Brains collided at the 2022 ASEAN and Internationalization Week Celebration on August 15th through 19th in that various narratives on global discursive frames were looked into as a way of keeping the dynamics among key players in the post-pandemic.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) U.S.A, Silesian University of Technology (SUT) Poland, Hame University of Applied Sciences (HUAS) Finland, The International University of Logistics and Transport (IULT) Poland, Poletecnico de Portalegre (PP) Portugal, QS Southeast Asia and United Nations (UN) studded the annual event, having key representatives discuss several models of progress while being challenged by technology and other environmental phenomena.
The hybrid program organized by the University Internationalization and ASEAN Integration (IAI) Office highlighted major activities—global talk, fireside chat, literary circle, and competitions (power talk and storytelling that engaged students across CTU campuses). All segments reinforced participants’ critical thinking, given the interactive platform upon which each was built through moderators, reactors, speakers, guests, hosts and contingents.
Technological ramifications on humanity were the recurring elements. Dr. Bartlomiej Knosala of SUT posited that the anthropocene is a major area of discourse impacted by humans. In the same line of thought, Dr. Luis Miguel Cardoso of PP articulated the same scenario reflecting the machine as major influence influence on pedagogical behavior thereby becoming useful or disruptive practices in the academe to which Dr. Vesa Salminen of HUAS sort of supported such a claim of duality.
More or less, the week-long gathering seeped into the minds of global audience as it was punctuated with a talk by Director Lydia Snover of MIT, top 1 in QS ranking for 10 years now. Being the senior adviser to institutional research, she has equipped herself with the agenda that catapulted MIT to its present status. This was supplemented by QS Southeast Asia manager E Way Chong in terms of contextualizing the fabric of world rankings and the indices that are measured each time for an HEI to be reputable. Sharing with CTU some of the reasons for their being top-performing all these years, Snover was able to appropriately end the series of dialogs, silver-lining the intercultural hybrid event attended by IAI chairs and inbound/outbound mobility guests from all campuses.
Students too had their way of expressing viewpoints about these global phenomena during the Power Talk competition with guest judge Charlotte Lim, advisor to the Mission of the Philippine to the United Nations. Her contribution added depth to the way ideas were validated. Lim’s exposure on peace studies widened her views on how these present conflicts are dealt with. CTU San Francisco representative emerged as winner.
On the one hand, storytelling maintained its position of honing minds to transform behavioral landscapes as a way of preserving nature and all other forms of life-sustaining measures. IULT’s Weronika Majda’s perspective of the craft signaled the undying presence of this traditional art of conjuring conscious thoughts to relay either the illusory fact or factual illusion of things that operate in the environment. The CTU Barili winner took upon herself the responsibility of transporting listeners to the world described in the story as expected of a skillful storyteller.
AIW 2022 proved true the need for people to converge for enrichment of principles toward common goals, as espoused in the poetic visions from ASEAN regions, amplified at the literary circle. Both readers and sharers captured the value of oriental transcendence that for the first time rippled to the global audience at the hybrid event.
CTU IAI seeks to sustain this intellectual exercise with the support of the vice president for academic affairs and the university administration./IAI