Utrecht University: International CEL features in three public events

International Community Engaged Learning is one important strategy through which UGlobe works to achieve its ambition of promoting civic engagement with the wider world and to confront complex global challenges. In international CEL, students, teachers, and external partners work together on societal challenge in the global context. This month, UGlobe’s international CEL featured in three public events.

Fourth National Conference on Interdisciplinary Education
On June 3rd, UGlobe’s International Community Engaged Learning (iCEL) team contributed to the Fourth National Conference on Interdisciplinary Education (NIE) hosted by University College Maastricht. Maria van der Harst, a researcher and a member of the iCEL team, led a workshop dedicated towards teaching global, transformative citizenship skills. Solving entangled, international problems requires new pedagogical approaches that involve group collaboration, empathy and the understanding of the global interconnectedness. By discussing these practical aspects of learning and student empowerment, this workshop was a valuable platform for exchanging knowledge, sharing best practices, and brainstorming solutions with academic teachers and students, from the Netherlands and beyond.In this way, iCEL was presented as a meaningful response to the complexity of today’s transformative, global challenges.

Challenging Poland’s LGBT-free zones
The students of the Public International Law and Human Rights Legal Clinic, an international CEL project supervised by Dr. Brianne McGonigle Leyh, organized on 7 June the panel ‘Challenging ‘Poland‘s LGBT-free zones’ – Upholding human rights in Europe’ to present the results of their collaboration with Human Rights Watch. A collaboration where the students analysedhuman rights implications of the so-called ‘LGBT-ideology free zones’ that have been declared in several Polish counties since 2019. The research explored the wider context of rule of law backsliding in Poland, as well as the anti-EU and anti-gender rhetoric of Polish political actors. The final report comprehensively addresses the legal and political avenues available to victims in order to address and challenge the so-called ‘LGBT-ideology free zones’ in Poland.

Realities of Algorithmic Defence
Contesting Governance’s ‘Intimacies of Remote Warfare programme’ hosted the symposium ‘Realities of Algorithmic Defence’ (hier link naar het andere nieuwsbericht) in collaboration with the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) to discuss the current state of the development, deployment, and regulation of autonomy in defense weapon systems. The symposium was co-organized by dr. Lauren Gould (project leader at IRW) and a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) group of Conflict Studies and Human Rights students Amé den Hollander, Joel Shepard, Daan Boelens, and Linde Arentze, coordinated by Jack Davies.