As a foundational part of Our Values Journey, three cross-functional teams created our UNTHSC leader development programs focused on fostering values-guided leadership within our institution. One of these programs, Leadership 125, includes an annual event open to all team members titled “Leading with Humanity.”
More information about the Dec. 7 event can be found below.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
— Anne Frank
Our world is increasingly divisive, and our ability to live Our Values of collaboration and respect becomes more difficult as our community becomes more partisan. We’ve been introduced to new terms like fake news, autocomplete algorithms and search engine bias that add to our prejudices and make it more difficult to have civil debate on complex and contentious issues.
Our Health Science Center vision begins “One University, built on values…” How will we achieve our vision if we cannot learn to have civil discourse with others who have widely diverse thoughts? We deliberately recruit people for their differences. How do we learn to appreciate them?
Our theme for the December Leadership 125 program is Leading with Humanity. Our guest will be Rabbi David Lazar. David has spent more than 25 years leading provocative, thoughtful and sometimes risky conversations with diverse groups in the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. He will lead us on a thought-provoking journey as we learn to move from intolerance to pluralism, and perhaps, to openness.
The Aga Khan, leader of the Shia Muslim community in India, said that it is not the fact we have differences that creates violence in the world; but rather our ignorance of each other – the fundamental lack of education and sharing knowledge of each other’s beliefs. What is needed, said the Aga Khan, is pluralism.
We cannot confuse the idea of pluralism with the highly politicized term “multi-culturalism.” This is not an attempt to change each other’s belief. Pluralism is an evolution that begins with our own intolerance.
• Intolerance is the refusal to accept another’s belief as valid. It results in statements denying others’ right to exist and leads to violence and war. (My idea is right for me, and it is right for everyone else. I will impose my will by all means necessary.)
• The next step in the evolution is tolerance – the understanding that violence is ineffective in reaching community goals. Therefore, while not condoning the action or belief, we resolve to allow it to exist. (My idea is the right one for everyone, but if you want to go your own way, I won’t interfere.)
• Acceptance is the idea that another’s belief is valid and possibly even good for them.
• Pluralism occurs when we act on the philosophy that none of us are as smart or effective as all of us. (What you believe is good for you, and certain aspects will help me be a better person.)
Most of the time, we live within our own comfort zone, our status quo, our box. The goal of pluralism is not to step out of that zone but rather to expand it. If each of us can expand the size of our own comfort zone and go beyond our own box to include ideas of others, then perhaps we can reduce the intolerance, and consequently the violence, in this world.
Let’s Join Together and Make a Difference
Rabbi David Lazar has spent most of his adult life in Israel where he was founder and director of RIKMA, the Spiritual Community Leadership Development Program devoted to the cultivation and advancement of professional community leadership. He has recently returned to his native California to lead Temple Isaiah of Palm Springs. On December 7, he will join our Leadership 125 team to share his vision for sustainable pluralistic exchange.
Monologue is one person sharing ideas in the hope of influencing others. Dialogue is when two parties share ideas with give and take. We, a diverse group of leaders, will begin by focusing on what we have in common and develop multilogue that surpasses tolerance and even pluralism, venturing into openness.
Rabbi Lazar has spent many years in pursuit of deep interfaith multilogue. From annual visits to the ecumenical monastic community of Taize’ in France and with the Brothers and Sisters of the Beatitude Community of Emmaus, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, he has sought prayer and study engaging the various Christian traditions. From meetings with clerics and scholars in Doha, Qatar to contact with Imams in the UK, Sweden and California, he has shared spiritual practice and sacred wisdom with Muslims of different backgrounds.
Please join us, as we endeavor to improve our society and the world in which we live.
Leadership 125
December 7, 2017
UNTHSC MET 109-111
3:30 – 5:00 PM
Reception Follows
All UNTHSC Team Members are welcome at this special event.