Associate Professor Riyad A. Shahjahan is a problem-creator, not a problem-solver.
An upbringing informed by transnational cultural contexts of the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Bangladesh and Canada haven’t just informed his view of the world, but how he understands education, and the roles of media, globalization and unassuming parts of everyday life.
The dismantling of conventional views often begins with questioning the source of knowledge for Shahjahan.
“I’m arguing that, philosophically, different communities are looking at the world differently,” said Shahjahan. “For instance, the notion of time. In other cultures, time is circular, and not linear like how many individuals think of a year or century based on the Gregorian calendar. Certain worldviews can make sense of the concept of reincarnation, because they recognize circular notions of time.”
The son of a Bangladeshi middle-class migrant laborer family living in Kuwait, Shahjahan settled in Toronto where he spent most of his postsecondary upbringing. While at the footsteps of attending medical school, he realized that working in a lab or health care setting was not the right fit.
Instead, his interest in medical education coupled with diverse lived experiences led him to pursue a master’s degree in Adult Education & Community Development at the University of Toronto followed by a doctoral degree in Higher Education.
“I realized how context shaped not only what people knew, but the way they acted, so that made me question many of the things I was learning in school or at universities,” he said. “My research interests stem very much from my transnational upbringing.”
Shahjahan began his Spartan journey in 2011. In his role as associate professor and coordinator of the Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education (HALE) online master’s program, Shahjahan brings his innovative perspectives to the forefront of education. He challenges the traditional boundaries of formal postsecondary education, advocating for the recognition of diverse forms of learning, including workplace learning, everyday learning and the wealth of knowledge gained through life experiences.
“I’m asking from which population or whose bodies of knowledge are we using to articulate problems and in turn to suggest solutions?” he said.
He draws attention to the potential erasure of indigenous knowledge and theories through the dominance of Western-centric approaches. His work also critiques national container-oriented terms like “international students” and “American students,” highlighting the underlying assumptions related to borders and how they may perpetuate certain power dynamics.
International collaboration
In a world where university rankings and metrics often dictate the perceived quality of institutions, he has emerged as a vocal critic.
In 2023, Shahjahan, along with 20 experts from 13 nations across the globe, were part of a United Nations (U.N.) group assembled to critically examine and address issues related to global university rankings. The group produced a report that delves into the challenges and drawbacks of this practice. As the program coordinator for the online master’s program of Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education (HALE) at Michigan State University, he has become a prominent figure in the realms of cultural studies, globalization, temporality and decolonial thought in the field of higher education.
“Across their courses, HALE students encounter faculty from a variety of backgrounds, nationalities and identities. Riyad’s personal history offers him a perspective on global issues that is rare among higher education faculty anywhere, and our students benefit from the richness of his thinking outside what he has called ‘the national container,’” said Kristen Renn, a professor of Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education. “Shahjahan brings his whole self to HALE. We benefit from his intellectual, spiritual and embodied wisdom across the range of faculty contributions in scholarship, teaching and leadership.”