Vince Verlaan

vince.verlaan@mustuniversity.tn

00216 71 180 108

Box : 218

Vince Verlaan

Biography

With 25+ years of experience both in North America and internationally, Vince teaches the tools and practices for community-service-learning courses and programs at universities. He worked for 13 years in educational programming at the University of British Columbia, and for 10 years he helped develop and deliver a training program in “soft skills and social change” at Simon Fraser University (also in BC, Canada).

As a respected consultant, Vince helps “purpose-based organizations” in a range of sectors be more visionary, strategic, collaborative, and impactful. Specialties include high-risk, high-conflict, and/or high-visibility topics and initiatives. He has extensive experience developing guides and projects that increase citizen participation and influence in government policymaking, program development, and service delivery.

Drawing on real-world experience and cutting-edge theory, he has mentored and trained hundreds of adult learners, and now resides and works in Tunis. His current focus is on supporting NGOs, business, and governments working towards achievement of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

Vince believes that “good “process” builds organizational and individual capacity for visioning, strategy, stakeholder engagement, leadership, facilitation, conflict resolution, digital collaboration, and impact. Skills include meeting, event, and workshop design and facilitation, as well as highly participatory and “generative” cross-sectoral forums.

Research

Vince will research how community service-learning outcomes and impacts at MUST are best achieved and evaluated for the benefit of all partners, including community members. He will also examine how community service-learning and leadership activities at MUST and elsewhere contribute to innovation in Tunisia and related effects in society, the economy, and the environment.

Teaching

Vince will focus his teaching and program development at MUST on community service-learning programming and courses, which will see students and professors “learn-by-doing” in collaborative projects that meet the needs of Tunisian communities, NGOs, and government. In addition, he will contribute to curriculum and training related to sustainable development, equity and inclusion, emotional intelligence, facilitation, and leadership.

Publications

Vince’s first professional accomplishments related to the transformation of youth and family mental health services in BC, Canada; this was a major institutional and policy reform process that he supported as an employee and then analyzed in his Master’s thesis. 

Vince next worked for the Canadian government running programs in southeast Asia for a decade, including serving as program manager for a $10-million action-research program with universities in Vietnam that created new curriculum for students across the country.

Vince has been the lead author for 12 different guides to Integrating Public Participation into Government Decision-Making in Canada, some of which are available online.  

He also developed the “DLOG701 Practice of Dialogue and Civic Engagement” course of Simon Fraser University’s Certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement, which is an adult education program he co-founded.  

Vince is an Associate of the SFU Centre for Dialogue, has worked with many NGOs, and is currently contributing to a book series on how business can/should implement the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.

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