In March 2008, mid-way through my PhD, my thesis advisor (Dr. Michael Hoechsmann) requested a meeting. After exchanging pleasantries, he asked if I had any summer plans. I told him I was heading to Kigali, Rwanda to volunteer with a women’s collective called Tubahumerize. He replied: “Anita, I’ve known you four years, so I’m going to be straight with you. I don’t think you will graduate unless you’re passionate about what you are studying. That’s why I want you to completely rethink your thesis topic.” He continued: “I bet you have a box or drawer at home that you use to stash random stuff. I want you to explore what’s in it because that’s how you’ll discover your real passion.”
I left his office livid. How dare he second-guess how I felt about my research?
Two weeks later, I laughed out loud when my eyes fell upon a legal-size folder in my filing cabinet labelled “Miscellaneous.” Curious, I spread the contents across my dining room table: ticket stubs from speaking events and yellowed newspaper clippings about homelessness, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and acid rain. I didn’t see a common thread until I came across an article about a boy who went to school for a week without wearing shoes to better understand what childhood poverty in the global south felt like. That’s when I saw the common thread. Agnostic to the cause, I was attracted to people trying to solve social and environmental problems. And while I didn’t have the vocabulary yet to know they were social entrepreneurs, for the first time, I realized I was naturally drawn to changemakers.
My advisor had been right about finding my passion and changing my thesis topic accordingly. My obsession became: How might I inspire the next generation of changemakers? To that end, I interviewed dozens of social innovators to determine what they had in common and my data revealed a simple and elegant answer. Empathy compelled them to act. That insight led me to develop a ‘Pedagogy of Empathic Action’ for my dissertation and it continues to animate everything I do today – teaching, coaching, speaking, writing and podcasting.
Another way McGill changed my life: On October 10, 2013, I accidentally bumped into a man with a red vintage Raleigh bicycle directly outside the Bronfman building. This summer, we celebrated six years of marriage and our daughter just graduated from CPE McGill.
I commissioned McGill employee Erin Corber to capture the fateful day:
