University Social Responsibility is a concept whereby a university takes all necessary steps to improve the quality of life for all its employees and their families, its students, its faculty, and the local community as well as society at large.
The purpose of the 1st University Social Responsibility International Conference 2009 (USRIC 2009) is to establish a dialogue between attending universities to address their responsibility to society to provide the best quality of life to all people.
The topics for conference discourse:
1. University’s Role in Social Responsibility
2. Cultures and Social Responsibility
3. Sustainable Development
4. Environmental Sustainability
5. Poverty Reduction
6. IT and Social Responsibility
Summary of the seminar
The seminar was held for two days with about 300 people participating from different areas in Thailand and overseas. There were six main topics related to the university social responsibility as follows:
1. Poverty Reduction
In this topic, the speakers introduced solutions that would help solve the problem of poverty, develop and bring the quality of life of people to a better level. In addition, during their talk, the speakers touched on other problems and obstacles that needed to be resolved urgently. Furthermore, they suggested, in particular, all universities to take a role in assisting, supporting and resolving those problems.
2. University’s role in Social Responsibility
The speaker suggested a path to the university’s role in social responsibility by considering three main factors as follows:
2.1 The objectives and roles that are similar and different between public and private universities
2.2 Research studies and other activities that could reinforce social responsibility
2.3 The utilization of the concept of CSR in a university level and its adaption to USR
3. Sustainable Development
In this session, the speakers suggested a way in developing a society to knowledge bank and sharing it to others in the same society for sustainable development. Here, the speakers shared with the participants their case studies from abroad, explained the problems and obstacles that occurred and suggested possible means to help resolve the problems.
4. Environmental Sustainability
As for the environmental sustainability, the speakers suggested ways and activities that could be undertaken by universities in terms of sustainable environment. University could motivate their students to help save and be responsible for both the environment and people around them.
5. IT and Social Responsibility
In this session, there were speakers from various business sectors—both from the government, such as NECTEC, and private business, such as Microsoft (Thailand)—national and international educational sectors suggested employing technology to help those who are in need in our society, for instance, disabled people. Developing and doing research to invent new hardware and software would possibly provide an ideal opportunity to facilitate disabled people in the society, so that they could have a better quality of living and career opportunity.
6. Cultures and Social Responsibility
In terms of cultures and social responsibility, the speakers suggested an ideal concept based on the Buddhist teaching in instilling good deed, faith and responsibility to oneself, family, and society. Moreover, the speakers suggested educational sectors to emphasize on the importance of cultivating their students in morals and cultures, so that they become better people in the society.
Besides, the participants from different business sectors and educational sectors had the opportunity to build a strong connection called USR Alliance. Its objectives were to, in unison, take part in activities for society, exchange knowledge and develop human resources by having Sripatum University as a leader to operate and coordinate among sectors in the alliance.
http://www.usralliance.org/usric2009thailand/vdo.html
http://www.usralliance.org/
