Community for Enhancing Intercultural Learning Experiences: Student Panel Discussion and Faculty/Staff Forum – What does diversity and inclusiveness mean to you?

THE SESSION

Our goal is to embrace and value differences, to learn from each other, and to foster a mindset of diversity that promotes inclusiveness, collegiality, and respect.’ (HKUST Strategic Plan 2021-2028)

This forum will bring together students from across the University to discuss the importance of this goal, how it is addressed and what more might be done to achieve it.

These HKUST students will take part in the discussion:

• Anushka Baldwa, Year 3, SSCI
• Morris Ho Chiu Chan, Year 2 SSCI
• Anson Sze Wai Chan, Year 3, SHSS
• Gigi Mei Yu Chiu, Year 4, SBM
• Shravan Ramaswamy, Year 3, SBM
• Edward Tsun Kit TAM, Year 4, SENG
• Whitney Wei Lin Yu, Year 3, IPO

The panel will also include two students from Li Po Chun, United World College of Hong Kong. UWC has as its mission to make ‘education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future’. Erica and Merav will tell us about how this mission informs policies and practices at LPCUWC, and why this is important to them.

The panel discussion will be facilitated by the CoP’s Principal Coordinator, Melissa Megan. Faculty and staff will have opportunities to engage with the student participants and will be invited to reflect on what the students have shared after the panel discussion.

We believe this will be an important event, giving the CoP insight into what might be done to achieve the University’s goal.

WHO ARE WE?

Melissa Megan, Principal Coordinator
Melissa is a Senior Lecturer in the CLE. Melissa has been living and interacting interculturally for about 30 years, 21 of those having been spent at HKUST. Melissa is a proponent of Internationalisation at Home: ‘…the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments’ (Beelen & Jones, 2015), and hopes this is what this Community can work towards achieving at HKUST.

Beatrice Chu, Coordinator
Beatrice is an Educational Developer and heads up the professional development programs and initiatives at CEI for faculty and frontline teaching staff. She has over 20 years of experience working in different sectors in tertiary education. Beatrice was trained as a physicist, and her current interests are innovative instructional approaches and programs that facilitate students' knowledge, skillset, and mindset for the 21st century. She involves in multiple intercultural teaching competence initiatives at HKUST.