SFU’s popular program given an award for Best Practices in Higher Education
By Alison Roach
SFU’s Philosophers’ Cafe celebrates its 15th anniversary this Feb. 28, and has been awarded for Best Practices in Higher Education by the two-day World Universities Forum held on Jan. 10–11. The Best Practices award recognizes the most significant higher education practices of the year, and may go to post-secondary institutions for accomplishments in research projects, student services, and innovative curricula.
This year’s World Universities Forum was attended by 25 institutions from around the world. Previous Best Practices Awards have been presented to Plymouth University for their entre for Advanced Inquiry in the Integrative Arts, and the University of the Free State in South Africa for the most significant practices implemented in that year, facing problems of racial division, student failure, and academic stagnation. SFU Philosophers’ Cafe was founded in 1992 by Yosef Wosk, with the goal of bringing diverse groups of people for the Vancouver community together for stimulating conversations on a huge variety of topics ranging from social issues. Since then, over 70,000 people have attended Philosophers’ Cafe.
The program is a part of SFU’s Continuing Studies program, and cafes take place throughout the Metro Vancouver area with talks in venues located in municipalities from downtown Vancouver out to Maple Ridge. Philosophers’ Cafe has even invaded cyberspace, with groups of over a thousand online participants coming together on online platform Second Life, hosted out of North Vancouver.
Cafes take place wherever there is room for a conversation, including churches, community centres, libraries, and the traditional coffee shop. Current director Michael Filimowicz has been leading the program for the past two years. Filimowicz is a SFU lecturer in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, specializing in media arts.
While philosophers’ cafes may seem archaic to some, Filimowicz has found plenty of support in the community. “As much as people always talk about that we’re in this age of social media and online profiles and media-wikitweets — Tweet-leaks, leakytweets, whatever — there’s no substitute for talking face to face,” said Filimowicz. “People like this experience of having serious conversations or stimulating conversations in an actual space with other real people.”
Philosophers’ Cafe also functions as part of SFU’s overall goal of engagement. “[Philosophers’ Cafe is] probably the university’s flagship program for community engagement, as part of the university’s overall goal of engaging Vancouver,” said Filimowicz. He went on to say that one way to better engage to community is to have more SFU faculty be part of the program.
In his time as director, Filimowicz has focused heavily on expanding the program by recruiting more SFU experts as moderators. “When I started directing the program two years ago, most of the moderators were non-SFU, and now most of the moderators are SFU related people,” said Filimowicz.
SFU moderators include faculty, grad students, alumni, or retired faculty. Since Filimowicz has been directing the program, somewhere around 60 new SFU-related experts have come on board the program as moderators. Philosophers’ cafes are popular in cities around the world, but Filimowicz hailed his program as unique in that it’s backed by a post-secondary education in a way others cafes are not.
“There’s a very strong commitment at all levels — from the president’s commitment to community engagement, Jon Driver VPA’s commitment with getting faculty involved with community engagement, and supporting this as something that the university pays for,” said Filimowicz. “Everyone recognizes that the program generates a lot of good will out in the community and is important in terms of the overall goal in engaging the general public. There’s plenty of support.”
