Dr. Rita Irwin
Distinguished University Scholar

Join Dr. Jan Hare, UBC’s Dean of Education, pro tem, for the second annual Dean’s Community Engagement Series, highlighting key questions and significant priorities engaging educators today.

This virtual session will feature Dr. Marissa Largo of York University as well as Baren Tsui and Navshina Savory of the Richmond School District.

With a focus on cultural celebration and social justice, the presenters will discuss ways in which communities and schools can work to respond to racist and colonial discourses toward Asian Canadians that persist in our K–12 school systems. Structural changes, responsive pedagogy, antibias education and collaboration with students will all be discussed as possible avenues to more inclusive classrooms.

Dr. Guofang Li from the Faculty of Education will facilitate the Q&A.

Event Details

Date: February 28, 2023
Time: 4:30-6:00pm PDT
Format: Online via Zoom

Learn more about the 2022-2023 Dean’s Community Engagement Series

Watch the Recording

About Dr. Marissa Largo

Dr. Marissa Largo is an Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies in the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design of York University. Her research/research-creation focuses on the intersections of community engagement, race, gender and Asian diasporic cultural production. Her forthcoming book, Unsettling Imaginaries: Filipinx Contemporary Artists in Canada (University of Washington Press) examines the work and oral histories of artists who imagine Filipinx subjectivity beyond colonial logics. She is co-editor of Diasporic Intimacies: Queer Filipinos and Canadian Imaginaries (Northwestern University Press, 2017). Since 2018, she has served as the Canada Area Editor of the Journal of Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas (ADVA). Dr. Largo has received numerous awards and grants for her research and creative practice. She is a recipient of the 2019 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Research on the Education of Asian and Pacific Americans (REAPA) special interest group of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). In 2021, she received an Ontario Arts Council Grant for Curatorial Projects: Indigenous and Culturally Diverse and a Canada Council for the Arts grant: Arts Across Canada Program for her curatorial project Elusive Desires: Ness Lee & Florence Yee at the Varley Art Gallery of Markham (September 2021 to January 2022). For this exhibition, Dr. Largo was recognized by the Galeries Ontario/Ontario Galleries (GOG) awards for best exhibition design and installation, and best curatorial writing text between 2000 – 5000 words). Her projects have been presented in venues and events across Canada, such as the A Space Gallery (2017 & 2012), Open Gallery of OCAD University (2015), Royal Ontario Museum (2015), WorldPride Toronto (2014), The Robert Langen Art Gallery (2013), Nuit Blanche in Toronto (2019, 2018, 2012 and 2009), and MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) (2007).

From 2006 to 2020, Dr. Largo honed her love for teaching as a secondary visual arts educator. She continues to advise school boards on topics of equity and structural change and culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy. Dr. Largo also collaborates with community organizations that connect policy engagement with creative and social practice.

About Baren Tsui, BA’01, BEd’02, MEd’11

Baren Tsui (she/her) is a settler on Musqueam territory of Chinese heritage on both her mother’s side and father’s side. She was born and raised in East Vancouver. She now does all the things in Richmond – live, work, and play – with her two young children and partner.

She is a loyal UBC alumna, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English Literature. She continued at UBC for her Bachelor of Education degree, where she studied in the Humanities and Social Justice Teacher Education Program. She then returned for her Master of Education degree in Educational Leadership and Administration.

Baren has worked as a public school educator for 20 years, beginning her professional journey in both Vancouver and Richmond as a Secondary English and Social Studies teacher. Of her 15+ years in the classroom, she is most proud of making lasting connections with students and families, forming joyful collaborative relationships with colleagues, mentoring teacher candidates and beginning teachers, and teaching for social justice, especially in teaching the first Social Justice 12 class in Richmond. She is currently the Teacher Consultant for Equity and Inclusion in Richmond School District. In this role so far, highlights for her have included working with student voice groups around identity and a sense of belonging, as well as working and learning alongside colleagues committed to creating and advocating for equity and inclusive practices in classrooms and schools.

Baren’s key aim as an educator has always been to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion through antibias education. This aim is core not only to her professional practice, but also to her personal journey as a Muslim woman of Chinese ancestry raising biracial children.

About Navshina Savory

Navshina Savory is the District Principal of Equity, Inclusion, and Indigenous Success in the Richmond School District. Navshina is a settler from Tanzania, Africa to Canada. Navshina and her family settled in Canada in 1975. Navshina and her parents have always seen their immigration to Canada as a privilege and acknowledge the sacrifices of the first peoples and their rights to these lands with profound humility.

Navshina holds a BSc and a Professional Teaching Certificate from Simon Fraser University. She started her teaching career as a Science Educator/Facilitator at Science World. This non-traditional classroom was a wonderful opportunity for Navshina to become an innovative classroom teacher where she flourished as a secondary Math and Science teacher. Navshina’s passion for teaching and learning and a deep conviction for equity for all her students led her to pursue a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University. Early in her teaching career, Navshina was blessed with having school administrators whose leadership mentored her to pursue leadership in schools. In 1999, Navshina was the first South Asian female to become a Secondary School Administrator in the Surrey school District. Since then, Navshina has built her skills and reputation as a caring and value driven educational leader being a school-based vice principal and principal for over 2 decades in Surrey and Richmond School Districts.

In addition to her professional experience, Navshina is highly committed to her community service. Navshina is a founding member of the Az-Zahraa Islamic Academy an independent faith-based school, which was established in 1988. Today, this first of a kind school boasts with high academic standards, significant alumni success in academics, innovation, and social justice, and wait lists for enrollment. Navshina went on to serve on the Az-Zahraa school board and as the first female director on the executive committee in the position of Director of Education, for more than a decade. Navshina’s other community involvements includes being on a Board of Directors on the YOBro/YoGirl Youth Initiative, a not-for-profit organization whose mandate is to take youth from “Risk to Resilience” and a Director on the Board of the British Columbia’s Principals and Vice Principals Association serving in her first year of a 2 year elected term to this board.

About Dr. Guofang Li

Guofang Li is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Transnational/Global Perspectives of Language and Literacy Education of Children and Youth in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Canada. Her recent research interests are longitudinal studies of immigrant children’s bicultural and bi-literacy development through the educational systems, immigrant children’s new literacies practices in and out of school, technology-infused ESL/EFL instructional approaches, diversity and equity issues, and teacher education and professional development for culturally and linguistically diverse children and youth. As one of the leading scholars in the field of second language and literacy education, Li has published 16 books and over 200 journal articles and book chapters in English and Chinese, given over 100 keynotes and other invited speeches regionally, nationally, and worldwide, and presented over 100 scholarly conference papers. Li is the recipient of numerous national and international awards including the 2013 and 2006 Ed Fry Book Award of the Literary Research Association (LRA) (formerly the National Reading Conference), the 2011 Publication Award from ACPSS, the 2010 Early Career Award at American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the 2008 Division G Early Career Award of AERA.