Dr. Annette Henry
The upcoming year marks the 30th Anniversary of the David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education, one of the distinguished chairs and professorships within the Faculty of Education. The position was named in honour of David Lam, the 25th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and first Chinese Canadian to hold a vice-regal position in Canada. David Lam believed in the power of immigration as an economic tool and directed much of his philanthropic generosity toward cultivating multiculturalism in British Columbia.
First endowed in 1991, the David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education was established to support increased interest, programming, and research in multicultural and anti-racist education in order to assist schools in fostering multiculturalism. The position prioritizes the appointment of a dynamic scholar with extensive expertise related to multicultural and social justice studies in education and a commitment to anti-oppression, anti-racism, intersectionality, and decolonization.
On August 31, 2016, Dean Blye Frank announced that Dr. Annette Henry had taken up the appointment of David Lam Chair in Multicultural Education. Dr. Henry is a Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education whose scholarship examines race, class, language, gender, and culture in socio-cultural contexts of teaching and learning in the lives of Black students, Black women teachers’ life histories practice in Canada, the U.S. and education in Caribbean contexts. She has written extensively about diverse feminisms and conceptual and methodological research issues especially in culture-specific contexts and also holds an appointment in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice.
With the support of Dr. Henry, the Faculty of Education has begun fundraising for the next vital step in advancing multicultural education with the proposal of a Professorship in Anti-Black Racism Education, a unique position the purpose of which is to develop new research platforms and teaching methods on the education of racism in order to prepare pre-service teacher candidates and graduate-level students to understand, identify, and address racism – specifically as it pertains to black people – in their immediate surroundings, the school system, and the broader society.
