The Vice-Rectorate to International Relations and the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) organized on April 28 and 29, 2011 the XXI Colloquium of ACISE (Association Catholique Internationale des Institutions de Sciences de l'Éducation) on the theme of “Belonging and Globalization in Education. New Challenges for the Catholic University”.
Many lecturers and scholars from Lebanese, French, Italian, German, Brazilian, Polish and Indian universities took part in the various sessions of the colloquium which discussed different themes, notably: Learning and Teaching at the Catholic University Today, the Challenges of the Catholic University in the Era of Globalization and Education in the Service of Reestablishing Global Order.
Rev. Fr. Georges Hobeika, USEK Vice-Rector to International Relations and Council Member at ACISE, underlined in his speech in the inaugural session that such colloquium aims to represent Lebanon as a space of dialogue and coexistence, considering despite this that “no one today can deny the clash of civilizations and the collapse of distances, and that “the most controversial question that will be facing humanity does not consist in how to exist as much as it consists in how to coexist and how to cross from the identity of murder to the identity of reconciliation”. “Catholic educational institutions spread all over the world will not stay hands tied concerning this issue; there are a lot of educational strategies that could be implemented for this purpose”, Fr. Hobeika concluded.
In turn, Mr. Juan Carlos Torre, President of the ACISE, elaborated in his speech on the concepts of learning, teaching and educational work, stressing that education is nowadays threatened with the repercussions of globalization, and this is why it should play the role of a compass to be able to find out the right directions for itself and for the world in which it exists”.
Mgr. Guy-Réal Thivierge, Secretary General of the International Federation of Catholic Universities, dealt in his speech with the relation between education and globalization, highlighting that the latter is exercising a lot of pressure on universities in an attempt to urge them to amend the nature of their missions and the different approaches of higher education. “We should think of globalization as a contemporary phenomenon and be aware of how to benefit from it in order to maintain the good things in human societies… Accordingly, Catholic universities are invited to tolerate its modern values without having to sacrifice its heritage which represents a wealth for the entire humanity”, Mgr. Thivierge noted.