Three months after this year’s DIT Day 2023, entitled EUR 2043: Imagining the University of the Future, we wrap up our coverage of the event with a look back at the day as a whole, including our fantastic keynote. We’ve already published a few blogs on some of the specific workshops that took place, and, in this blog, we fill in the gaps, and present some videos of our highlights too.
Written by Anna Stepanyuk
As a platform, we were committed to using the DIT Day to engage people in the work of our wider community. As such, in the run-up to the event, we announced an open call to invite submissions, from which we curated a roster of nine workshops, all corresponding to the theme of the University of the Future. The topics of the workshops ranged from principles and possibilities of regenerative education to visible mending, from transdisciplinary education to holistic universities. We were thrilled to welcome 100 guests. Check out this video of the day to get a flavour of the diversity of the programme, created by the wonderful Hielke Grootendorst.
To begin the day, we had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Jennie C. Stephens to share her thoughts on our theme, drawing on insights from her recent work on climate justice in higher education, including for an upcoming book on the subject. In her speech, Professor Stephens shared her conviction that universities have both the potential and the obligation to advance climate justice. Now more than ever, she argued, we need to unite and leverage the power of higher education to create a more just and sustainable future.
And yet, as Professor Stephens laid out, most universities are not doing enough to address climate change because their ability to act is currently constrained by existing frameworks, bureaucracies and dependencies. While acknowledging that “nothing will be perfect, and nothing will be sufficient for a full radical change", she stressed that disruptions to the status quo in education are urgently needed. Throughout her thought-provoking speech, Professor Stephens ignited our collective imagination of new administrative structures and new social missions for universities, challenging us to reimagine the future role of higher education in the world, and set a great tone for the rest of the DIT Day 2023. Want to hear her make her case? Check out the complete recording of her speech below.
Keynote by Professor Jennie C. Stephens
After the keynote, we honored our commitment to sustainability by inviting Erasmus Food Lab to serve up a delicious lunch, made from plant-based, seasonal, and local food, and cooked especially for us by EUR students and staff in a workshop exploring how universities like ours can play a role in accelerating transitions to just and sustainable food systems.
After two rounds of workshops, we brought the day to a close with an interactive panel discussion looking back on the key insights from across the programme, and a pedagogical reflection process in which our audience was guided in silent contemplation on what new ideas from the day they might implement in their own work. After that we opened the bar, served some tasty vegan nibbles, and enjoyed some live music from the incredibly talented Erasmus Music Association. As guests enjoyed the celebration, we had the pleasure of speaking to some of them about their experiences during the DIT Day. When asked about the future of the university, many guests highlighted the need for more interdisciplinarity and communal spaces. They also shared that the university has to evolve to become a more integral part of society, providing actionable solutions to real-world challenges. One of the participants, Kornelia Dimitrova, the co-founder and director of the foundation “We Are,” shared an inspiring reflection on the role of curiosity and community.
"If it was up to the people I met today, it [the university of the future] would be a place for free thinking, ideas, contemplation. A place that is not really framed by financial flows or influences, but is rather framed by the curiosity of the people involved. It will be a community in that sense."
Some ideas were more radical. For example, an artist Colin shared that “the university lives in our hearts,” pointing to the notion that a university can exist without a physical location. Overall, the thoughtful provocations left us feeling hopeful and excited for the future of academia. Check out these highlights from our interviews to hear their reflections.
We’re already excited for DIT Day 2024, and we hope you are too! Want to get involved? Just get in touch, we’re always open to ways to collaborate with our vibrant community.
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About the author
Anna Stepanyuk is a MSc student of Global Business & Sustainability at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and an assistant at the DIT platform. Anna helps develop and execute communications and marketing strategies and provides organisational support for DIT's events. In her free time, Anna is involved in various sustainable initiatives.
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About the DIT platform
The Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform creates infrastructures for transformative academic work at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). If you want to learn more about similar initiatives organised by the Design Impact Transition Platform, or if you would like to get involved in transforming education and academia, please send an email to dit@eur.nl.
