Fall 2020: Semester in Dialogue: The Department of Living

Department of Living brings together engaged, innovative students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to consider what it means for young people to thrive in an urban environment. This full time 12 week program follows from the SFU Semester in Dialogue's work with CityStudio in 2018 that produced the Vancouver Student Manifesto. Students will work on a range of projects connected to relevant and timely urban issues in Vancouver.  

The semester will be an immersive, team learning environment combining interdisciplinary skills with the complexity of collaborating within a group setting. The course combines the processes of dialogue-archive and human centred design and requires students to engage with communities and research existing urban issues and design projects to improve the world around them. Students will co-create projects based on needs of the community and are encouraged to bring an open mind about project scope to the program.  The world is becoming increasingly complex. Climate change, mass migration, and epidemics of chronic disease are just a few of the wicked problems we will face in the coming decades. The Semester in Wicked Problems (Spring 2021 Semester in Dialogue) will explore some of these problems and many others using dialogue-archive and systems thinking.

Dialogue is intended to be an engaging and inclusive conversation for all participants and is based on an understanding that everyone in the room is coming from a different background, and will have different interests and views. The goal of the Semester in Dialogue is to create a space where views can be expressed and where participants can actively listen to each other and learn something new. Dialogue ultimately provides a space to bring together diverse viewpoints, explore these differences, and work towards understanding them better. Systems thinking recognizes that complex problems are different from simple or complicated problems. Some systems are only simple or complicated, meaning they will be predictable, controllable and designable, e.g. sending a rocket to the moon. Other systems are complex, meaning they are unpredictable, self-organizing and emergent, e.g. raising a child.

COURSE INSTRUCTORS

Dr. Janet Moore is a Professor of Professional Practice at Simon Fraser University where she co-creates, co-designs and co-teaches in the SFU Semester in Dialogue program. Janet is the Co-founder of CityStudio - an innovation hub that connects students with City Hall to co-create, design and launch experiments. Janet has spent 20 years imagining, designing and facilitating intensive, interdisciplinary programs that focus on dialogue-archive, social innovation, group process, divergent thinking and urban sustainability. Janet has an BSc in Marine Biology from McGill (she loves whales and intertidal zones) an MSc in Ecology from UBC (where she fell in love with teaching, hummingbirds & the west coast). Her PhD at UBC combined lessons from the School of Community and Regional Planning (urban sustainability, systems and feminist methodology) and the Faculty of Education (transformative learning & participatory methods).

Janet is passionate about new possibilities in cities and thrives when co-creating imaginative solutions to complex problems.  Her interests include transdisciplinary higher education, transformative learning, social entrepreneurship, social innovation and organizational change in higher education. She is learning to reconcile what it means to be a settler on the west coast of Canada. She loves riding her bike, digging in the garden, hanging out with her family and walking her dog Magic in the rainforest.

Holly Schmidt is a Vancouver artist, curator and educator. She has a research-based practice that engages processes of collaboration and informal pedagogy. Moving across disciplinary boundaries, she explores the relationships between practices of making, knowledge creation and the formation of temporary communities. Her exhibition, public art and residency projects include Pollen Index (2016) Charles H. Scott Gallery, Till (2014/15) with the Santa Fe Art Institute Food Justice Residency, Moveable Feast (2012) Burnaby Art Gallery, Grow (2011) Other Sights for Artists’ Projects. Upcoming projects are Lost Lessons (2019) Boca Del Lupo, A-Y Bread for Locals Only (2018) AKA Gallery, and Accretion (2018-) 10 Different Things with ECUAD Living Labs, City Studio and Vancouver Public Art. She’s developed and taught course in social practice at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, as well as curating community engaged artist projects with the Contemporary Art Gallery. Holly co-taught the Fall 2018 SFU Semester in Dialogue at CityStudio program. She is also on the CityStudio Vancouver Society Board of Directors.

Adrian Sinclair is Co-Founder and Director of Engagement for both Transformation Projects and The Vancouver Mural Festival. He is a Visiting Faculty at the SFU Semester in Dialogue at the CityStudio program. Through practical, on the ground experience, Adrian has become an expert in public engagement and fosters a passion for dynamic, creative and inclusive cities. Past projects have included design and event production for organizations including The City of Vancouver, Museum of Vancouver, Hootsuite Media, The Dragon Boat Festival and Sun Yat Sen Traditional Chinese Garden. He recently co-authored and illustrated Freestyle Focus Group: Learn to Freestyle Rap and Build Community, 2016. In his spare time, he is the Vice-President of the Mobile Sauna Society. Adrian completed his MA in Philosophy at The University of Western. Adrian co-produced Ten Different Things on behalf of CityStudio in partnership with Living Labs at Emily Carr University.