Dexter Voisin, Dean of the Mandel School at Case Western University, is a leading voice on how violence affects youth and young adults in urban areas in the US. He is also a deep thinker about how we might actually do structural transformation within higher education and professional institutions.
I have worked with Dean Voisin as a member of his collaborative research teams for over a decade, and I have taken away the following lessons:
We should always begin with our own positions -- where we come from, our own assumptions, and how the institutions during our journey to now have framed and influenced our current thinking and institutional practices.
We should try to place ourselves in the positions of others -- do we understand, really understand, the people, communities, and institutions with which we are trying to engage? -- how do we know? -- and how does the anxiety of uncertainty lead us sometimes to take paths that seem more comforting though they may not be transformative?
We should listen more than we talk, and reflect on what we are hearing.
Here is a link for the Carl A Scott Memorial Lecture that Dean Voisin presented to the Council on Social Work Education. Dean Voisin speaks for about an hour but the time goes by quickly. His comments start at about 9:30 minutes.
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