KNU in World in Conversation
It was a busy day at Knowledge University (KNU) when Dr. Sam Richards and Dr. Laurie Mulvey visited our university on 22/12/2018 to present a seminar on an international multi faucet dialogue project among students around the world called “World in Conversation” (WinC), which is dedicated to expanding human understanding of complicated social, cultural, economical … challenges.
The Seminar talked about the work of WinC, its goals and objectives and further explained that students around the world are connected, in an active exchange of information, via online video conferencing by conducting dialogues alluringly involving different countries, places, people, and cultures. The goal of these dialogues is to bring people closer together and to clear out any stereotypes and misconceptions about a certain group of people. Some Other goals are to give people a chance to voice their opinion about matters and master Conversation Skills as well as the techniques of Academic Debate and Critical Thinking. The WinC undergraduate dialogue facilitators make it possible for people in small groups to “think together” on the basis of their different social positions.
The People in the Dialogue
Mainly, there are two types of people present in a dialogue; Participants and Facilitators. A Participant is a person who attends in the active exchange of thoughts and information in the dialogue, they are the ones who answer the questions and share their perspective regarding the statement. To add to, the Facilitators are the people who monitor the participants and question their answers regarding the original question and add more questions to why or how did the participant reach a conclusion or a standpoint regarding the “statement.” The number of Participants can vary from two to six or more, while the Facilitators are limited to two maximum per dialogue.
KNU Facilitators and Participants
KNU has been involved in the WinC program throughout the past two academic years, setting up and attending dialogues on a weekly basis, around 30 successful dialogues. KNU team is led by its WinC-organizer Mr. Mohammad Kiani, the head of the Department of English (DENL) who has had the initiatives from the start of the project, working closely with the WinC country organizer Mr. Basim Razzo and the Penn-State University. In addition, KNU has now two wonderful international dialogue facilitators: Mohammed Khabat Naif, a senior of DENL and Shahad Bahjat Mohammed-Redha, a junior student in the Department of Petroleum Engineering (DPET) finally , comee the amazing team of students-participants:
- Abdullah Ayoub Sabir,
- Aysha Omar Hassan,
- Akam Azad Mustafa
- Ahmed Ibrahim Saeed,
- Amina Anas Abbas,
- Chya Kawes Anwar,
- Elaf Kamal Salim,
- Elaf Rostam Taha,
- Fadi Raad Afram,
- Israa Jamal Ahmed,
- Karwan Yousif Moahmmed-Amin,
- Mohammed Khabat Naif,
- Mohammed Jawdat ALi,
- Mustafa Sarbast Kareem,
- Maryam Nazar Hassan,
- Malveen Muslih Khalil,
- Razar Salar Jalalbag, and
- Shahad Bahjat Mohammed-Redha.
Even though the idea did not gain much popularity in its first year in our university, thanks to the media and publication team in KNU and the continuous support from DR.Dilan, the current president of KNU, the project gained much deserved attraction from students in multiple departments in KNU. This is a solid proof that consistency and continuous support, KNU is capable of surpassing any obstacle the university faces.
Report by Mohammed Khabat Naif
