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“Each speaker was solid.  I’d never be able to experience meeting such powerful individuals on my own. You delivered a gold mine in terms of my own academic development.” 

 

- Participant, faculty development program,  Mexico

The Center's programs include learning from people whose voices are underrepresented in society.  Above: Students learn from a woman in rural village of Mexico.
 

Educational Philosophy

Basic Assumptions

The goal of all of our educational programs is the empowerment of the participants to work for personal and social transformation as s/he best sees fit. The purpose of education abroad is to empower and prepare participants to become global citizens.

 

Principles of Education

1.   Process: The best kind of learning is learning how to learn in a way that values all learning styles. 
2.  

Community:  Effective learning takes place in the context of community. Our goal is to build a community of co-learners by fostering an environment in which diversity is respected, everyone feels safe to be who s/he is, to express her or his opinions and beliefs, and to learn.
3.     Content: Liberating education takes place when the content of the curriculum is made real through experience and includes dialogue with people whose voices are underrepresented in academia and society at large.
4.   Critical Analysis: Liberating education requires critical analysis of experiences in order to make the experiences educational.
5.   Action: Liberating education encourages individuals to live as active agents of history, and hence, fosters social transformation rather than the maintenance of the status quo.