What’s the difference between Student Advocacy Seminars versus Integrating SAR into existing syllabi?
What is a Student Advocacy Seminar?
Student Advocacy Seminars are structured as experiential learning opportunities for students to aid their development of human rights research and advocacy skills through direct engagement on behalf of threatened members of the global higher education community.
Arranged and supervised by local faculty in partnership with Scholars at Risk, each seminar takes on the case of one or more scholars facing unjust restrictions, prosecution, or imprisonment. Although tailored to each institution and group of students, it is designed to give students a foundation in (and presumably should include):
● Human rights research, standards, and mechanisms
● Organizing, campaigning, and advocacy
● Persuasive writing and speaking
● Leadership and teamwork skills
What is Integration?
In contrast, integration of SAR into the syllabus involves incorporating one or more elements without changing the structure of the course, thus using SAR as a pedagogical tool. It does not require the course to focus its main learning goals on human rights advocacy work. Please see examples of projects below to illustrate the difference between SAR Advocacy Seminar versus integrating a component of SAR into the syllabus.
If you are a UBC faculty member who would like to integrate SAR’s work on Academic Freedom into your own courses, regardless of discipline, please contact the SAR-HRC Lead, Dr. Jenny Peterson (jenny.peterson@ubc.ca) to discuss exciting opportunities for your course.
More Information: