Towards a Sustainable Future - The Role of International Education

CONAHEC 15th North American Higher Education Conference: Towards a Sustainable Future - The Role of International Education. May 1-3, 2013, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
About the Conference
As stakeholders in international higher education we face a major challenge: how do we contribute through our daily activities to building a more sustainable future and moreover, how sustainable is our approach towards international education in a rapidly changing global environment?
Sustainability – meeting current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) - is a concept that is extremely meaningful not only at a societal level, but also at institutional and personal levels. It is also a concept that is very applicable to the work being done in international education. Any strategy or policy aimed at creating sustainable communities implicitly or explicitly includes the establishment and strengthening of education systems. Leaders and practitioners in education and, more specifically, in international higher education must dedicate more attention to better connecting their work with the overall goal of building sustainable societies.
As we reach the end of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), what role has international higher education adopted in sustainability? In which ways do efforts aimed at internationalizing our campuses, academic offerings, research, public service, and, ultimately, our students, meaningfully contribute to building a better and ultimately sustainable future? At the same time it is worth asking ourselves whether or not traditional practices in international education are sustainable in the future or if it is time to rethink and reimplement our approach towards the internationalization of higher education.
Join leaders and practitioners of higher education, business, government and students in one of Canada’s greenest cities for CONAHEC’s 15th North American Higher Education Conference! "Towards a Sustainable Future: The Role of International Education" will take place from May 1-3, 2013 on campus at our host institution MacEwan University with additional events at the University of Alberta, our co-host for this exciting event. This meeting will focus on how higher education institutions can better pool their strengths and resources and improve our international collaboration in order to empower our societies to become more actively engaged in preparing the citizens that a sustainable and more equitable future will require.
Edmonton, Canada, has long been known as the capital of Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta. This metropolis combines urban excellence and an unrivalled arts scene with a perfect dose of small-town friendliness. The City of Festivals, it is home to more than 30 celebrations every year. It also boasts North America’s largest entertainment and shopping centre, the West Edmonton Mall.
A lesser-known fact is that Edmonton is one of Canada’s greenest cities. Edmonton was characterized as the second most sustainable mid-sized city in Canada by the 2011 Corporate Knights Magazine based on its environmental footprint and commitment to creating a healthy, thriving population. It boasts North America’s largest urban parkland (the Edmonton river valley) running right through the center of the city - a green space 22 times larger than New York’s Central Park. The city is also on the cutting edge regarding adoption of green technologies. As an example, carbon capture technology will soon be used in the region to store 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide underground annually by 2015.
Our host institutions, provide excellent examples of how state of the art technology can be applied to the creation of environmentally friendly and sustainable campuses and how innovative strategies towards international education are being implemented.
In addition to our typical audience, composed of institutional leaders and directors of international education from higher education institutions, on this occasion, CONAHEC extends a special invitation to experts in sustainable development and international education as they think about the role international education can play in working towards a sustainable future. In addition, CONAHEC is especially interested in inviting the participation of scholars representing Canadian First Nations, Native Americans and indigenous peoples from other countries as well as scholars specializing in issues related to the role of international higher education in building sustainable, inclusive and equitable societies.
The 15th North American Higher Education Conference is organized by the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration. CONAHEC links higher education institutions from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and from the rest of the world through collaboration and cooperation.