Recently I have been thinking about the continued relevance of Nobel Laureate writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ great works – One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) – for our times today. These are stories not only about the flawed yet endearing nature of human life and love but also about the cyclical nature of history, which seems to repeat itself (albeit never in precisely the same way).
Five years ago, we entered our own “time of cholera”, as the COVID-19 pandemic descended upon us. I fell ill with COVID-19 on the first day of lockdown. Thirty years ago, in 1995, women and men all over the world came together to fight for women’s rights and gender equality at the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. I was one of them too. And a little over 90 years ago, authoritarian leaders ascended to power in Germany, a struggling democracy beset by mounting economic and social woes, and other countries in record-breaking time. Sound familiar?
Human relations seem to have been fundamentally changed by the pandemic, increased polarization, and the re-emergence of populist authoritarian regimes. We have lost a lot of social capital during this time (recall Robert Putnam’s ground-breaking study and book “Bowling Alone” (2000)) but have also forged new connections. Although we have come a long way in ensuring equitable opportunities for all human beings and working towards a more inclusive society, we still have a long way to go and are even at risk of losing some of the hard-won gains of the past decades.
But history does not, in fact, repeat itself without human agency. Each one of us has opportunities, some might say obligation, to affect our own history and evolution. But just as time marches on, we must adapt and continuously learn. By the same token, institutions of higher education, like ɬ’s School of Continuing Studies, adapt. By definition, the school is a learning institution. We build on the combined experience and expertise of many – both those currently part of the SCS Community and those who went before us- to teach, create and disseminate new knowledge and to support our learners. Our learners are re-inventing themselves – whether to gain new skills, shift careers, or advance in their chosen profession – and contributing to the School’s social and intellectual capital as well.
For the past couple of years, we have drawn on this collective experience, learning, and market data to update and revise many of our programs, and to ensure that our offerings are not just timely and relevant but are preparing us for the future that we cannot yet fully imagine. It can be difficult to adjust to, and manage, change, including new knowledge and information. One could try to retreat from change – as the protagonists in Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude sought to do, becoming increasingly more isolated, only to ultimately disappear themselves – or one can go with the flow. A long time ago, the philosopher Heraclitus is said to have observed that the only constant is change itself. Lifelong learning and continuing education allow us to shape these changes and grow with them. Just like Florentino in Love in the Time of Cholera (Ch. 4) “allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once … but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves,” so can we use learning and teaching as a means of rebirth. Happy Spring!