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Implications
In exploring the characteristics and interplay of our human diversity and shared humanity we will
be addressing some of the "big questions" posed by the
humanities. While there are certainly many implications that derive
from the diversity/universality interplay, as a place to begin our journey
certain interrelated implications
will be
explored through the many activities planned throughout the year. These implications certainly
play out in our own community, the University of
Idaho. For our Humanities Exploration and its implications, we will draw from the university -
its students and faculty - to help inform the university - its students and
faculty - and beyond. All exhibits, performances, readings
and lectures will be derived from the creativity, experiences and expertise of
the students and faculty of the University of Idaho. This will be a
community project! How we at the University of Idaho define the characteristics and interplay
of the unique and ubiquitous, of the outer manifest and inner transcendent can directly relate to our capacities for imagination, creativity and discovery, as well as result in levels of ambiguity,
dissonance, and the "mutually exclusive" among our faculty and
students. How we design our
diversity/universality interplay relates to our capacities for communication and
collaboration, and is fundamental to a climate of tolerance, civility, respect, empathy and nurturance experienced by all members of the Vandal
community.
The interplay certainly plays out in the
theoretical tensions or possible integration between reductionist and grand-scale systems
thinking, for example. The interplay bears directly on the academic
stress or accommodation between the disciplinarity of the "silos" and
the trans-disciplinarity of the "academy," for example. The
interplay is witnessed in the social intolerance or affirmed respect between
varied ethnic, sexual-oriented or religious groups on campus, for example.
And certainly, the interplay of the particular and unitary is fundamental to questions relating to how we build and sustain
varied forms of community, both locally and
globally.
From the pedagogical design a college course, to the research
design embedded in a National Science Foundation or National Endowment for the
Humanities grant application, to the landscape design of our campus facilities
and green space, we are all
impacted by the characteristics and interplay of our human diversity and shared
humanity. In reflection, in what ways has the
interplay of the diverse and universal, and its varied extensions, impacted your
own life?
In so many ways, the
interplay of our human diversity and shared humanity relates directly to our
capacities for what it means to be human. Some "big
questions" indeed. See
Questions on how these issues are further developed and
articulated. All this is not to suggest that there are not other
implications to be discovered in our Humanities Exploration. Let's see
what awaits? As a result of this Humanities Exploration may we be able
better to understand, appreciate, critique and contribute to the various "interplays"
expressed in our many interrelationships and communities, be they at, within or beyond the University of
Idaho.
