Prof. Alexandra Harrington, who was the BSIA Fulbright Canada Special Foundation Fellow and Global Governance Chair in 2019-2020, along with BSIA Fellow and University of Waterloo Prof. Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger and MAGG student Cassandra Hayward, recently helped establish a series of free online tutorials with expert speakers from Yale, Oxford, Cambridge and McGill universities to help U.K. secondary students connect to education during the COVID-19 lockdown.

In April 2020, with the support of the University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Prof. Stephen Toope and the kind contributions of her colleagues from Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Harvard, McGill and other universities, Prof. Harrington helped a network of keen secondary school students to host a free online tutorial series connecting students whose studies had been disrupted due to the global pandemic to world-renowned experts for 60-minute tutorial sessions on emerging issues in their cutting-edge science and humanities research.

The mini-series ran for eight sessions, twice a week, and was a significant success, helping to inspire and engage more than 90 bright students from both disadvantaged schools and also independent schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow, The Perse and St. Mary’s in the United Kingdom. The series also built new friendships and linkages among students with similar interests, including global governance and legal regimes.

Prof. Harrington gave a lecture on Global Governance, which was rated as the “most informative” session from student feedback. The series also received feedback comments including, “it really got me interested in some new topics I was previously uninformed about, and kept my mind sharp researching them further afterwards: great experience all-around!” and “the presenters were informative, captivating and knowledgeable”.

Prof. Harrington, Prof. Cordonier Segger and Cassandra Hayward are now organizing a second online tutorial series in July, beginning on the 14th, which will feature BSIA Director Ann Fitz-Gerald as one of the speakers. To register for tutorials and to be added to the mailing list, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/current-challenges-and-future-directions-tutorial-series-tickets-111893598766.

To view the past lectures from the first mini-series, visit: https://www.cisdl.org/2020/03/28/current-challenges-future-directions-mini-tutorial-series/