? Because that's a really important statement, that the knowledge has to be for some purpose.
Is what you're saying right? Can you talk a little bit about that?
That statement, came about, you know, when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Ghana,
(44:27):
majoring in sociology, with an anthropology minor.
and somehow at that young age, I just had this feeling, this question, you know, started welling up in me.
(44:49):
So what am I doing sociology for?
What am I doing anthropology for? Of what use will it be to first for myself, my family and then the society?
Yeah. You know, and then for someone who comes from a poor family and uh uh having observed that no matter what,
(45:18):
the, Ghanaian politicians, the leaders did, you know, did not change.
It did not change, the situation of the poor.
And so, you know, one day I went to the library to, get materials for an
assignment. and walking through the aisle, you know, is not, once again, the technology has changed.
(45:46):
And a lot those days at the library, you physically have to go walk through the aisles and pick your,
you know, your book or go through the card catalogs. We were talking about that the other day, right?
Yeah. So as I was walking through aisle, I don't know, the title of a book just attracted me and it was 'Knowledge
(46:08):
for what?'. I picked the book and realized it was authored by Robert S. Lynd, a professor at Princeton University.
And I just felt with that question, that was the question I've been grappling with.
Yeah, that was the question I had been grappling knowledge for
(46:30):
What? Why do we go to classes?
In fact, even until today, I asked when I learned about I have 8:30 a.m. classes or 7 p.m. classes.
You know, it's a question I ask my students. Why do you wake up so early?
To come here. To commute from wherever you know, and to be able to make it to class at 8:30 a.m.?
(46:55):
So what do they say when you ask that?. I'm interested in what the response is.
Oh, well, today's. Do. I need to get my degree?
Exactly. I want to get a job. But as I said, it was a question I grappled with from a very young age.
That must have been about my second year in, university for so long.
(47:18):
But when I saw, that title, I said, yes, it sums it all up.
but then at the same time, one other thing that happened was that I became convinced of the transformative power of people.
(47:39):
I somehow just had deep, this deep belief that given the right conditions and environment, people can change the situation.
And so when I put everything together, I came to the conclusion, in fact, the conviction that,
(48:03):
you know, scholars from the Third World should not pursue knowledge for just its sake.
In fact, knowledge must, you know, lead to action.
so it is a luxury for them, because how can you see all these problems that your people have?
(48:28):
majority of the people are poor, and then you instead you say you are a professor and you are just pursuing knowledge for its sake.
No. I became convinced that the acquisition of knowledge must be for the purpose of addressing the nagging problems, the problems that, you know,
(48:51):
the policy makers and, the politicians have been trying to address for years, and yet they've not been able to, you know, solve.
And for me, thinking about the rest of Africa, then I extended it that, you know, it's not just Ghanaian scholars,
African scholars because, you know, the problems are similar in all the, African countries, I said no.
(49:18):
Scholars from developing countries, especially in the social sciences.
Our focus should be to address those problems that face our people.
If we don't do that, then our knowledge is not achieving that well, which you know we are pursuing then knowledge.
(49:40):
And so for me, that is the orientation that informs my teaching philosophy, in the sense that, you know,
all my assignments and all that, the, policy oriented, the, focused on addressing the problem.
And so I talked earlier about, cross-cultural perspectives.
(50:04):
And. Yeah, It comes full circle to that, because your comparative perspective there is is fits right in with that primary aim.
Precisely.
So when you select the country, when you select the practice, and then you tell me that, okay, it violates international human rights, norms.
Then for me, I told them the most important section of your paper is for me is the recommendations.
(50:29):
What can we do? Right. To address the problem.
How do you convince, you know, my grandmother in the village that you know, a particular practice,
a particular thing that they do is against international human rights norms.
When first, of course, she's never heard anything about international human rights.
(50:51):
She doesn't know anything about the United Nations. She doesn't know anything about whether Ghana has signed or ratified in that type of thing.
How do you convince such a person? You know, knowledge must inform action.
What can we do to change, you know, the negative traditional practices that, you know, are part of the human rights?
(51:15):
Because at the end of the day, human rights are about human dignity, you know, and we have all these traditional,
and negative traditional practices, you know, that affect the health and welfare of mostly women and children.
How do we change that? You know, so it's that type of thing for the graduate students.
(51:37):
When you go into that foreign country, you go to Zambia or you go to South Africa, you study the youth justice system.
You see all the problems there where you don't end there.
How can you help the South African descended?
Let's say that, the Canadian, high Commission, you know, in Zambia, the Canadian High Commission, you know,
(52:02):
in Ghana, you are working there as the development officer and is said, oh, yes, you are a human rights scholar.
Now, how do we this address this problem of female circumcision in northern Ghana?
Yeah. Can you tell me in your research, you know, what you would tell them?
So my point is, knowledge must inform.
(52:27):
Knowledge must lead to action. So yes, it is a believe I have.
It is a conviction I have.
And I still believe that, you know, pursuing knowledge just for the sake of knowledge is a luxury for scholars from, developing countries.
Well, I can see why your students find your courses transformative, Robert.
(52:52):
that is very inspiring. Can I ask you one more question?
Because, you know, if you could provide advice for our colleagues at Laurier in terms of how to bring the global village into the classroom,
what would you say? what's one thing you can do to start?
(53:12):
Right? Yes. I think I've mentioned one already, which is the comparative approach.
Absolutely. because what that does is, it requires students to read materials from other cultures, from other nations.
And so for courses that, it will be possible to do that, they should,
(53:39):
you know, include required readings from other nations, other cultures.
And so I'm thinking particularly about the social sciences, you know, and all of that.
So, that is one. Another
is that because Laurier has so many exchange programs and partnerships, in fact, is not only Ghana, that,
(54:10):
our colleagues should encourage their students to participate either on these, exchange programs and, also,
that when the students return well, as we do in the case of the Ghana partnership, you know, because when they return,
(54:33):
they are often emailing professors asking, oh, can I come and do a presentation about my experience and all that?
I will, plead with my, colleagues to open up their classrooms to the interns who return,
and, so that they can, tell their colleagues, their classmates.
(54:57):
And what I've found, out is that, you know, students very often, when they hear things from their fellow students,
you know, they tend to take it more than when, you know, we professors stand there.
Oh, you should do this. But yeah.
So those are some of the ways that, I think, you know, our colleagues, at
(55:24):
Laurier could encourage internationalization and interculturalizing, in our classrooms.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for joining me here today.
It's been a great and fascinating discussion. Thank you.
My thanks to Robert Ame for joining me today, and I hope you will join me for more conversations that celebrate exceptional teaching practices,
(55:53):
explore diverse teaching philosophies, and discuss the future of higher education, teaching, and learning.
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