HYDERABAD: Susan Ross, Cultural Attaché, US Consulate General, Karachi presented workshop to SU students on the theme “Communication 101”.
The term ‘101’ in American education system means the basic module. This way the workshop was on “The Fundamental Principles of Interpersonal Communication”.
The event was presided over by VC-SU Prof Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat, while Stephen Valen, Cultural Affairs Officer, US Consulate General, Karachi was the Chief Guest.
Ross started off her assertions with her own maxim, observing that communication was the key to unlock avenues leading towards a better, happier and harmonious world. The workshop, as it turned out to be, was highly interactive as it engaged the entire audience through varied hands-on tasks to which the audience too responded passionately, productively, politely and generously.
The learned presenter under-pinned active listening, clarity, audience friendliness, context-relevance interlocutor respect, covert significance of non-verbal cues and understanding as the foundations of effective interpersonal communication.
Ross, before joining foreign service as a career diplomat, remained a passionate university professor with PhD in communication studies. Upon completion of input from Dr Susan Ross, as is essential of any workshop, the audience put her intriguing questions relating to the event theme; that she answered not only convincingly but also fascinatingly.
VC-SU Dr Burfat in his presidential remarks formally welcomed the guests and highlighted the importance of ‘cultural factor’ in communication. He said that words, phrases, sentences, utterances and gestures carried different connotations in different cultural contexts. He opined that for effective and meaningful communication to take place the interlocutors needed to be aware of those considerations.
Dr Burfat termed education as solution to all social evils-be it poverty, crime, over-population, disease, injustice, inequality, gender exploitation and any other such menace. “The first panacea to social problems is education and the second is always ‘effective communication’ which also is the focus of today’s workshop”, the VC observed.
The event chief guest Stephen Valen said that the world had shrunk into a shared global city, mandating all its denizens to accept and take, the responsibility of all that happened in that common abode.
“We have to live together. For this we must communicate and communicate better to more effectively understand one another to more peacefully and harmoniously live together”, Valen explained.
Valen said as a diplomat his essential obligation was to bring people together, to dispel undue doubts, to foster friendship, to bring people and countries together on the track of cooperation and mutual cordial relations.
Earlier, the distinguished visitors called on SU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Fateh Muhammad Burfat in his office where several matters of mutual interest came under discussion. Dr Burfat informed the consulate team that SU possessed the professional pride of having long, consistent, sustained and cordial institutional ties with the US embassy and consulate, adding that different US ambassadors, consul generals and other American officers both from US embassy in Islamabad and consulate in Karachi have been visiting SU at various points of time.
“We are indeed thankful to you for award of scholarships and fellowships to SU students; and that for those students such opportunities turn out to be amazingly life-transforming experience”, the VC told the visiting delegation. Stephen Valen, CAO, US Consulate Karachi informed those present about diverse and wide range of scholarships available that included Fulbright Award, Humphrey Fellowship, Eisenhower Fellowship, U-Grad (Undergraduate scholarship), Youth Exchange and Study Program (YES), International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), Study in the United States Institutes (SUSI) and scores of other such awards.
Mr Valen impressed upon vice chancellor Dr. Burfat to encourage SU faculty and students to compete for those opportunities. SU pro-vice chancellors, deans, academic and administrative heads were also in attendance at this interface.
Later, Mr. Valen and Dr. Ross visited cultural museum at the varsity’s Institute of Sindhology. Director STAGS Dr. Sumera Umrani moderated the proceedings of the workshop.