Dr. Robinder Bedi and Dr. Jason Ellis receive Killam Research Fellowships

Dr. Robinder Bedi and Dr. Jason Ellis receive Killam Research Fellowships

By Ayla Collins

March 29, 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Robinder Bedi and Dr. Jason Ellis, who are among the ten UBC recipients of 2021-22 Killam Research Fellowships. The Killam Research Fellowships celebrate scholarly achievements and research excellence of faculty from across UBC.

Dr. Bedi, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, runs a Counselling/Psychotherapy Research, Teaching, and Service Lab that provides support and mentorship for students, faculty and professionals seeking to gain experience and expand their competence in scholarly, didactic or professional service endeavors. Dr. Bedi’s research focuses on multicultural counselling and psychotherapy, particularly with individuals of Punjabi Sikh descent, as well as ways to envision counselling as a Western cultural healing practice. Learn more about Dr. Bedi’s work.

Dr. Ellis, Associate Professor and historian in the Faculty of Education, explores how the educational past shapes the educational present. He is the author of the award-winning book, A Class by Themselves: The Origins of Special Education in Toronto and Beyond (University of Toronto Press, 2019), and editor of the journal Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’education. Dr. Ellis seeks to use the province’s educational past to explain, from a unique perspective, critical challenges in education in British Columbia today. Learn more about Dr. Ellis’ work.

Drs. Cash Ahenakew, Sharon Stein and Vanessa Andreotti receive Research Excellence Cluster funding

By Ayla Collins

March 24, 2022

Dr. Cash Ahenakew and his Faculty of Education co-applicants Dr. Sharon Stein and Dr. Vanessa Andreotti received funding for one of 27 new Research Excellence Clusters in the most recent Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters competition for their project Beyond Window-Dressing Reconciliation in Health: Settler-Clinician Responsibilities.

The Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters are designed to support emerging and established networks of researchers, spanning multiple disciplines at UBC. These networks form and nurture interdisciplinary teams that foster partnerships and collaborations, develop new research questions, address key societal and cultural problems and work together to solve challenges that transcend traditional boundaries.

Beyond Window-Dressing Reconciliation in Health: Settler-Clinician Responsibilities will be led by Dr. Ahenakew, and he will be joined by Dr. Stein, Dr. Andreotti and thirteen other cluster members from UBC, Simon Fraser University and the University of Calgary to explore the topic. The work of this research cluster will lead to the creation of educational resources that support settler-clinicians to confront colonialism in healthcare by moving beyond tokenistic and symbolic approaches to reconciliation, and toward deeper forms of accountability, in order to ultimately support the improved health and well-being of Indigenous peoples. The team was awarded a $100,000 grant for this interdisciplinary research collaboration.

Dr. Ahenakew has spent his career searching for ways to understand how local knowledges and practices can inform the resurgence of Indigenous wisdom, knowledge, education, well-being and healing practices. As Canada Research Chair in Indigenous People’s Well-Being, Dr. Ahenakew is focused on decolonizing health-related research, practices and education, and revitalizing Indigenous health practices.

Discover more about Dr. Ahenakew’s work.

Public Presentation for Reappointment of the Robert Quartermain Professor of Gender & Sexuality in Education – Dr. Harper Keenan

By Faustina Cheung

When: Monday, April 4, 2022 | 10:00 – 11:00 am
Where: Zoom

Reappointment of the Quartermain Professor of Gender & Sexuality in Education: Public Presentation

As part of the reappointment process of the Robert Quartermain Professorship of Gender & Sexuality in Education, Dr. Harper Keenan will deliver a public presentation via Zoom in which he will discuss his achievements, and accomplishments as holder of this professorship since 2019. Dr. Keenan will also outline his vision for the work associated with this professorship and how it will continue to further Sexual Orientation Gender Identity (SOGI) Inclusive Education in the Faculty, UBC and beyond in the next three years. The formal presentation will be followed by an opportunity for questions from the attendees. A video recording of the presentation will be made available for a brief period should you be unable to attend.

We encourage the Faculty of Education community, including all faculty, students, and staff, to attend the presentation and provide feedback to the Reappointment Committee before 4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 8, 2022. Your feedback is important for the reappointment process. The feedback form will be circulated to attendees in advance of the presentation.

We hope to see you at the presentation.

 

A short biography of Dr. Keenan and his work is included below:

Dr. Harper B. Keenan was appointed as the inaugural Robert Quartermain Professor of Gender & Sexuality in Education at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education in 2019. In this role, he leads SOGI-Inclusive Education in the Faculty, which aims to support self-determination in gender and sexuality within PK-12 schools. Spanning multiple disciplines, his scholarship analyzes what schooling, curriculum, and pedagogy teach children about how society is organized. Dr. Keenan’s work investigates the management – or scripting – of children and childhood, and ways that educators and their students might work together to interrupt that process and imagine something different. His current research projects study conditions that enable or foreclose gender self-determination for students and workers in PK-12 schools. Dr. Keenan’s work has been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals like Educational Researcher, Harvard Educational Review, Gender and Education, Teachers College Record, and Curriculum Inquiry, and has been featured or published in popular press outlets like Reuters, Slate, Teen Vogue, and NBC National News.

RSVP for the Public Presentation

Dr. Handel Kashope Wright is an invited member of the national Inter-institutional Steering Committee of the Scarborough Charter

By Ayla Collins

March 21, 2022

Congratulations to Dr. Handel Kashope Wright, an invited member of the national Inter-institutional Steering Committee on Inclusive Higher Education (Inter-institutional Steering Committee) of the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education: Principles, Actions and Accountability (Scarborough Charter).

Dr. Wright is a professor in the Faculty of Education and Director of the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education. He also serves as Senior Advisor to the President on Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence. Dr. Wright has published extensively on continental African cultural studies, cultural studies of education, critical multiculturalism, anti-racist education, qualitative research and post-reconceptualization curriculum theorizing. He is co-editor of the book series African and Diasporic Cultural Studies (University of Toronto Press), associate editor of Critical Arts and serves on the editorial board of several cultural studies and education journals. Learn more about Dr. Wright’s work by reading his biography.

The Scarborough Charter was conceptualized in 2020, when representatives from higher education institutions held open discussions on how to meaningfully address Black inclusion and anti-Black racism. The Scarborough Charter was virtually signed on November 18, 2021 by 46 postsecondary institutions across the country, including UBC, and six more institutions have signed the Charter since that date. Signatories agree to promote ongoing collaboration, mutual learning, sustained commitment, and sharing of resources to redress anti-Black racism and promote Black inclusion.

Amongst several undertakings, the Inter-institutional Steering Committee will encourage the development of communities of practice, foster implementation and accountability by member institutions of the Scarborough Charter, and interface with relevant governments, institutions, organizations, communities and others to secure implementation of the Scarborough Charter and encourage collaboration with a range of Black community organizations, as well as other key stakeholders.

To learn more, read the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education and view an up-to-date list of the signatories.

Dr. Annette Henry is celebrated in the 2022 publication of 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women

By Ayla Collins

March 17, 2022

Dr. Annette Henry’s scholarship examines race, class, language, gender and culture in socio-cultural contexts of teaching and learning in the lives of Black students, Black oral histories and Black women teachers’ practice in Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. She has written extensively about equity in the academy, diverse feminisms and conceptual and methodological research issues, especially in culture-specific contexts. Dr. Henry is the author of Taking Back Control: African Canadian Teachers’ Lives and Practice, the first book on this subject in Canada.

100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women, co-authored by the Honourable Dr. Jean Augustine, Dauna Jones-Simmonds and Dr. Denise O’Neil Green, highlights, documents, acknowledges and supports the accomplishments of Black Canadian women in recognition of their social, educational, political and professional successes.

The book grew out of a desire to inspire Black girls and women by showcasing examples of the many contributions Black women have made, and continue to make, in Canadian society. 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women also helps build a database for future publications to acknowledge the accomplishments by Black Canadian women from a variety of career paths including government, not-for-profit, legal, health, education and academia.

The women included in the 2022 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women were selected based on their efforts to support Black girls and women, their leadership or their participation in organizations and groups working for the advancement of Black women and girls. The book is available for pre-order through the 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women website.

Congratulations to Dr. Henry for this latest recognition of her work for the advancement Black women and girls, as well as her dedication to equity and social justice. Learn more about Dr. Henry’s work by reading her biography or spotlight.

EDCP Research Seminar Series presents Dr. Esther Ohito

By Paula Sabti

Portrait of an Antiracist, Hypermasculine Black Male Pedagogue: Race, Gender (Performance), and Antiracist Pedagogy in U.S. Teacher Education

Dr. Esther Ohito

Friday, March 25, 2022 | 12:30 – 2:00 pm (PDT) | via Zoom

Faculty Host: Dr. Harper Keenan

Abstract

Scholarship on antiracist pedagogy has proliferated the white world of U.S. teacher education; however, studies scrutinizing this phenomenon from the perspective of Black teacher educators and Black aspiring teachers are scarce. In this talk, I present a phenomenological study investigating the racialized, sexed, and gendered aspects of antiracist pedagogy. I examine a Black male teacher educator’s theory and practice of antiracist pedagogy, the latter as captured in two classroom scenarios featuring performances of Black hypermasculinity. This theory/practice juxtaposition reveals the entanglement of antiracist pedagogy, race, gender (performance), (male) privilege, and power. The relationship between gender performance and the practice of antiracist pedagogy illuminated elucidates how Black pedagogues and preservice teachers’ racialized, affective, and embodied experiences are shaped by the un/met desire for cultural affirmation and social recognition in U.S. teacher education. Preliminary implications for dismantling whiteness by cultivating teacher education environments that support the well-being of Black preservice teachers of all genders and gender performances are explored.

 

Bio

Esther O. Ohito, Ed.D. is a curriculum and cultural theorist and an educational researcher with a focus on English/literacy education and expertise in (Black) feminist qualitative approaches. Broadly, her lines of inquiry concern the entangled politics of Blackness, gender, race, and knowledge production at the nexus of curriculum, pedagogy, embodiment, and emotion. Dr. Ohito’s research agenda is split into three overlapping strands: 1) the poetics and aesthetics of Black knowledge and cultural production, 2) the gendered geographies of Black girlhoods, and 3) the gendered pedagogies of Black critical educators. Dr. Ohito’s interdisciplinary research is as inspired by Black intellectual traditions as by (memories of) her lived experiences, including herstories as a multilingual, transnational, first-generation Black/African/Kenyan immigrant student in the United States, a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools system, and a U.S-based teacher/educator in various educational spaces across the African diaspora.

Congratulations to Dr. Ryuko Kubota, recipient of UBC’s Envisioning Equality award

By Ayla Collins

March 14, 2022


Congratulations to Faculty of Education professor Dr. Ryuko Kubota, recipient of UBC’s Envisioning Equality award in recognition of her significant accomplishments and contributions to the university.

Envisioning Equality is the first award to highlight and celebrate exceptional women and gender-diverse faculty and staff at UBC. Award recipients will be recognized through the installation of a series of street banners that will be designed by local artists and installed in 2023.  The project will harness the transformative power of art to provides new perspectives on the award winners’ roles and contributions.

For over a century, women and gender-diverse faculty and staff at the University of British Columbia have been making significant contributions to the institution. Our ten Envisioning Equality recipients have each contributed so much to the world in which we live, building community, understanding and innovation with everything they do. Congratulations to the individuals on their recognition.

– Moura Quayle, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Academic Affairs, Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic, UBC Vancouver

Dr. Kubota is a scholar in the field of applied linguistics. Her work unpacks the interlocking relations among social forces, such as power, politics and ideologies, linguistic practices and socioeconomic structures. It also questions assumptions related to language education and aims to promote equity, social justice and anti-oppressive approaches to language education.

Dr. Kubota’s scholarship links underlying critical multiculturalism to antiracism, drawing scholars’ attention to race, racialization and racism in the field. She points out racial biases in our knowledge system and critically examines how the criteria specific to white knowledge, as seen in citation practices for example, make all scholars, including women scholars of color, complicit with a EuroAmerican male-dominant epistemic hegemony, further marginalizing minoritized scholars and alternative epistemologies.

Dr. Kubota has demonstrated a sustained and committed approach to mentoring within the Faculty of Education. Since 2009, she has mentored 22 Masters and Doctoral students, 20 of whom are international students. She is a dedicated mentor to pre-tenure faculty within the Faculty and to other scholars, particularly Asian women, outside UBC.

Dr. Kubota’s research has led the field, introducing new inquiry topics and perspectives as well as examining other themes that promote linguistic, cultural and human diversity and justice.

Discover more about Dr. Kubota’s work and the Envisioning Equality project.

Congratulations to the Faculty of Education Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund award recipients

By Ayla Collins

March 1, 2022

Congratulations to Kshamta Hunter, Dr. Ryuko Kubota and Dr. Ryan Deschambault

Please join the Faculty of Education in extending congratulations to recipients of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) awards for the 2022–23 funding cycle.

Doctoral candidate Kshamta Hunter and her team will receive funding for their proposal, Embedding Climate Education in Teacher Education Courses through a Novel Framework of Climate Kind Pedagogy. This project will develop a “Climate Kind Pedagogy framework for the Teacher Education Program.”

The University TLEF review committee said of this project, “[it] is timely and focused on an important topic…. Focus[ing] on climate and eco-justice by taking a decolonized lens to embrace Indigenous perspectives of Respect, Reciprocity, Relatedness, Relevance, and Responsibility…. This project directly achieves the transformative learning objectives in the UBC Strategic Plan.”

Ms. Hunter is Manager of Sustainability Student Engagement with the UBC Sustainability Initiative. She is joined by a team of co-applicants including Drs. Sandra Scott, Douglas Adler and Oksana Bartosh, Faculty of Education; Sarah Martz, Faculty of Education and Tsleil-Waututh Nation School; Dr. Bob Woolard, Faculty of Medicine; and Amanda Unruh, UBC Wellness Centre.

Dr. Ryuko Kubota and Dr. Ryan Deschambault’s project, entitled Learning about Global Englishes: Educational Video Project, has received a second year of funding. The project will produce five to seven videos that aim to “invite learners to recognize the existence of the global diversity of English, their historical, economic, and ideological underpinnings, and the biases attached to non-standardized Englishes and racialized speakers.”

The TLEF review committee noted that, “even as the challenges of COVID-19 required considerable pivots [the outputs achieved] are… significant…. [the proposal] provides clear rationale, methodology, and objectives consistent with both the TLEF’s mandate and in recognition of the equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts at the University.”

Land Acknowledgements – Why do we do them?

By avin saririan

Thank you for joining us at the Discussion Panel!

We hope you enjoyed the event. Please see below for a recording.

 

Date

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 | 5:00 PM – 6:30 pm PDT

Where

Virtually

About

Although it’s now the norm to begin speeches and events with land acknowledgements, not everyone may understand the significance of these formalities. Interested in learning more? At this inclusive and bridge-building webinar, everyone is invited to deepen their understanding by listening to panelists from different Indigenous nations/bands who will discuss the purpose and meaning of these important customary statements. Have something you’re wondering about? Bring your questions — a short Q&A session will also be held.

Recording

Panelists

Carleen Thomas, BEd’03

Special Projects Manager, Treaty Lands & Resources, Tsleil-Waututh Nation

Carleen Thomas is an educator and former council member for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. She was appointed Chancellor of Emily Carr University on August 3, 2021.

Ms. Thomas is currently the Special Projects Manager for the Treaty, Lands and Resources department at the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. Prior to this position, she served eight two-year terms as an elected council member for the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, in which she held the Community Development portfolio covering health and education.

Ms. Thomas holds a bachelor’s degree in education from UBC and has previously worked for the North Vancouver and Burnaby school districts as a district resource teacher in Indigenous education. She also sat on the Burnaby School District’s Aboriginal Advisory Committee and served as the Aboriginal Representative Chair in the Capilano University Senate.

She currently sits on the Indigenous Advisory and Monitoring Committee, a federal advisory committee made up of 13 Indigenous and six senior federal representatives that provides advice to regulators and monitors the Trans Mountain Expansion project and existing pipeline.

 

Brad BakerBrad Baker

Associate Superintendent of Indigenous Education, BC Ministry of Education

Brad is a proud member of the Squamish Nation and carries the ancestral name Tsnomot, which he shares with his late grandfather and father. Brad’s father is an Indian Residential School survivor after spending eight years at St. Paul’s Indian Residential School.

Brad has been an educator for 26 years in the North Vancouver School District. For the last 8 years his position has been District Principal with the portfolios of Indigenous Education and Safe Schools.   He is also an Adjunct Professor at UBC within the Faculty of Education.  He started a new position in December 2021, with BC’s Ministry of Education, as the Associate Superintendent for Indigenous Education.

Brad was recently selected to the Governor-General of Canada’s Leadership Conference.  He was 1 of 250 leaders from across Canada that came together to develop strategies on how to move Canada forward in the next 150 years.  Brad was the recipient of the Indspire Guiding the Journey National Award for Leadership in Indigenous Education.  Brad is currently a Candidate in the Doctor of Education program at the University of British Columbia. Brad has had the opportunity to enhance the awareness and the values of Indigenous Education that lead to dialogue through his presentations across Canada and the United States.  One of Brad’s mottos is for all of us to understand “Truth Before Reconciliation” and to “Go Forward With Courage.”    During the conversation with Brad, you will be able to gain an understanding of the importance of Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing within your own practice and as a member of society.

 

Marny PointMarny Point, BEd’02, MET’04

Faculty, Lecturer, First Nations Language Program; Urban Coordinator, NITEP, Faculty of Education, UBC

Marny is from the Musqueam band, of the Coast Salish people. Marny would also like to acknowledge UBC resides on the traditional and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.

Marny has completed both her degrees: a Bachelor of Education & Masters of Educational Technology and is currently working on her Ph.D. in LLED at UBC. Marny has been the Program Coordinator and is an Instructor in the NITEP On-Campus center, teaching the introductory Indigenous education courses. She is an active member of the UBC/MIB Language Committee and was the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program (FNEL) Instructor, teaching the intermediate level of the Coast Salish traditional Musqueam language course, hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ from 2002 until 2019. She understands how the connection to Indigenous languages; gives value, honour and a sense of identity, which cements Native Indigenous, people in place and culture.

Marny comes from a long line of fisher-people, and she too is an avid fisherwoman – owning and operating her own gillnetter. As her dad and grandfather always did, she harvests sockeye salmon from the Fraser River every summer, in this cultural activity, she is able to share those same teachings on to her own children, connecting them to their traditional language & ways of her people.

Marny is actively involved in the education of the Aboriginal youth – she has taught in the elementary grades, been a liaison for her community and neighbouring schools and sits on many committees to ensure the betterment of Indigenous education.

Message from the Dean

By Paula Sabti

February 28, 2022

Statement on the crisis in Ukraine

The Faculty of Education is deeply troubled by Russia’s unjust attacks on Ukraine and the related impact on our community members.

We express solidarity with Ukraine and join the international chorus of leaders calling for an immediate end to violence in the region.

We support Ukrainians in Canada and abroad. We stand with all people, including those in Russia who are protesting at significant personal risk, who oppose the unprovoked violence.

The Faculty of Education recognizes that many students, faculty and staff are affected by the conflict. Please draw upon resources that the Faculty of Education and UBC have made available to you.

Support for students

UBC Vancouver

UBC Okanagan

International

UBC Vancouver international students in need of support can contact International Student Advising advisors at isa@students.ubc.ca or 604.822.5021. 

UBC Okanagan international students can contact Global Engagement Office advisors at geo.ubco@ubc.ca or 250.807.8585.

Support for faculty and staff

If you see friends or colleagues who are struggling, encourage them to seek support.

Take care of each other,
Jan

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