By Ayla Collins
Project Name
A Language Teachers’ Guide to Enhancing Social Justice Through UBC Indigenous Campus Features
Team Members
Andrew Scales
Cheyenne Cunningham
Leah Meunier
Lozen Osecap
Project Summary
This initiative will develop two place-centered, experiential language learning resources that enhance international learners’ critical awareness of anti-racism, indigeneity and decolonization in Canada and their home countries. One resource explores the Reconciliation Pole and the other looks at the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. The projects will be based on diverse Indigenous perspectives, epistemologies and pedagogies integrated with current research in language teaching and learning, and use this knowledge to develop a brief instructors’ guide to further implementing social justice content in curriculum and lesson planning.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Orange Shirt Project: Acts of Remembrance, Respect and Reconciling
Team Members
Dr. Shannon Leddy
Dr. Lorrie Miller
Dr. Kerry Renwick
Heather Clarke
Project Summary
The Orange Shirt Project is an art installation developed to acknowledge the impact of residential schools for Indigenous people in Canada. It is a pedagogy of the public, providing an ongoing reminder and a challenge to what has been a hidden or opaque piece of history for many settlers in Canada. It is a way to stand with Indigenous people, recognizing their loss and pain while looking towards healing. Each orange shirt that is created is a reminder of a young person whose death was recorded at Indian Residential Schools, and those who were lost and left in unmarked graves. This installation invites recognition about what is (truth) before turning to understanding and then engagement in acts of reconciling. It invites inquiry and engagement with learning for being and becoming more human, and humane. As an act of ongoing remembrance, it demonstrates meaningful and respectful ways to work with Indigenous histories and voices.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Development of Short Scenes for Reader’s Theater and Accompanying Animation Videos
Team Members
Dr. Ryuko Kubota
Dr. Meghan Corella
Project Summary
This project will develop two short scenes for Reader’s Theater, and two accompanying 20-minute animation videos—one on the experiences of students, staff and faculty from racialized and Indigenous backgrounds, and another on linguistic manifestations of these experiences. The content is based on interview and focus group discussion data that were collected for a separate study. These resources together with discussion questions, which will be made available online, aim to promote critical perspectives on anti-racism and decolonization among students and other audiences within the Faculty of Education and beyond.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Integration of a Social Justice Pedagogy in the School and Applied Child Psychology (SACP) Program at UBC
Team Members
Dr. Laurie Ford
Dr. Anusha Kassan
Dr. Thomas Schanding
Linnea Kalchos
Melanie Nelson
Harris Wong
Project Summary
The purpose of this project is co-creation in the redesign of seven core courses in the SACP program by elevating social justice pedagogies. A tenet to this revision is co-creation, based on collaboration between SACP faculty and students and the larger community in a culturally sensitive, responsive, and meaningful manner. The aim of this project is to: 1) examine the presence of social justice training across core areas of the SACP curriculum through a content analysis of course outlines for graduate courses offered in SACP, and b) program support documents (e.g., handbook, practicum documents, admissions policies); and 2) elevating social justice pedagogies in the SACP curriculum.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Enhancing Indigenous Themes in a Teacher Education STEAM Course
Team Members
Dr. Robert Campbell
Dr. Sumer Seiki
Desiree Marshall-Peer
Project Summary
This grant funding will be used to support the inclusion of Indigenous themes into a STEAM course (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) in UBCO’s Teacher Education program. A portion of funding will be used to provide honoraria for teachers and Elders from the Syilx community whose expertise includes sustainable practices, Indigenous art, and Indigenous cosmology. The remainder of the funds will be used to provide student transportation and admission to the Okanagan Science Centre in Vernon to view the Indigenous Skies presentation, and, also, to visit the Syilx Winter house in Komasket Park in the North Okanagan.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Black Healthcare & Wellness Career Panel during Black History Month
Team Members
Cindy Sha
Irene Yang
Zoë Balbosa
Project Summary
In celebration of Black History Month, this one-hour-long professional career development event features four Black speakers in health and wellness: two physicians, a personal trainer and yoga teacher. The Professional Development Panel event is open to all students, faculty and staff. Through storytelling, Black speakers can provide their personal expertise revolving around systematic issues of inequalities Black individuals face in the health and wellness industry, culturally competent practices and tips to transition from university into the workplace.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Celebrate Food and Fitness: In-roads to Equity and Diversity
Team Members
Karin Wiebe
Yukie Ueda
Prapti Mallhi
Project Summary
The IDEA Module for Foods and Fitness uses an appreciative inquiry approach and backwards design methods in an asynchronous Canvas learning module focused on diversity and equity in foods and fitness for international university students. This unique concept has been created from the perspectives of international and local students and highlights intercultural awareness through an exploration of eating and exercise as elements of successful academic and campus life.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Barriers and Facilitators to UBC Sexual and Gender Minority Students
Team Members
Benjamin Hives
Naomi Maldonado-Rodriguez
Project Summary
The project will examine sexual and gender minority (e.g., lesbian, gay, queer, bi, transgender, non-binary, two-spirited) university students’ perceptions of, and experiences with, physical activity. The project team will conduct focus groups with 20 sexual and gender minority students. Through these focus groups, patterns will be identified within the students’ stories to illuminate the role of their intersecting identities in shaping their previous experiences with, and current preferences for, physical activity. The results of this project will inform the creation of recommendations for how to create and promote inclusive physical activity programming for, by, and with sexual and gender minority students.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in Schools—Taking a Cultural Lens
Team Members
Alex Gist
Sylvia King
Project Summary
SEL in Schools—Taking a Cultural Lens is a two-part webinar series. As one way to address the impacts of systemic racism and discrimination on the mental health and academic outcomes of their students, pre-service and practicing educators will be given the opportunity to reflect and build upon their understanding of social and emotional learning (SEL) by considering how to integrate SEL with culturally sustaining teaching practices (part 1) and Indigenous knowledges and perspectives (part 2). Recordings of the webinars are available at: keltymentalhealth.ca/school-professionals/supporting-social-emotional-learning-schools-and-classrooms.
By Ayla Collins
Project Name
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization Speaker Series
Team Members
Leor Elizur
Alejandra Botia
Project Summary
The Counselling Psychology Social Justice Committee created a survey to understand students’ experiences of social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion within the department, and to identify areas of improvement for the committee to address. Many students expressed a desire to learn about social justice in more depth than many courses currently offer, and noted that a speaker series would provide an opportunity to do this. In response, the Counselling Psychology Social Justice Committee will be hosting a speaker series, including topics such as:
- Indigenous ways of knowing and sharing,
- Statistical representation of identity demographics,
- Inclusive practices when working with clients of diverse gender identities,
- Counselling with refugee populations,
- The history of psychology and the impact of colonialism on current psychological perspectives and practices,
- The evolution of social justice work in counselling,
- Advocacy practices,
- Knowledge dissemination and translation of social justice research,
- White racism
The speaker series will be open to attendance by any Faculty of Education students who are interested in learning about a topic, and can benefit all Faculty of Education students by introducing them to ideas they may have not had an opportunity to learn about in a classroom setting.
