The Trent Centre of Teaching & Learning and the Department of Social Work is thrilled to be hosting the three-part Distinguished Visiting Teaching Scholar Speaker Series this upcoming academic year (2024- 2025), dedicated to teaching and learning practices around "Greening Higher Education."
Please join us on October 30, 2024 for the first instalment of the speaker series: The Power of Ceremony: Indigenous Contemplative Practices and the Earth by renowned Indigenous social work scholar Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba.
Register to attend in-person here or online here.
This interdisciplinary plenary talk will be open to Trent faculty, staff, students and community members.
More on The Power of Ceremony: Indigenous Contemplative Practices and the Earth:
Indigenous contemplative practices and teachings have enabled Indigenous Peoples to develop a deep, intimate relationship with the natural world and an appreciation and respect for its beauty, diversity, and complexity. The understanding that the Earth is a living being with dynamic ecosystems such as rainforests, savannahs, grasslands, deserts, and aquatic systems that support human life, has provided a pathway for humans to experience a sense of unity, harmony, and interconnectedness with all living things. In this presentation, Dr. Michael Yellow Bird shares how Earth-based Indigenous contemplative practices can promote a stronger connection to all life on the planet and support the idea of the greening of higher education. He combines Indigenous wisdom along with western science to show how learning Earth contemplations can create important changes in the brain and body that can transform our relationship with the Earth. Participants will come to understand the connections between western neurosciences and Indigenous knowledge and ways of being and how this content is relevant to the greening of social work education and can be added to their teaching and curriculum.
Please see attached PDF or the Centre for Teaching & Learning website for more information.