About Us
International graduate students at UBC bring a wide range of rich cultural experiences that enrich our global perspective. However, many of them encounter challenges that are associated with differences in their cultural believes, values, and lived experiences. Recently, the Faculty of Education welcomed a proposal for a 6-month pilot program for Cultural Diversity Support to address the challenges of cultural diversity, and assist all students, especially international graduate students, to achieve their full potential here at UBC. This nascent initiative is part of the implementation of the Faculty of Education’s Learning Transformed strategic action plan (2019 – 2024).
“Learning Transformed represents the Faculty of Education’s commitment to fostering a community of learning that is grounded in the values of equity, inclusivity, diversity, and transparency” – Dr. Blye W. Frank [Dean, Faculty of Education].
Goals
The goals of this pilot program are to:
- Identify the challenges international graduate students face
- Develop and implement sustainable strategies to address these challenges
- Initiate activities to encourage integration and foster a supportive and welcoming environment to ensure international graduate students’ overall well-being and academic success
Cultural Diversity Support Office
Coordinator: Dr. Aloysius Anyichie
Supervisors:
Professor Shelley Hymel (ECPS Departmental Head)
Professor Jennifer Shapka (Director of Graduate Studies in Education)
Location: Scarfe Building Room 2525
Contact e-mail: culturaldiversity.edu@ubc.ca
Phone: 604-822-2991
Get Involved
Office of Cultural Diversity Support shall be reaching out to all international graduate students in the Faculty of Education to hear about their experiences, challenges, and suggestions about how best to support them. We invite all international graduate students to get involved actively in this program as it unfolds in the coming weeks. Please write or call to contribute to this effort.
Cultural Diversity Coordinator: Aloysius C. Anyichie, Ph.D.
Dr. Anyichie is a recent graduate of our Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education. His research interests focus on the intersection of culture, engagement, motivation, achievement and student success. Specifically, he collaborates with educators to create inclusive classroom contexts in support of culturally diverse learners. His dissertation, “Supporting All Learners’ Engagement in Multicultural Classroom Context Using an Integrated Culturally Responsive Self-Regulated Framework” won the 2019 award for the best dissertation in Educational Psychology from the Canadian Association for Educational Psychology. His research contributed to this initiative to offer more support for culturally diverse learners in our Faculty of Education.
As a scholar, Dr. Anyichie is enriched by his diverse educational backgrounds including Bachelors in Philosophy, and Bachelors in Theology (Pontifical Urbaniana University, Rome); Diploma in Communication (Enugu State University, Enugu); post-graduate diploma in Education, Masters in Educational Psychology, and Masters in Religion and Human Relations (Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka), and PhD in Human Development, Learning, and Culture (UBC).
Aloy is an educator with many years of teaching experience in K-12 and University classrooms; and has served as a high school Dean of Studies/Academic Coordinator. He is committed to equity and social justice that has continued to shape his professional career. This commitment led to his Masters’ thesis in Religion and Human Relations that focused on promotion of social justice, and his doctoral dissertation that focused on supporting culturally diverse students.
He brings to this position his wide working experiences in Africa, Europe and North America; especially with people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds where he has continued to commit to equity and cultural diversity.
We are happy to have Dr. Anyichie as the pioneer coordinator and the brain behind this Cultural Diversity Support initiative for the international graduate students in our Faculty of Education.
