STRATEGIC PLAN OF COLLEGE DOCTRINA VITAE(2010-2014)

The university project

The young should be taught harmony and dialog, not war!

Among humanitarian values of the globalization era, the most important o­ne is social harmony, to ensure peace, security, and fair distribution of resources, and to prevent clashes of civilizations and other global confrontations. However, among the great variety of professions for which the educational systems train people, today, the o­ne that is probably the most important is missing - namely, specialists in social harmony, to perform, continuously and o­n a daily basis, the work of harmonizing societal relations at all levels, from individuals and families to inter-cultural and international levels. (To a certain extent, psychology deals with individual's harmonization, but o­nly at interpersonal levels, and within the boundaries of individuals' psyche.) o­ne of the main weaknesses of education today is its excessive compartmentalization of knowledge. Another is the absence or minimal presence of a humanitarian component. The third, and just as important a weakness, is militarization: training, o­n a massive scale, of military professionals, specialists in destroying people with a wide array of weapons, from fire-guns to chemical, bacteriological and nuclear weapons. The first, compartmentalization of knowledge, leads to a massive reproduction of branch-based disharmony in society. The second, failure to teach humanitarian ethics, removes positive obstacles to disharmony, resulting in an increase in confrontations. The third, militarization, transforms disharmony into a tangled mess of armed/violent confrontations between various branch-based, national, religious and civilizational groups. Presently, not o­nly every nation, but nearly every industrial branch and corporation owns military-style divisions. Branch-based disharmony, together with militarization and the absence of humanitarian obstacles, creates a permanent threat of armed conflict at all levels. There are more than enough examples of this in the world and in almost every country.

The explosive mixture of disharmony and militarist/violence results in blood-spilling, armed conflicts, crime, and terrorist acts. The monstrous terrorist attacks in New York o­n September, 11, 2001 and o­n October 23-26, 2002, in Moscow, like all other similar acts, and like all wars (including the o­ne in Iraq) are nothing but a logical consequence of social disharmony, dehumanization, and militarization of educational systems, today. All of their indisputable virtues notwithstanding, educational systems, because of their excessive compartmentalization of knowledge and dehumanized content, promote social disharmony, while militarism promotes violence and the professionalization thereof. They teach professional homicide (as do the contemporary mass media) and professional disconnect, but they don't teach social harmony, cooperation, and dialog among different professions, nations, religions and civilizations. They don't teach how to overcome disharmony and to prevent violent conflicts and terrorism. What positive aspects can contemporary educational systems offer to counteract those? Perhaps little else than literature lessons in high school, which are becoming increasingly compartmentalized, too. A few off-beat humanities courses at universities teach practically nothing, since they don't teach social harmony and partnership, or how to prevent conflicts and violence.
Social evil has become systemic, it penetrates all of the branches of society, including education and the media, and threatens to corrupt people from the inside. Unfortunately, there's no positive system in place to counteract the evil. State law-enforcement organs fight against its consequences rather than its source. Education and the media, too, do not so much provide equipment to fight evil, as train for it and promote it. So what is the solution? There is o­ne way. The professional and systemic evil of social disharmony should be opposed by an equally professional and systemic effort to achieve social harmony, institutionalized, first of all, in an appropriate system of humanitarian/sociocultural education. Promoting such a system in the globalization era is of paramount importance. Humanitarian education, when oriented toward social harmony as the paramount humanitarian value of today, and, simultaneously, as a sociocultural force and technology, acquires a new quality that is adequate to the demands of globalization.

Traditional humanitarian education, for all of its indisputable strengths, appears to be passive, socially unproductive, technologically unequipped to confront global dangers, challenges, and armed conflicts. Except for good intentions, sporadic protests, and petitions, it has no weapons to wield. Traditional humanitarian education, with its current shape, taken in the 19th century, is outmoded. Educational system needs modernization. This can be achieved by orienting education toward achieving social harmony, which is not so much a knowledge as a value, a creative force, and a cultural technology. This new educational trend should comprise the achievements of social, humanitarian, informational, and organizational sciences and technologies. Social and humanitarian sciences today have accumulated enough knowledge, and created enough technologies, for transition to a new quality of humanitarian education.
Based o­n this, I propose to establish at every university a new Faculty (Department), "Social Harmony," to train professionals and lead the field in a search for new models of humanitarian education. There is no such model in the world, today. Social harmony departments at universities in different countries would ensure an o­ngoing quest for it within different cultural and national frameworks.

The professionalization of social harmony, although extremely necessary today, is still non-existent. Initially, this profession can be placed in the category of "social work" or "public relations," and called "social work - social harmony," or "public relations - social harmony". Later, the specialization in "social harmony" can become a separate discipline and, in turn, branch out into separate subfields: health, education, science, culture, politics, international relations, law, government, finances, economics, industry, agriculture, etc. The main objective for these professionals will be harmonization of social relations in branches and spheres within their purview, both at the individual and family levels, and at the level of nations, religions and civilizations.

The main requirement for social harmony departments is that an aspiration for social harmony underlies the curriculum and all of the department's daily functioning. The departments should not o­nly teach social harmony, but live it as well. Every student, teacher, and staff person would be expected to aspire to harmonious personal development. Herein lies the key difficulty of the departments' existence.

The "social harmony" curriculum would include four sphere complexes: "clusters" of disciplines corresponding to the four society/individual spheres:

All of these "clusters" would be oriented toward the humanitarian "cluster" as the key o­ne.

Each "cluster" has a core of required disciplines/courses, complemented with an array of electives. The educational process consists of four-day cycles: every day of the cycle is devoted to o­ne of the four "clusters" of disciplines. Each day students have three classes (90 minutes each) of theoretical disciplines, and o­ne class of practical training (athletics, technical modelling, or creative class). Besides, if the students so wish, additional practical training classes may be introduced. The overall study period in the department is four to five years.

Instead of passing examinations, students write and defend independent projects in each discipline; dialogic defence of a project amounts to an examination. Professors deliver lecture-dialogs designed to help students elaborate their projects. The professors' chief mission is that of a consultant, student's adviser o­n the projects, and student's elder friend. Seminars in theoretical disciplines are conducted in the style of command role plays (dialogs) and creative assignments, which can include presentations by students. At the end of each course the professors are to survey students as to how they evaluate their courses. Those students and professors who can't establish harmonious partnerships among themselves are either dismissed from the school or are separated by a special committee (special rules have to be developed for this).

These are the most general outlines for a social harmony department. To start implementing the plan, specialists (professors, instructors, working professionals) should be recruited who are able to put together and teach basic lecture courses in philosophy, sociology, psychology, culturology and harmony dialogics. Such specialists can be found in any university town in the world. It is possible that professors from other countries could be invited for 2 to 3 weeks to teach an intensive course. With these specialists, the department's graduates, and doctoral students as the core, the key programs within the department can be created for a Social Harmony program, with the department's theoretical center in the lead.

Social Harmony departments can be established at any university, for example, at the UN University of Education. After a while these departments can evolve into humanitarian universities of a new kind. These schools can offer o­ne- or two-year degrees to those who have a degree in humanities, and four- or five-year degrees to high school graduates. A tentative title for these universities and departments is "Higher Education in Social Harmony".

Establishing Social Harmony departments is a long and difficult process. But it should be started, anyway, the sooner the better. Specialists in social harmony are in great demand at all levels of management and societal relations. The demand is inexhaustible, and will be forever growing. So, establishing these departments will undoubtedly bring many social, spiritual/moral, political, and commercial advantages. Social Harmony departments are needed first of all by our youth, our children and grandchildren, whose harmony is worth the experimental effort. The young should be taught harmony, not war.

This writer is willing to head a Social Harmony Department at any university and, with the help of two or three assistants, to establish, over a couple of years, the key programs (Social harmony, Philosophy of harmony, Psychology of harmony, History of harmony, and Dialogics of harmony) and to be responsible for personnel, information, and organization.

Please, look o­n page 4.5 still:
Francisco Gomes de Matos, Brazil
Applying the Pedagogy of Positiveness