Ep 4: Lessons and Reflections on Engaged Learning in the European Context: Formal mutual partnerships between university and community through the CaST Erasmus+ initiative
2:03PM May 8, +0000
Speakers:
Shelli Ann Garland
Courtney Marsh
Keywords:
learning
university
engaged
bit
academic
students
community
research
criminology
consortium
idc
people
universities
ghent
belgium
idea
talking
project
initiative
conversations
Hello, and welcome to a dash of salt. I'm Dr. Shelli Ann and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you stumbled upon this podcast by accident, or you're here because the subject drew you in welcome. Salt is an acronym for society and learning today. This podcast was created as an outlet for inviting fresh discussions on sociology and learning theories that impact your world. Each episode includes a wide range of themes that focus on society in everyday learning, whether formal or informal. So let's get stuck in shall we.
Welcome to a dash of salt. Today I'm joined by Dr. Courtney Marsh to talk about her work with the interdisciplinary consortia. It's also known as IDC in crime, criminology and criminal policy, and it focuses on societal impact and her connection with engaged learning in Europe. Dr. Marsh is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University in the IDC consortium crime, criminology and criminal policy. It's based at the Institute for International Research on criminal policy, Faculty of Law and criminology again, at the University of Belgium, getting University launched thematic interdisciplinary consortia focused on societal impact, the IDC, crime, criminology and criminal policy being one of them. Based in the Faculty of Law and criminology, the IDC crime, criminology and criminal policy deals with the domain of deviance and its policy response, as well as areas of crime and security. The consortium fosters Knowledge Translation and exchange, strengthening societal value creation leading to societal impact, and stimulates synergies and cooperation with external academic policy and practice partners from different disciplines. Courtney is currently involved as a senior researcher in cast, which stands for communities and students together. It's an Erasmus plus 2019 key action to strategic partnership for higher education. Prior to this, she was a lecturer in criminology at Trinity College, Dublin. And before that, she completed her PhD researching police organisational culture of the Irish police in the School of Social Work and social policy at Trinity College, Dublin. So I'm delighted to have you as a guest on a dash of salt today, Courtney.
Yes, thank you for having me. And bearing through my very long introduction bio.
It's great, I think we've covered all facets there, which is great, because that means we get into the meat of our conversation together. And we don't have to kind of rehash any of that. So I'm Courtney, you have obviously a varied and interesting academic history. And there are really a lot of different topics under your area of expertise that I'd love to discuss from a sociological and societal perspective. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe some of your history and your area of research and expertise, and why this area interests you.
Alright, so I think the kind of the big variation and all this is comes down to luck that I'm a postdoc, and I take what I can get. So I'm getting this expertise under my belt, in a lot of ways, because it's just what happens to come my way. But it's been quite interesting so far. To start, I guess, going back to my bachelor's, and I did not start in criminology or sociology or anything of the source. I started out as a public relations and journalism major. And that's kind of what I sorted myself into from high school. And then I realised didn't like it so much. But I did like the communications aspect of it. So I guess that kind of comes into my teaching and such. I switched into criminology at the University of Florida, which is where I did my bachelor's, kind of my look when I studied abroad in England. And then I decided to continue with after change. My last year, my undergrad, I guess, I didn't really look back and criminology most of the way I went to Dublin to do my masters. And at the time, I remember thinking, I'm going to do my Master's in sociology, because it's a bit broader than criminology. And maybe after I'll have some more job opportunities. I realise now a master's degree in sociology is not the magic ticket to job opportunities after grad school, but I went with it and I Kind of even instal sociology got back into criminology. And I decided, I kind of like this. So I'm gonna keep going with it. And that's what I got into my PhD looking at police organisational culture in Ireland. And now I have transplanted over to Belgium. So working steadily through the European countries to get some more some more knowledge. I do criminology, I'm also kind of interested in engaged learning. That's my current research projects. And we found a way to kind of commingle them. So thankfully for me, I've been able to put two things I'm interested in together, Ai, which I suppose is kind of the the academic dream, if you can. But that's, that's where I'm at now.
So I guess what I'm interested in hearing based on what you were just saying is how the connection between, you know what you did as far as your PhD, and you said, you know, you've you found a way to sort of do both things with where you are now at University of Ghent. So can you tell me a little bit more about the IDC and, you know, what are some of the topics that are researched as part of this?
Right, yeah, so I came to university, and I was fortunate enough to get a position in in the Faculty of Law and criminology. And so overall, that's that's kind of the research area. But we had a project come in for the Erasmus plus cast, that was on engaged learning, so not necessarily connected, by the projects way, but we connected them through our faculty in our department. Within the IDC, though, we look at a lot of different topics. So and both ash kind of a local level, sometimes just in Ghent, here in Belgium, also to Belgium level, there is an EU level and then we go a bit wider as well to an international level. We look at things like vulnerable groups in detention, policing, which is my area and police mobility, and look at some kind of areas in the drug worlds, youth crime and youth crime prevention. And then we have some other things that cross borders a bit more so a bit more internationalised with things like cyber crime, terrorism, organised crime, big data. And then we get a bit more into police agency responses and policy responses and laws to these global phenomena. In some cases, it's only kind of a small section of what we studied, because we really the consortium is quite large. And we have a various different researchers, which is fantastic to have all these minds working together in these different topics. But those are just kind of a fair few of what what we get into,
what would you say are the strategic goals? What is the IDC are? What are they trying to get out of out of this consortia and how does this impact communities and societies as a whole.
So to kind of go back quickly as the ABC, so ABC crime, criminology and criminal policy, and it was created about 10 years ago, and it was only started as a pilot. And so it's never they didn't go into it as a permanent thing. So it was kind of a test run and the pilot initiative. And then after they realised the the resourcefulness of it and usefulness of it was funded as a permanent research structure within the faculty in finance university as well. And this particular one, so the AC crime, criminology and criminal policy is based in the Faculty of Law and criminology. And it focuses, as I said before, and a lot of different criminological topics and policy responses there. But there are other ones as well. So we work together with the other consortium in Ghent University. And the idea kind of the, the overall goal of this was interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration, I suppose. So it's involved in CO creation initiatives with local partners, and projects that link the social sciences and humanities, or HSS. That's what it is in Ireland, and then also with STEM subjects as well. So science, technology, engineering, and math. And so we look at things like that, as well as other kind of more meta topics like engaged learning or societal impact measurement. And so start kind of there. And then in terms of the strategic goals, as I said, it was it was a pilot project to start and then it flourished into what it is now, about 10 years later. And the idea is to kind of foster this knowledge, translation and exchange that leads to societal impact instead partnerships in cooperation with both the academics within our consortium, the other consortium within the university, but then also external academics and policy and practice partners from different disciplines. So there's a large emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Last, then we also want to have a focus on transdisciplinarity. And this will come through a bit more with the engaged learning this, but we not only want to work with other academics in different disciplines, but we also want people from outside of academia. So the ADC is connecting researchers, and the research that they do with people from communities, the public sectors, industry and civil society, to make kind of that real world connection and have that societal impact. So we're looking at a few different things there. And one example very less was timely and topical, that has come out of a consortium recently is research looking at the parent of the pandemic, and COVID-19 responses, in particular relation to verbal partner violence. So we're looking at kind of touchy topics like that, which is criminology, I suppose, in a nutshell, but determinants of what's what's causing it, what's making it happen, specifically during the pandemic. So we're looking at these kinds of social problems, if you can call them that's probably a late word for it. During firm, it is quite time they'd like the COVID epidemic, but also makes an impact for not just researchers in the field, but those that experienced it or knowledgeable with it, or touch it in some way in their lives.
That's really, actually fascinating. And, you know, I want to talk to you a little bit more about sort of the impacts of COVID. And sort of what you've seen come out of that, and what you're planning on doing with that. But one of the things that you also touched on, was that that idea of the interdisciplinary aspects of this the IDC, and what would you say would be like the the pinnacle of importance for the collaboration of the IDC, and in who does that affect, actually, who's involved in this collaborative process and, and what comes out of it?
The consortium brings together researchers, from the faculties of law and criminology naturally, yes, that's what we're talking about. But then also, we have faculties of psychology and Educational Sciences, political and social sciences, and Medicine and Health Sciences. And they all come together to work on topics like security, crime, deviance. And these are from perspectives of local, national, European and international perspectives. And so the idea is that it's kind of a bottom up grassroots approach to it. We had the existing researchers in in our faculty as well as the other faculty faculties that were already collaborating together. But the IDC brings it together and kind of a more structured way. And it makes it research more adaptive to the infrastructure that we have going on here, and the ADC, and helps facilitate and even stimulate new collaboration and then deepen what's already there. So we're seeing the IDC, it's it's kind of a formal structure now. But it came out of something quite organic, that was already happening. And in particular, we're seeing a lot of cross disciplinary work this year. As you work in academia, we don't always see that, particularly across the HSS and STEM fields, you don't always see that collaboration there. So seeing something like that now come out of the ITC has been fantastic night, I think it really makes such an impact when you're doing community research. Because so often, community or even Social Research isn't based in just one thing. That's to try and say that society and social interactions are just one thing, and they're absolutely not. So we need that interdisciplinarity to, to make to make it make sense. So we see that, but then there's also the transdisciplinarity, where we want to involve the community and we want we want their input input as well as what impact we can have on them. So seeing it all come together in a formal way. It's really been quite incredible for me to come into as a young researcher at Ghent University.
Yeah, um, so that actually brings me to wanting to ask you some questions about your current research project that you're on. It's obviously, as we've already said here, previously, it's on engaged learning in Europe. And we know that that's really a hot topic nationally, internationally in higher education. It's definitely something thing that you're starting to see the ripple effects that that are happening from one country to another. And then all this sudden this collaborative processes, and networking is beginning to happen internationally, where everybody comes together from that European mindset in and how engaged learning looks and how it works. And you and I both know that there's many different names that have to do with engaged research or community based learning, or global citizenship learning or these types of things. I'm, I'm really curious how you ended up as a postdoctoral researcher and get working on cast seeing as you came from Ireland? How did you end up as a postdoctoral researcher and get working on cast?
Right? So people ask me this quite a lot. And usually I say, look, but I remember sometimes someone told me that luck is something like strategic planning with good timing. And so I was asked, it was the American Society of criminology conference in 2019. And I was getting ready to finish up my PhD. And I knew that, obviously, we need a job after. And I was at this conference, and I kind of had an idea in my head that maybe I was debating between the Netherlands or Belgium of where I wanted to go after. And so I really liked the kind of culture at universities here and in the Netherlands. And so I was at the big poster presentations, there was hundreds in this room, it's a massive conference, I was just kind of going up and down the aisles, very literally just walking by them looking at the posters, and which universities they came from. And I was kind of stopping it and a university that was in the Netherlands or Belgium. And I came by the Ghent University poster. And I started talking to my now supervisor adopting a little cleaner. And he's telling him, you know, I'm going to be looking for a job soon. And in Belgium, I was kind of debating between the university and another one, which I won't name them. But he was like, Oh, you should definitely, you know, consider again, it's a great university. And they kept in touch. And he had this project that they were starting soon on engaged learning. And he said, You know, I, I know, you study policing. So I'm not sure if, if this is even something you'd be interested in. But kind of when he told me engaged learning, I was I was new to the field. And it was the, I think a lot of people who are in this situation where they go gauge learning, that sounds really cool. What is it? And so I started looking into it. And I was like, actually, this is really interesting. And it's something I wish I had had an opportunity to take advantage of when I was an undergrad, or even in my post grad work. And so, yeah, I guess to really come back to it, it was just kind of good timing, that it all worked together. And I had started teaching, it was lecturing at Trinity College. And I loved it. I, when I started doing research, I did it because I really enjoyed the research. But then I found that I also really, really enjoyed the education aspect of it, and being able to teach and share my interest with other students who some of them couldn't care less. But some of them also found it really interesting. So I got into this education aspect of it, and then coming on engaged learning, thinking, this is something I suppose it was a bit selfish in the beginning, it helped me a lot in future and help me be a better educator. So I got into it. And the more I researched it, the more I realised, you know, it's such a, it's becoming a hot topic now, but it really hasn't been so much in the past. I started to realise the importance of it, and it made me want to go forward with this. So in a nutshell, that is how I moved from Ireland to Belgium.
I love that story that that you're kind of an accidental teacher, that you you know, you You definitely had the initiative to want to be a researcher and to be involved in all things research. But then you found, you know, a bit of a passion for teaching, you know, accidentally through that, which is really interesting, because, as we know, you know, when many people go through the research process and doing a PhD, some people actually find a teaching and lecturing, a bit of a drudgery for them, and they don't want that to be a part of their research experience. So when it's something that you stumble upon, and you find you have a passion for it, and you're really interesting and interested in it, that's actually a really exciting and new variant that you can use as you know, as part of your skill set, which is fantastic. Another thing that you touched on that I thought was really interesting was that you said that your supervisor, your current supervisor was the one that was standing over that poster And that actually surprises me a little bit again, from, you know, experiences in the world of academics that you don't often find an established academic or an experienced academic standing over a poster or presenting a poster at an academic conference. To me, it makes me it does make me feel like what you know, that story that you just told was a bit serendipitous, you know, that, you know, you there was a moment you were there, right person, right time in being able to, you know, move on with this now current experience that you're in. So,
Yeah, it was a it was a good good experience. And it's, it's, it's, it's, I think, such a telling difference between Belgium and Ireland, that I think that more experienced academics who are a bit more hands on. So yeah, I don't think you'd ever see that in Ireland, or even really in like the US from those universities. And the the experienced academics are there to kind of maybe look over their grad students, or they might pop into a presentation, if that I definitely know of some who only go to conferences now based on the location, and they want a good holiday. So it's Yeah, it's definitely been quite different. But it's a good different, and it's been a nice reception into us. Yeah,
I'm so excited for the experiences that you've had. And for the listeners, obviously, you and I have a previous established relationship and a friendship. So for me to kind of see this journey in this path that you've been on yourself has been really exciting, you know, just to see the experiences and the opportunities that you've been given. And like I said earlier, how serendipitous and perfect timing it is,
Who would have thought was in the last five or six years ago that I would end up doing something with the education when that was your whole thing?
Exactly,
I was the only one to educate with your thing. So yeah, to come kind of come full circle backs.
And I remember I was having conversations, and you know, the only really the only connecting element that we had, you know, the societal aspects and things that we always found tonnes of things to talk about. But I do Yeah, I do. I did find it quite funny, when you did tell me that you were, you know, you were part of this engaged learning. Consortium, this consortium that's, that looks at society and engaged learning. And I was just like, well look at that, you know, a small world in academia as well. But, um, so really, okay, that actually leads me to the next question for you, which is actually specifically about engaged learning, if you can tell us a little bit about what engaged learning is in the European context, and why IDC feels that it's an important aspect of their consortia.
Right, so it starts I'll start with your second question. First on on why we feel like it's an important part of it. And pretty plainly, it's one of our pillars, one of our action pillars, so it was built into the consortium that's engaged learning is his priority for us. So as the connections not so hard to find in that way, and But for us, particularly within cast we've taken, because there's so many different types of engaged learning, as you said earlier, and you can go in a lot of different directions with us. We took kind of, I suppose a more narrow approach, we include a lot more in our research, but the most important part for us was, and I say, I had no part in the naming of this project, but I think it's brilliant cast. So communities and students together, the idea is that there needs to be a benefit to the student. So we see that with the their involvement in in the community and in society. But that's you could kind of say well do by an internship. So originally, when I was first thinking of engaged learning, that's what I saw. But for us, it needs to go a bit further. So not only does the student need to benefit and get this kind of real world experience in some way, but also, the community needs to interact, and not just benefit from the services being rendered. So the idea is that yes, they will benefit in a real world solution. So problem solving type of way, but they also need to be involved in the process. So it's, it's not just a matter of the students going out and saying here is this, you know, thing we've done or made or created or what have you. But it's going into whoever the community consists of at the time, and in talking to them and collaborating with them and seeing what it is that can actually benefit them and what comes out of that. And then the students going back with, obviously in with a relationship to the university, and working on this problem, and then there's a lot of back and forth between the students and the community to come up with actually beneficial, I suppose product is probably not the right word, but it's the best term I can think of in the end. So it's that kind of collaboration between communities and students, but in a mutual way, so mutual partnership is what we say quite often within the cast remiss. So it's the bit unique in that way, rather than just community service learning, or an internship, the communities need to be equally involved in it.
Yeah, I'm one of the things that you said was that strikes me is that that idea of putting the university sort of at the heart of the community, but at the same token, you can switch it around and say that the community is the heart of the university. And sometimes, in the past, there has been, here's the university, this is what happens behind the walls or the gates of the university. Here, they Yep, they're plopped in the middle of this community. But then this is the community, you know, what this, this engaged learning idea is bringing the two together. And I liked what you said about, you know, that it's an interaction between the community and the the benefits that they're receiving, as community interacts, rather than just his access consumers from benefiting from the students, group projects or things that they're bringing into the community. It's that whole idea of interaction, which is actually the epitome of what did you say caste stands for, again,
communities and students together?
I love these types of acronyms that that really speak to exactly what engaged learning is, has the pandemic presented any challenges for engaged learning and for this project that you've been working on?
Absolutely, we see it a lot. So the whole idea of communities and students together is obviously limited when we're in the middle of a pandemic, and aren't meant to be together. And I know in Belgium, at least, I think they've just lifted the restrictions a bit so that up to 10, people can meet together outside, but previously, it was, I think, only two, maybe three or four possibly. And so the whole together, part of it was quite limited. And obviously, there are adaptations to it online. But in some cases, the communities that were meant to be in mutual partnership with don't have access to internet or computers or things like that, or at least not stable access. So it's made it quite quite difficult. I know, in in the book that we just published, engaged learning and your most of the countries have a section on how they've had to cope with COVID. In the last year, a lot of this evaluation was happening, just during the beginning of COVID, when people were first having to adapt to it. And what in particular, it was our Italian case example the University of Parma they're engaged learning initiative was placing university students into local schools in Parma. And the these would have been like Erasmus students, so they would be from countries where their native language was not Italian. And they were put into the schools and they taught subjects, whatever their subject happened to be, but in their native language, so they would be teaching maybe science in German, or history and Russian or something like that. And so that's how to adapt to something, that word, the whole idea is that there's this collaboration in the classroom. And before, I think there's a bit more of a structure to it now, but in the very beginning, you know, people didn't know what to do, schools just kind of closed before they copped on to the the online learning thing. So it's, we've seen a lot of impacts mathway. We're seeing also a lot of rapid adaptations to it that have been quite successful. So one of our partners as well, an EPC, Baxter, in the UK had quite successful run of their annual they call it grand challenges, and they adapted online last year. So they saw a good turnover of that to an online platform. But ideally, I think this is happening a lot with universities. And we're adapting as best as we can. But everybody is just kind of waiting until we can get back to to as close to normal as as we were before. And I think even though we're able to adapt to COVID and moving to online platforms, it just isn't the same. And I know one of the one of the reflections in the book was on, you know, kind of what worked and what didn't, particularly with COVID and online platforms. And one of the the reflections that came out from the UK was that when you're in an online platform, you you miss that opportunity for Kind of organic conversations and things like that. And I find anyway, so often, some of the best ideas come out of these kind of offhanded side conversations, and some of your most brilliant ideas come out of something that isn't really, it wasn't meant to come out of that, but it just happened happened upon you. And you really miss that interaction online. Because if you have a break, you shut your computer, you log off and you go do what you're doing. Whereas before, you might have gone to that a coffee with someone, and you started chatting about, you know, who knows what, and something could come out of that. So we're missing that connection there with the online bus. Suppose we were doing the best that we can.
So, I want to talk a little bit more about the about the project and some of some of the countries that were involved in this particular project. And then I want to talk a little bit more about the publication. As you know, you know, I read your publication, I reviewed your publication. And yes, and Firstly, I think that it's, it's really written in a in a, in a reader friendly way, you know, each of the elements having, you know, those ideas about lessons learned, and what worked and what didn't work, and how each of the partners who wrote, you know, bits and pieces on what, what they, what their project was, and that type of thing. It really just came together, it comes together really nicely. And, again, we'll talk about it a little bit more in a minute. But what I'd like to know is for you to tell us a little bit about the various countries that were involved because this was a multiple country project and what maybe what were some of the the key pieces that struck you as part of this project with the countries, right,
I've got my book open here just to make sure I get all of the university names correct. With the the translations from the native languages. I always mix up kind of university and then just name of university. And then Matt. So I'm gonna correct here, Cass is with Erasmus Plus, there's six partner universities. So we have Belgium, naturally, which is going to university here in Ghent, Belgium, and the University of Turku in Finland, and auto Vanguard University of Marburg, in Germany, University of Parma, in Italy, at University of Malaga, and Spain. And then finally, the University of Exeter in the UK. So those are the six part universities. As he said, I'm glad to hear that the book was quite readable, because taking six universities where all but one don't speak English as the native language. There's always kind of a bit of a risk there when you're doing it. But I'm glad that it came together well. And hopefully, it's useful in years to come. But yeah, so we have the six universities there at six wildly different initiatives that come out of it. And which we have the same structure for each of the chapters, so that there was kind of an overall framework of us, we wanted to keep it loose in order to be able to accommodate all of the different types of initiatives that we had come out of it, which was one of the things that's reflected on in the last chapter is the idea that, and we touched on earlier that engaged learning, it's two words, but it means so many things. And it can be so many things, which to me is one of the greatest strengths of is the flexibility you get from engaged learning. And that you can have, you could have a sociology or a criminology based example. But then you can just as easily have an engineering based example. So that the flexibility and just the wide range of what you can do i i find it so fascinating, even though I've been studying this for a bit now, I still think it's so interesting to see all the different versions that you can get from engaged learning. And it's one of those things I've I don't know why I've been thinking about this in the last two weeks in particular, but it's I just, I wish I had this when I was an undergrad, I wish I had an experience like this, especially in the book, we have a section for interaction with students who are involved in you can see really everyone who took part in it really found it to be quite a benefit to them. And it's so different to something that they've done. And I just I can't help but wonder like, maybe how different my undergraduate experience could have been if I had experienced something like this and been connected to the community that I lived in in this way. And I just I didn't have that I kind of I flew in to my university and I left After I still love my university, and I have a connection to the university, but I don't have a connection to the community in a way that some of the students who had engaged learning opportunities might. So I just I don't know, I think that's so interesting. I think about it, probably more often than I should. But I do.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting and really important, especially in an international context, as well, because again, you had had your, your higher education, learning experiences, from so many different places, starting in Florida, and then going to England, and then going back to Florida, and then to Ireland. And then now you're doing your postdoctoral, you know, research in Belgium. And, you know, and that idea of that, or that what you were missing, you know, that lack of community, by not being able to participate in in something that could, is very, is is actually quite easily implemented. Or maybe it's, it can be a little bit difficult in conceiving, or conceptualising. What the community, a group, you know, the school and community project might be, but then once it's conceptualised, it's actually very quite easy to, to implement, or to re implement, you know, as as you go on. And, actually, I'm going to pick on you a little bit and ask you if one of these projects was your favourite? Because I want to tell you which one mine was when I read it. But what was the one that was kind of a favourite for you? And what was it and why?
Hmm. Naturally, this is the part where I say the one from getting University obviously. And but it's, it's actually not even one in the book. Even though I mentioned the one from Italy earlier about the teaching in schools. And I think, as we talked about earlier, I kind of accidentally found my passion for teaching. And I know one of the reflections in the book, one of the students that said, You know, I never really thought about teaching before, but because I did this, like, considering studying teaching now. And I kind of again, makes me wonder what I have found this earlier, if I'd had an opportunity like that, I think it would have been interesting. I love teaching. And I love talking, as we discussed earlier, I'm a talker. So maybe it could have impacted me in that way. But it's hard, just like being asked to pick a favourite child. This is the first book I've published. So it is very dear to me and having to pick one example. It's difficult. But when you ask them that question, my first thought was not one that's in the book. And so with cast, to go back to the project for a second, and we have different outputs of it, the first output, or rather, I'll say, the Compendium here, which led to the book was the second output. The first output was a state of the art review, where our partners from Magdeburg in Germany did a salient review of kind of the literature in the area. But then each of the partner countries brought up about five or six different examples of good practice of engaged learning within their country. There is one with K 11, which was was great. And it was based on computer science students who worked in collaboration with I think it was an NGO. And essentially, what came out of it is that they worked with these children who had learning disabilities. And they developed and made these computer programmes that helps them with their computer skills. And I just think, the impact of that after I think it was amazing to work on something so meaningful and unnecessary. And they were able to work with the communities and in the children and say, you know, does this work for you? And they worked on it until it did work for them, but they had an actual outcome that was just so beneficial. And there's another one as well, it's a university test results. So the Free University of Brussels, and it's something that I'm hoping in my years to come here, U Ghent, I can get going here because I find it fascinating. It was a it was a prison partnership. And so they they had he was about 20 students in the class. And 10 were students from the universities and 10 were students or from the prisons, so they were prisoners. And they they had classes within the prison. And they had this kind of learning both together and from each other between the students and those who are incarcerated. And I just, I find it so fascinating. So those were two of my, my ones of interest outside of the book boss to go inside of the book and But yeah, so cannabis, the tea, the process of the plant, obviously the English translation of us. And it's it's one of the things that I reflect on in the conclusions and that i and this is actually something we're talking about now, within with my own colleagues of perhaps bringing this initiative in this performance to other countries and other universities, because it's something that I was thinking about that I just don't know if it would work elsewhere.
So obviously, Belgium, being closely situated to the Netherlands, there's it's not legal here. But cannabis has a different tolerance policy than say, in in Ireland, or in the UK, or in the US. So the the ability to have this discussion here is I think that it impacted by the policy around it in a wider scope. But yeah, no, I think in terms of an engaged learning initiative, it's it's quite innovative. I've done a lot of research on engaged learning, and I've not seen one quite like this. Yeah, it's it's very, it's fascinating to see. And the way they did if they were quite clever about it, and those this kind of created the course, which was Herman Wolf, and Tom Dakota. And they were so helpful as well, and in doing the chapter and letting us their their data and their expertise and resources. And both research in the area of drug policy and the like. And they recruited in a very well known Flemish lawyer. So it's not an actor who was on stage. It's an actual lawyer, and just reflected on in the chapter, but also the students found quite helpful to see kind of like a real lawyer action type, situation. And bus. The the premise of this performance piece is that this lawyer is defending his client, and the client as such is the cannabis plant. And so he's defending the cannabis plant and making an argument for for why cannabis should be legalised. And which I think it's really interesting to see. And it is quite thoughtful getting it in the actual performance, it's not going to have this year, probably in part because of COVID. But there were also some other issues behind the scenes. And but in the performance, they had a poll go up and they asked, you know, quite bold questions, I think, where they asked, you know, have you ever used cannabis and very kind of confronting you with these things right away. And they found you. It's not quite It's unheard of, as you might think. But also, looking at university students, you're not quite so surprised, either. And so they start with that, and then he goes into this performance of defending his client. And the initial run of the performance only included this, this part of it, but they got feedback from the students, and they, in the last few rounds of it incorporated a counter argument. So they had another also real lawyercome in on the the offensive, insane why it should not be legalised to kind of give the students a counter argument and to balance the argument. So that after they have a kind of a more nuanced experience of, of this policy, and this is approach to drug policy, and one of the sections in the chapter is kind of benefits, benefits to students, benefits to the staff who are involved in benefits to the community. And very Typically, what we see with benefits to staff, and it's something we reflect on in the end as well, is that there's not a lot of benefits for the staff out, right, there's kind of that personal fulfilment, which is fantastic. And a lot of the times we see that they're able to publish from these engaged learning initiatives, and things like that. But I spoke to Tom Dakota, and one of the benefits for him is that he was able to take his research. So there's actual research findings and things that he's found along the course of, of his different studies. And put them in such a way that it's able to reach the community. So his actual findings were pushed into the text and the script of this performance, and then relayed to both students but also community members in a way that just wouldn't have happened before. As you mentioned earlier, like, within the walls of academia, we sit on this kind of golden throne or you know, we have the, the walled off gates, and a lot of the research that we do, it's published, but it's published in such a way that really the only people that are doing I read that, or other academics who read academic journals, which is great for those who have access to it. But for those that don't, even sometimes it's written in a way that's just not readable by by normal person. And so to have it put in a performance like this, where it's delivered to you in such a way that it's it's meant to be relatable, and it's meant to be understood. It's quite innovative. I think I yeah, I thought it was a really, really interesting approach to such a topical, but also big controversial topic.
Yeah, I think that, you know, there's something really a really interesting point that you made there, that, you know, resonates, you know, here, but I would say resonates internationally. And, and that is that there needs to be more ways and more creative ways to disseminate research widely among the community. And again, maybe things like this engaged learning projects, create that mindset, from an academic perspective on Okay, we've included the community now, you know, we need to disseminate the results of, of this particular project back out to the community and maybe get more people thinking about how do you decide, you know, to write and to disseminate in a way that's, that can be read and understood and appreciated by a wider society, rather than just from an academic perspective. And I think that's really a key element of engaged learning and the importance or the impacts of engaged learning and fingers crossed, you know, that it will continue in that direction. So we're coming to the end of our conversation, which, you know, like I said, there's so many other aspects I would love to talk to you about. But that might be for another podcast. And another time. This one was fascinating, because like I said, I have an interest in and I know someone, so many other people who are going to be listening, have such an interest in that idea of engaged learning, and especially from the international context, but I wanted to ask you, how can the listeners find out more about the work of the IDC in about engaged learning?
Right, so there's a website that we have. So if you can google IDC, crime, criminology and criminal policy, you get, and should be one of the first ones that comes up. And we have a Twitter that we publish, we tweet, and retweet, and a lot of the research that's being done, so it's asked crime underscore, again. So it's all about crime. And then there's a new blog website that's going to be launched soon about more of the research that we're doing. And so there's a few different resources there for the ITC cast also has a website. And I think if you learn Google Cast or essence, plus, it comes up easily enough. And then we have we have the book as well, which is through our website, or it's connected to U Ghent as well. So if you found my research page, it would be on there. So there's few online resources in that way. Yeah,
And I think I just want to add a little side note there that you you actually suggested, one of the other ways that that sort of research and results and things like that can be disseminated to, to a more wider public, and that's through blogs, and reflective pages, and reflective blogs, and these types of things where people you know, who are interested in something, you know, comes across it. And again, it's written in a less academic way, in a more a way that can be, you know, presented to a wider, you know, host of people that can be interested in that. So I love that, because I feel like that's very much 21st century, you know, dissemination and things that we need to do need to start thinking about is, you know, why not use all this technology and the internet, the power of the internet, at our disposal to disseminate in in a more wide way?
Right, especially, I think I get the comments quite often. And when I do go to publish journal articles that once I have published people, like I like it's very readable. But I get some comments back sometimes that like, my language isn't academic and Oh, good, Lord. Can you fuck off with it? Like, it doesn't need to be super academic. Like it needs to be readable. Yeah. I don't understand why there's this. It's such a pretentiousness with old school academic, the academic world that just I want it to go away. I know everybody, this is me coming in the young, the millennial that just wants to To bring down the, the the institution bus, I very much want to work with this, but I, I want it to change a bit and become a bit more modern, because some of it is just, it's unnecessary.
Well, and the other thing is there's so much really, really good research and so many, you know, findings that are out there that are powerful if they could get into the hands of the of the wider society and the wider public. And in like you said, we kind of have to get it up. Listen, I'm not the young millennial, and I agree with you, 100% I just think, you know, it's good practice, um, you know, to, to want, you know, to kind of get out of that old tradition that only academics are smart enough to know or be able to read or understand, you know, what you've written and I'm talking in a very pretentious manner I see now too. But it Yeah, I think that again, there that is that difference between that old classic and traditional way, and so much information and so much fabulous stuff that's that's has been collecting dust on, you know, college library shelves for aeons and aeons now, that that really could have been, you know, extremely important. And it made big changes in our society and in our communities. If it had been published a little bit further or wider than just the academic,
I see the argument a lot more on on Twitter, I've taken a bit of a step back recently, bus is the idea that came out a lot of time this, it kind of belittles people a bit when if they try and read something and they can't understand it. And I love that what I'm seeing come out now is that if you can't understand it, it's probably not your fault. It's probably more on the person that wrote it. And that it's kind of what it was an Einstein That said, if you can explain it simply then you don't know it well enough. And I just I really I want to see that come into research and academics because I am so tired of reading this, like overly technical and like, you know, it's just unnecessary to have this kind of pretentiousness in writing. There's no reason for it. And I think a lot of times, it's because people do it because they're expected to do it. And I know, I definitely do it at times. Because I'm like, Oh, this is what they're they want to see from the publication. But just Yeah, no, we need to really rethink about it.
Well, that's the thing is, you know, we've proved our rigour, we've proved our knowledge base and our understanding and our area of expertise by getting our credentials, okay, it doesn't need to go any further than that, like our, we've been been able to prove ourselves from there. So we should be able to not be mocked, or, you know, for like what you said earlier, when people say, Oh, you didn't really write that. And in a very academic voice, you've already you've already proven yourself, you've got their credentials, you've got the PhD, you can now disseminate your research, or anything that you're interested in now in a way that reaches a wider audience. And you don't have to prove yourself, because you've already proven yourself. And I think that's, again, the mindset that people sort of get wrapped up in, you know, with that whole idea of academic and, yeah, so I mean, again, this is another fabulous conversation that we could just spend more hours debating and and discussing and talking about. And maybe we shall maybe we'll bring a panel on one day, and we'll just all have conversations about that. But I am so thankful that you've come on. And again, I think, you know, even what we were just talking about. Now, there is that important connection there that that idea of community based learning, engaged learning, you know, where you involve the community and you involve the university, there, there, there has to be a way to make sure that everybody feels included. And in that idea of, you know, if you're writing in a way that you're now not including the community that's been involved in this project, then then you're being exclusionary and not inclusionary. So there's something to be said about the importance and again, the impact of engaged learning, and drawing the community and and the university together, and making it inclusive for everybody. And that that means that the results and the findings should also be the same. be inclusive for everybody. So thank you so much for joining me today. I do look forward to having some conversations from a societal and a sociological perspective in the future. And I wish you all the best in your continued journey at University of Ghent,
Right, Thank you so much.
I hope that you've enjoyed this discussion on a dash of salt, a space where you'll always find fresh and current discussions on society and learn Today, season with just the right touch of experts in education and a dash of sociological imagination. Please be sure to like and share this episode. And don't forget to subscribe to a dash of salt on pod bean so that you don't miss the next episode. Thanks so much and we'll chat again soon.