IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)
Abstract
Today’s culturally diverse academic and social environments make cross-cultural competency essential. While diversity enriches learning, it also presents challenges. Multiculturalism remains central in communication studies (McNeil, 2021; Siegert, 2015). In a polarized global climate, education that fosters understanding, empathy, and peacebuilding is increasingly vital. We think that writing classrooms, often viewed as skill-based and individualistic, can become spaces for cultural dialogue and reflection. Our presentation highlights Stories Without Borders, a transnational writing collaboration implemented this year. This project connected university students from diverse cultural backgrounds through shared creative work, engaging them in reflective writing and multimodal expression around themes of culture, heritage, and identity, concepts that resonate globally yet are expressed personally. This practice-based inquiry used writing assignments as tools for intercultural engagement and social architecture, designing collaborative virtual and physical spaces that fostered dialogue, empathy, and cultural exchange. Through structured creative tasks, we built a framework for meaningful relationships and community-building across borders. Students in Writing or Cross-cultural university classes worldwide completed the same assignment: write about and photograph a cultural artifact significant to them. They shared their work in class and reflected on what they learned from each other. Students who consented to the next phase are featured in a website gallery and a public art installation.
Helen Lepp Friesen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg, Canada. She teaches Academic Writing, Digital Storytelling, New Journalism, Nonfiction Writing, and Representations of Indigeneity. Outstanding points in her career are meeting and having the privilege of working with hundreds of enthusiastic and talented students. Her research and writing interests are multiculturalism and multimodal writing in culturally diverse classes. She enjoys outdoor activities such as skating, snow sculpting, biking, tennis, and running.
Dr. Hana Aljawder is a qualified Interior Architect holding a B.Sc. in Interior Architecture from King Faisal University, KSA (2001). She earned her Master’s degree in Building Design Science from the University of Sydney, Australia (2007), followed by a PhD in Architecture from the same institution (2015). Her doctoral research explored daylighting and visual privacy in interior environments, with a particular focus on residential spaces. Dr. Aljawder’s academic interests also include sustainable building design and environmental performance in interior architecture. She has extensive teaching experience, including Interior Design Studios, Graduation Project I & II (programming and design phases), and the Design Culture and Environment course.
Dr. Fatema Qaed is an Interior Architect and design educator with a multidisciplinary background in design, learning environments, and user-centered spatial innovation. She holds an MA in Design and a PhD in Learning and Space Design from Northumbria University, where her master research—focused on virtual reality exhibitions—earned her a distinguished degree. Her doctoral research introduced the Classroom Design Recipes tool, a convivial design methodology that empowers teachers to creatively repurpose existing spatial and material resources. This tool has contributed to reshaping educators’ understanding of interior design as an enabler of agency, flexibility, and learner-centered environments.
Emily Wuest is an adjunct professor at Central Christian College in McPherson Kansas USA. She has a Masters of Education degree in Transformative Education. Her teaching experience includes teaching middle school English, teaching fourth grade in China, teaching Expat parents conversational English classes, teaching online English classes, and is currently teaching a remedial class of English Essentials. She enjoys teaching her students to see and appreciate the world around them and realize their power of words.
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Tuesday 7th July, 2026