UCLA Ed & IS hosted the West Coast Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of UNESCO with a reception and dinner at The Skirball Cultural Center on Feb. 8. The event included the inauguration of Professor Carlos Alberto Torres as the UCLA UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, UCLA Ed & IS Wasserman Dean Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti welcomed UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and educational philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross, who received the first-ever UCLA Global Citizen Award. UCLA alumni Gil Garcetti, former L.A. County district attorney and a UNESCO Cultural Ambassador, and Mo Ostin, chairman emeritus of Warner Bros. Music and philanthropist, were also in attendance.
Following an opening reception, students from UCLA Lab School opened the program with “The Earth Song,” which was written and led by their music teacher Nick Kello. Chancellor Block applauded the students’ performance and commented on their early exposure to environmental responsibility.
“The young people we just heard from UCLA Lab School are actively learning about the environment and how their future roles as advocates for the sustainable world are so critical,” Block said. “They’re starting early to appreciate how careful they will have to be with this planet.”
Block honored the 70 anniversary of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and recognized its contributions to “the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development, and the intercultural dialogue on education, sciences, culture, communication, and information.”
“That broad mission – that extraordinary mission, actually – is more important than ever in today’s changing global environment,” he said. “It’s clear that we’re all going to work much more closely together as stewards of our planet.”
Dean Suárez-Orozco extended his welcome to Ms. Bokova and Mrs. Ross, and thanked the event sponsors, HBO, Entravision, and Warner Bros. Entertainment, for their support. He introduced Professor Torres as the new UCLA UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education, the first-ever UNESCO Chair in the University of California system, recognizing his colleague as “the leading and most recognized authority in the world on the interrelationships of economic, political, and cultural fears that make education a site of permanent conflict and struggle worldwide.”
“Dr. Torres will lead UCLA’s partnership work with UNESCO as we focus together on the vital need to develop the new generation of global citizens who are strong and caring stewards of our ever-more connected, miniaturized, and fragile planet,” said Suárez-Orozco. “We are honored, proud, and delighted to be the site of the first UNESCO Chair at the University of California system, and I congratulate Dr. Torres for this remarkable distinction.”
Suárez-Orozco, who is a Distinguished Professor of Education and co-director of the Institute for Immigration, Globalization, and Education at UCLA Ed & IS, announced the graduate school’s partnership with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability to form the UCLA Children’s Environmental Educational Initiative, and urged guests to lend their support. The project will develop best practice models for K-12 environmental education, to be created at UCLA Lab School, UCLA Community School, and the University’s other partner schools in Los Angeles.
“In the 21 Century, the children of the world cannot flourish on a planet, in an environment that is withering,” said Suárez-Orozco. “Environmental education is not a privilege, but a right. Society, politics, economy, and culture are inseparable from the environment, and all species including humans, are part of the nature in a nonlinear web of interdependence and interconnection.
“Environmental education provides a compelling moral imperative that can mobilize children’s agency and the search for solutions. By posing questions and using the method of inquiry as a pedagogical tool, the environment capitalizes on our children’s curiosity to develop critical thinking skills.”
Peter Kareiva, director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, expressed his enthusiasm for the project.
“The youth don’t know limits,” he said. “They’re not burdened with the history of all the things that have gone wrong. They have unequivocal optimism. And [in] the combination of Los Angeles, UCLA, and the kids – I see the future of the planet for all of us.”
Mayor Garcetti, an alumnus of UCLA Lab School – which was then called University Elementary School (UES), recalled his education there.
“It introduced me to the world,” he said. “It was a school that was a reflection and an aspiration of the city called Los Angeles… where I learned about art and culture and science. We learned about issues of justice and equity. And it was created with such a reflection of this city – not just the most diverse city on the face of the Earth today, but the most diverse city ever in human history.”
Garcetti introduced Director-General Bokova, the first woman and first Eastern European to serve in the position. She spoke on “UNESCO’s History and Future,” highlighting the organization’s creation and mission, particularly in regard to literacy and education. Dean Suárez-Orozco presented Director-General Bokova with a thank you gift of a floral still life painting by students from UCLA Lab School.
“It was the American diplomat and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish, who penned the opening of our constitution: ‘’Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men’ – and nowadays, of course, we say women – ‘that the defenses of peace must be constructed,’” noted Bokova. “This is where this organization was born, and our constitution, which is one of the most inspiring documents that the United Nations had ever created, is the foundation of the Universal Declaration of Rights. The commitment that UNESCO has as a mission – to promote human dignity and to stand against extremism, and also to respect intercultural dialogue, and to stand for common values – is some of the most important work that we are doing.”
Bokova congratulated Professor Torres and highlighted the significance of the new UCLA UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education in achieving not only peace, but in teaching future generations the value of a sustainable environment.
“The agenda around climate change and the agenda around sustainable development should be one and the same agenda, if we want to achieve peace – if we want to teach our children to think differently,” said Bokova. “In this, I think education and learning are playing an extremely important role. This is where our new UCLA UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education is so essential. It is the first-ever such chair that UNESCO has established, and reflects our shared conviction that education must be more than learning to read and write. It is about learning to live together, learning to live in peace with the environment… it is about cultural literacy, respect, and dignity. And I would say broadly, it is about connecting the dots between the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
“UCLA is starting the global movement about citizenship education. We need to reach young minds and to achieve something that we have not seen before… because this is the way we will transform the world.”
After Ms. Bokova’s presentation, Chancellor Block and Dean Suárez-Orozco presented Mrs. Ross with the inaugural UCLA Global Citizen Award, which recognizes individuals who are making transformational change for the world’s children through visionary leadership in education. The introduction of the UCLA Global Citizen Award complements UNESCO’s 70th anniversary and its commitment to utilizing global knowledge to innovate, defend peace, and develop sustainability.
In 1991 with her late husband Steven J. Ross, Courtney Ross founded the Ross School, a private pre-nursery-12 school in East Hampton. The Ross School’s curriculum is based on world cultural history and the evolution of consciousness. She has also done fundamental educational work in urgent domains, including the education of refugee children in Sweden. Recently the Ross Learning System was showcased at Pope Francis’ Pontifical Academy of Science’s Workshops on Children and Sustainable Development in the Holy See.
Prior to her work in education and global philanthropy, Ross was an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from her alma mater, Skidmore College. Dean Suárez-Orozco co-edited the 2010 book, “Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World: The Ross School Model and Education for the Global Era” (With Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj).
Ross expressed her appreciation for the musical performance by UCLA Lab School students and commended UCLA Ed & IS and UCLA Lab School for “the potential to enrich the lives of all the children in Los Angeles,” and echoed Bokova’s sentiments regarding collaboration among the arenas of education and policy.
“I’m so happy to be here with like-minded people,” Ross said. “I’m hoping that in the future that we can collaborate and cooperate, because ‘connecting the dots’ internationally is the only way we are going to be able to expedite global consciousness.”
For a photo album of the West Coast Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of UNESCO, click here.
To learn about supporting UCLA’s partnership with UNESCO click here.
Above: UCLA Chancellor Gene Block (far left) and UCLA Ed & IS Wasserman Dean Marcelo Suárez-Orozco (far right) welcomed UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova (center) and Courtney Sale Ross (second from left) to the West Coast Celebration of UNESCO’s 70th Anniversary and the inauguration of Professor Carlos Alberto Torres (second from left) as the UCLA UNESCO Chair in Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education.
All photos by Todd Cheney, UCLA