The second segment of the interview with Principal Hernandez.
Vic prides itself on its unique approaches to learning, notably its small classrooms, first-year programs, and, to an extent, professor-oriented courses. Given Vic’s rich historical pedagogical traditions, are there any that you want to uphold or, alternatively, revise?
Vic is a unique place because it has a foot in each world. What makes Vic special is its community. My predecessors have worked hard to wrap that into layers of what we do, particularly, in the classroom. As a unique pedagogical option, courses must remain relatively small. Importantly regarding our faculty, the fellows and associates from other disciplinary units and our Vic faculty are second to none in researchers and teachers. Profoundly, students in our programs get access to guidance and mentorship that is difficult for other disciplines and departments to replicate. We must continue to invest in that through a couple of ways; such as strategic faculty hiring programs. For instance, I’m considering hiring within Education and Society, or Creativity and Society, both thriving programs with a large student population. We want to build that capacity and extend our network of fellows and associates. We have an impressive array of fellows and associates, but a recent review of the principal’s office suggests we closely look at that within the next several years, so it’s been my contention to front-load this. Another notable aspect is that Vic holds students across several disciplines, many not in the Humanities or the Social Sciences outright. Our ability to support independent studies, or to connect students with mentoring professors is hampered by needing to increase social sciences and science academics in the fellowship. So, one of my priorities is to enrich what Vic already does so well.
On your point of connecting professors and students. To motivate students to pursue their areas of interest and research, what approaches do you intend to take to strengthen the connection between students and professors?
Our students are motivated and want to forge those connections but our capacity isn’t always there. Despite student motivation, we can’t connect with them, so we aim to build the capacity by expanding that network. Now, you’ve asked about alternative ways. I’ll talk about ways I’m building the center for creativity alongside Adam Saul and others in my office. We’ve reached out to friends in the Faculty of Arts and Science and other faculties within the university and said, “We’re doing something interesting with the Centre for Creativity, and its program in Creativity and Society.” We want to practice forms of creativity, which include poetry or art. We want to strike a strategic partnership to teach courses and bring fellows and partners to help us expand the Centre’s reach. We want to consider how creativity influences the sciences and the organization of information. For example, AI, and UX, are all avenues for thinking afresh about what we mean by creativity and what the future holds for us. […]. This is one of the reasons why Creativity and Society and the Centre for Creativity are so incredibly relevant to this moment. AI makes us consider how we exist in dialogue with the various machines, technologies, and tools as extensions of who we are. […]. Concerning EDIA, I have two ways to answer this. The first is to say, the rubber meets the road in EDIA when we actively think, “What does this mean to our lived experience moving forward?” That’s not to denigrate training, as that is important. One of the strategies I want to prioritize moving forward is hiring somebody who will speak about these issues from the standpoint of curricular programming. We are teaching and expanding our capacity in these areas in very concrete ways. The second way we support EDIA is by rethinking our faculty mentorship program. Previously, only first-year award winners to Vic were invited into this program, but we want to open to the Vic general population. Sometimes it’s not the award winners that need this mentorship the most. Maybe it’s the people who are failing to access faculty support to answer questions and help navigate their way through university.
UofT and Victoria College remain Eurocentric in many of its programs including their curriculum, while other cultural perspectives are limited. How would you tackle this as Vic’s principal?
On the one hand, we inherit a big tradition that’s being actively renegotiated. This topic is being actively reimagined within and without fields. The head of the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies is focusing on a global Renaissance. I’ve already mentioned some ways in which EDIA concerns are trickling down the pipe. I take your point about wanting to hear various perspectives reflected and I welcome this ongoing dialogue. I’ve appointed myself to our Student Committee on EDIA, which has done good and patient work. I want to be on the front lines and listen to our students’ needs. I hope what emerges from possible partnerships better reflects the concerns of students. Students also vote with their feet by signing up for courses that speak to their interests and concerns. The trick will always be balancing that against the expertise of our professors, who are trying to make sure that they orient students before seeing what has traditionally been at the margins, which might powerfully speak to various experiences.
Recently, the importance of artificial intelligence and ICT has increased significantly in the work field. There’s been a gradual yet noticeable shift in the increasing number of graduates working outside their discipline. A large study done by Oxford between 2000 and 2019 states that skills learned while studying humanities such as “human interaction, communication and negotiation […] will help meet future employer demands.” 21% of Humanities majors enter the business sector, 13% the legal profession, and 13% the creative. Professor Ira Wells, argued similarly in an article titled “Why business needs the humanities,” that a “Humanities-informed framework will become crucial to successful organizations and the individuals who hope to rise within them.” In light of many businesses seeking skills commonly learned by Humanities students and Humanities students exploring professions outside their fields, how do you think the Vic curriculum can tend to both sides?
Regarding programming that prepares you for the world, the three Cs – which we do exceptionally well – speak to this: Curiosity, Creativity, and Connection. Many Vic programs, such as the Vic One seminar, Renaissance Studies, and Science, Technology, and Society, are driven by curiosity. Our students thirst for knowledge about those things and think creatively within them when they write and while making creative connections. Segwaying into the third one, I think we do “connection” well in the student community and classes. Insofar as Vic’s seminars, programs and coursework, are by explicit intention interdisciplinary; they ask students to make connections that stretch them. Graduated students enter the workforce with the ability to synthesise answers to problems that many people would be unaware of. You may be trained to solve initial challenges at work, but the higher you go the more necessary open-ended problem-solving skills become to solve complex problems. The value of our liberal interdisciplinary study is in supporting our students in drawing such connections and building a valuable skill set over the long term.
What about other Vic kids, such as Social Sciences or STEM students? How will you focus on them? Will it be through introducing them to these courses and giving them the same skill set as Humanities students?
Let me answer this in three ways. Firstly, I’ve mentioned the ways to help Vic students follow their pursuits and curiosity: building the capacity for students to work with Vic fellows and associates in their fields. The UofT undergraduate degree typically allows enough flexibility to take a course in our upper-year programs that interests them, whether in Creativity and Society, Science, Technology, and Society or Material Culture and Semiotics. Such fields naturally and nicely complement other STEM and Social Science fields. You can imagine a student taking a course in one of the sciences alongside an STS course to speak to their curiosity and interests. I invite those students to seriously consider our multidisciplinary programs because they will enrich them in novel ways they might not get in their main field.
Finally, Vic Ones and the VIC100s set the tone that Vickies are creative thinkers who draw connections and ask big questions. It’s stunning looking at what we’re teaching at those levels. It’s amazing what we are asking our students to do and how they cross that bar with flying colours. The opportunities are there; maybe it’s a question of communication from my office, but we’d like to get better at that too.
As we come to a close, posing this directly, what do you think academic curricula and teaching at university should look like?
I like to remind myself that my students are in my class because they’re interested in that topic and bring the uniqueness and particularity of their experiences, beliefs, practices, and identities. It’s always a question of balancing my expertise and giving room to shape that according to a student’s interests and curiosities. That manifests itself when it comes time to write a paper. I always tell my students, “Here’s a couple of possibilities, but please come and communicate your interests and we’ll work together on crafting something that will speak to you.” In my Austen course, I have a project called the “Choose Your Own Learning Adventure,” where I allow students a paper of their interest, such as a film review or historical context paper. It is crucial to find the thing that lets you learn best. It’s always a question of balancing our expertise against honouring our students’ uniqueness.
