Health and wellness
Empathetic, compassionate leadership key for challenging times
By Jeff Hodson
In these challenging times, the world’s higher-learning institutions must lead with empathy, compassion and with respect for diversity, according an international panel of women leading post-secondary institutions in Canada and India.
On May 20, the B.C.-India Business Network and partners, including global media partner PIO TV, will host, Leading the Way: Women Leaders in Post-Secondary Education, a panel discussion on the challenges and the lessons for universities amid the pandemic and ways to ensure students are prioritized in decision making.
“I see our challenge as largely our opportunity,” says panelist Joanne MacLean, president and vice-chancellor of the University of the Fraser Valley. “With the pace of change and the complexity of issues, we have the chance to help students of all ages engage their learning journey to overcome the threats of tomorrow.
“The driver that is technology, basic and applied research, the creation of new knowledge and the ability to contribute to a better world through research and innovation, has never been more important. The world as we can envision it depends on us.”
Joining MacLean on the panel will be Gillian Siddall, president and vice-chancellor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design (ECU); Harbeen Arora, chancellor of Rai University (RU) in India; Joy Johnson, president and vice-chancellor of SFU; and Shalini Bharat, vice-chancellor of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai.
The event, which is free (registration is required), will be emceed by Narges Nirumvala, founder and CEO of ExecutiveSpeak coaching, and will be moderated by Sobhana Jaya-Madhavan, SFU’s associate vice-president, external relations.
Two of the panelists lead post-secondary institutions in India, which has been devastated by the pandemic in recent weeks as variants of concern pushed the number of COVID-19 infections above 25 million.
For her part, TISS’s Bharat says, "More than ever before higher education leadership needs to respond with empathy and understanding given the student diversity in public institutions. The pandemic has highlighted the unequal learning ecosystems in students’ homes during remote learning, as well as the importance of supporting students’ mental health."
But, she adds, the pandemic has also shown the power of technology as well as opportunities for innovations in teaching, training and evaluation methods.
“Agility, flexibility and distributed leadership are key to dealing with crises like this one,” Bharat says. “University systems need to be made resilient and agile for absorbing the shocks and aftershocks of extreme events and uncertainty as posed by this pandemic.”
Collectively, RU’s Arora adds, leadership models need to shift from authority to trust, from hierarchy to networking and from control to co-creation.
“We must adopt the best of both – online education and offline education – and make our blended models more human-centric, community-centric and learner-centric.”
The pandemic, Bharat says, has also shown need to include students in decision-making, through the use of academic councils, promoting a “listening culture” and setting aside time for students’ agenda in all important meetings.
“The best way to ensure students are top of mind in decision making is to include them in decision making,” MacLean adds. “This means governance structures, relationship-building and the importance of communication channels.”
The importance of listening to students and turning their statements into concrete and measurable actions through institutional goals is echoed by ECU’s Siddall, who adds that educating the next generation of scholars and creatives is a privilege and an enormous responsibility.
Siddall notes a groundswell of action to decolonize universities and dismantle legacies of white supremacy and to recognize that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) students and faculty have faced unequal barriers in post-secondary.
“Post-secondary institutions have an obligation to speak out on important and contentious issues,” Siddall says. “Our students inspire us to imagine a more progressive, sustainable and creative future, and as such, we must use our power to make that future possible.
“This work is complex and challenging, and often painful. But it’s also an incredible opportunity to support and nurture the students and faculty who have historically been marginalized, and create a richer and more critical educational environment that benefits all of us.”
In a similar vein, Johnson, says COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated the economic and social inequality and inequity in our society.
“We have all been through this storm together,” Johnson says. “But we haven’t all been in the same boat.
The pandemic, she adds, has added renewed urgency to issues like the ongoing toll colonialism has taken on Indigenous peoples, the rise of hate, xenophobia and discrimination and the deep economic inequalities that harm our communities and our economy.
“To build back better, we have to work on bridging these divides in the pursuit of a more just society and also a more prosperous society.”
