You are invited to the 3rd annual Staff Wellness afternoon – virtual edition! This event was created in recognition of Faculty of Education staff, and is a chance for you to relax and enjoy some wellness activities with your colleagues from both campuses.
This event will take place on Zoom, with various activity options available – please see the full list of activities, below! Please note, for this virtual wellness afternoon, we are encouraging all participants in your household to join, if they wish, and will have activities suitable for all ages available.
We hope you’ll take this opportunity to relax, kick back, and enjoy some fun activities with your colleagues – you’ve earned it!
12:45 – 1:00: Welcome and Opening Remarks
1:00 – 1:55: Session #1
2:00 – 2:55: Session #2
3:00 – 3:55: Session #3
4:00 – 4:15: Closing Remarks
This DIY textile activity session is perfect for you if you have always wanted to make your own reusable face mask or if you are looking to repurpose and upcycle all those clothes you have decluttered! No prior sewing experience needed!
Are you interested in learning more about gardening? If so, join us for this session with an expert from the UBC Botanical Garden!
Enjoy the IMAX experience in the comfort of your home! Join us and Science World Museum for an hour of spectacular documentaries from Science Theatre Show and OMNIMAX® Films. We will be providing a special selection of films including Space Suite, Dinosaurs Alive!, Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs, Wild Ocean and many more!
We don’t always take the time to care for, and nurture ourselves. Sometimes we require a little support in identifying relaxation strategies, effective coping, and personal needs, into our daily life. This session will focus on self-care strategies and techniques to promote wellbeing and positive coping. Participants will have an opportunity to reflect on their current practices, experience some self-care techniques, and explore ways to incorporate self-care into their lives.
The Max Meditation SystemTM is a comprehensive system of meditation designed for the western mind. Beginning with relaxation and using yogic, zen, and guided journeying techniques, this system allows anyone from beginning meditator to an experienced practitioner to have a profound experience.
Please join us for a Conversation Cafe focused on staff wellbeing. Dive into a facilitated discussion with your UBC colleagues to leverage the wisdom in the (Zoom) room. Connect with your colleagues to share experiences related to working remotely, exchange helpful strategies and learn about key resources available to support your mental health and wellbeing.
Facilitated by UBC HR’s Workplace Wellbeing Practices and Learning Consultants, Crystal Hutchinson and Miranda Massie.
Want to exercise? Whether you are alone, with your family, have weights, have bands or have no equipment, Kari can show you how to get moving. Kari Brackenbury is the Gymnastics Program Coordinator and Senior Coach, Active Kids, Kinesiology. Join us for some exercise in this virtual bootcamp class.
We're no Prince William, Kate Middleton, or Matthew McConaughey, but Harry and Faustina are your Facutly of Education celebrity hosts for a rousing game of Fitness BINGO! Each player matches activities printed in different arrangements on cards with the activities draws at random, marking the selected activities with tiles in a row will get award you a coveted prize!
Make Strava art in running, walking or biking. Download any tracker that will record your journey and join your fellow colleagues to create a map collage. Representing all participants with their first name initials around the Greater Vancouver area record this epic accomplishment to start off your staff wellness afternoon!
Move to the beat with a virtual dance party! Led by Kari Brackenbury, Gymnastics Program Coordinator and Senior Coach, Active Kids, Kinesiology. Join us for some exercise as we dance to music through the ages, from the 50’s to today!
My name is Anongluk – everyone calls me Luk - and I was born in Thailand. I grew up practicing meditation and have constantly benefitted from the peace and equanimity it brings me. I love the Vancouver outdoor and healthy eating lifestyle. I've learned that yoga is a wonderful complement to meditation and the path to deeply connecting our minds and bodies. In many of my classes, I've taught people with little or no experience.
• Begin the class with either a simple meditation/ breathing exercise.
• Warm-up possess and get right into Vinyasa Flow (beginner)
• End with relaxing poses.
Note: I would recommend yoga mat, blocks, but not necessary. We don't recommend you do yoga if you have any kind of injury and pain recently.
Pilates is a method of exercises invented over 100 years ago by Joseph Pilates. Each exercise is designed to both strengthen and stretch our muscles. Pilates focuses on the smaller muscles that support the larger muscles with the goal of achieving a strong core to improved posture and balance and our health and wellness so we may complete our activities with ease. Grab your mat and a block or firm cushion and join Lela Dawson, certified NCPC Pilates teacher, for an introductory lesson to the Pilates Matwork. She will guide you through the fundament movements so you can experience some of the benefits of Pilates for yourself.
Join us and become a virtual animal explorer! This family fun session will be filled with pretend play, educational animal trivia, and physical activities designed to entertain children of all ages. Adults are welcomed to join in the fun activities or sit back and relax while the kids immerse themselves in being an explorer. Come dressed as your favourite animal and bring a snack for the exploration!
Virtual Pictionary! Draw and guess with this interactive, multi-player online Pictionary game. Each game consists of several rounds where each player draws a secret chosen word and others players guess the word to gain points. The player with the most points wins!
Join your trivia host Michael Wilkinson as he attempts to usurp the Trivia Master title currently held by Justin O’Hearn. In this installment of FoE Staff Trivia, you and your team will have to answer the most bizarre and informative trivia questions from a variety of different categories. Using Zoom & Breakout Rooms, you and your team will attempt to win the ultimate prize: bragging rights… until the next FoE Staff Trivia!
Join your co-hosts and colleagues, Michael and Vanessa, for a fun and competitive game of Family Feud – a TV classic that we will re-create on Zoom! We will need two teams of FoE colleagues to duke it out while guessing the most popular answers to survey questions. The only catch…there’s no cash prize…but to the victors go the bragging rights!
Attention pet owners! We want to meet your pets! Bring your furry, feathery, or scaly, friends to this session for your co-workers to fawn over them. It’s about time they became famous. You can even put the camera in front of your pets and walk away…but, if you prefer, we would love for you to stay on and tell us about them. Attention pet-less animal lovers! Come enjoy the cuteness and learn about your co-workers' pets. Need we say more?
Registration is now closed.
Questions? Please contact info.educ@ubc.ca.
Canadian business leader and newest “dragon” from CBC’s hit show Dragon’s Den, Lane Merrifield, is one of Canada’s leading entrepreneurs rethinking how technology can better serve Canadian students and how innovation and entrepreneurship can drive much needed change in our education system.
Join Lane Merrifield and Santa J. Ono, UBC’s President and Vice-Chancellor, in a conversation moderated by Camille Saltman, Managing Director of Entrepreneurship at UBC Okanagan, as they discuss how innovation and entrepreneurship are essential to address the massive adoption of technology in the next normal of online teaching and learning.
In what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic radically changed how K-12 and higher education have adopted online teaching and learning? In what ways can UBC ensure technological support for our future educational leaders and learners?
Join us for a lively conversation followed by a Q&A period.
Presented by the Faculty of Education on the UBC Vancouver and Okanagan campuses.
Camille Saltman
Managing Director, Entrepreneurship, UBC Okanagan (e@UBCO)
Camille Saltman is Managing Director of Entrepreneurship for The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus. She leads the e@UBCO Mentor 2 Market entrepreneurship education program out of The Innovation Centre in downtown Kelowna. Camille recently returned from California to Canada after two decades leading, educating and mentoring hundreds of start-ups and building innovation ecosystems.
Prior to building two successful tech companies, she was President of CONNECT – widely regarded as one of the world’s first and most successful organizations to link inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources needed for commercialization. It has been modelled in 50+ regions, is credited with San Diego’s success as a tech leader and has helped launch over 300 companies that raised more than $600M in early-stage funding and achieved over $12B in market capitalization.
Under Camille’s leadership CONNECT landed the US Commerce Dept Innovation in Economic Development award and the national Science & Technology Institute Excellence in Tech-Based Economic Development Award For Building Entrepreneurial Capacity – and recognition from TIME, US News and World Report, INC., and Entrepreneur magazines.
After CONNECT, Camille was President of MD Revolution – a research-based technology start-up that aggregated genomics, labs, V02, metabolism and nutrition to help patients reduce chronic disease indicators and improve longevity. Following that she was President of Malama Composites which developed the first full line of sustainable, cost competitive solutions to replace toxic, petroleum-based insulation foams.
She was also co-founder and President of the Wireless Life Science Alliance; a board member of BIOCOM, California’s life sciences trade organization, Vice Chair of the Board of San Diego Telecom Council, now EvoNexus – California’s most successful non-profit start-up tech incubator; co-founder and Board Member of Cleantech San Diego and co-founder and Board Member of San Diego Sport Innovators.
Lane Merrifield
Tech Entrepreneur, Founder of FreshGrade, and Dragon’s Den “Dragon” on CBC
The newest “dragon” to join CBC’s hit show Dragon’s Den, Lane Merrifield is one of Canada’s leading tech entrepreneurs. He is the founder of Club Penguin, the largest children’s online social network. At age 28, he sold it to Disney for $350 million, and, as their youngest executive vice president, turned it into a billion-dollar brand.
In 2012, Lane returned to his entrepreneurial roots and launched FreshGrade, a learning assessment tool that connects teachers, parents, and students to help personalize and improve learning. It’s now used in 80% of districts across Canada. Lane is also the founder of Wheelhouse, an organization that invests in and supports early-stage tech companies and entrepreneurs through mentorship, access to capital, and connections to global business networks.
Under his leadership, Lane’s teams have won dozens of awards including a Webby and the prestigious BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television) award for Club Penguin. Lane is also the recipient of an Honorary Fellows Award, Business Leader of the Year, and was named as one of the “Top 35 Executives Under 35” by The Hollywood Reporter.
Lane currently sits on the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation board and is an advisor for Dreamscape Immersive and several other startups. He served on the UBC Board of Governors in 2016.
Santa J. Ono
President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia 
Santa Ono was installed as the 15th president and vice-chancellor of the University of British Columbia on November 22, 2016. His installation was, in many ways, a heartfelt homecoming – he was born in St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver in 1962, when his father was a professor at UBC.
Ono earned his PhD in Experimental Medicine at McGill University. As a professor of medicine and biology, Ono has worked at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, University College London, and Emory universities. He was also inducted by Johns Hopkins into its Society of Scholars, which honours former faculty who have gained distinction in their fields. He has been inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Inventors, USA.
Ono’s research encompasses the immune system, eye inflammation and age-related macular degeneration – a leading cause of blindness.
As a university administrator, Ono is also known for his vision beyond the laboratory. He was the first Asian-American president of the University of Cincinnati when he was appointed in 2012. Previously, he served as the University Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Prior to his recruitment to the University of Cincinnati, Ono was Senior Vice Provost and Deputy to the Provost at Emory University.
Ono is deeply committed to diversity, and his achievements have been recognized by the American Council on Education with an award that honours individuals who have demonstrated leadership and commitment on a national level to the advancement of racial and ethnic minorities in higher education. He also received a Professional Achievement Award from the University of Chicago Alumni Association in 2017, an honour he shares with such luminaries as Carl Sagan, Ed Asner and Kurt Vonnegut.
In addition, Inside Higher Education named him America’s most notable university president in 2015. His many followers on Twitter and Instagram know why he deserves that accolade. He’s adept at using social media to respond quickly and directly to people’s concerns and to make personal, authentic connections – in particular, with students. He has used social media to spread awareness about mental illness and to share his own struggles as a high-achieving student who battled and beat depression.
Ono serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Universities Canada (effective October 2018), a member of the Executive Committee of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities and Chairman of the Research Universities’ Council of British Columbia (RUCBC).
Images above shows Dean Frank presenting this years’ award during a zoom meeting with Lynn Wainwright’s colleagues.
UBC Faculty of Education expresses our deepest gratitude towards The Edith Lando Charitable Foundation. The Edith Lando Charitable Foundation has gifted $1,000,000.00 towards the UBC Faculty of Education’s first ever Professorship in Refugee and Immigrant Youth & Family Counseling.
The number of refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people around the world is at historically high levels. At this moment, one in every 113 people on earth is now displaced due to persecution, violence or human rights violations. More than half of these refugees are children.
With the generosity of The Edith Lando Charitable Foundation, UBC Faculty of Education has been able to take the lead in establishing the Professorship in Counselling for Immigrant and Refugee Youth and Families to better understand and respond to current problems and needs of the immigrant children and families in settling in Canada. Faculty of Education will be a national leader in transforming the way Canadian classrooms welcome and educate refugee and immigrant students.
We are honored to recognize The Edith Lando Charitable Foundation’s leadership in creating this critical position by naming it The Edith Lando Professorship in Counselling for Immigrant and Refugee Youth and Families. With better research, informed policy-making, thoughtfully trained educators, and national leadership, we can give refugee students the best chance possible to thrive in their new home.
I was born in the UK, but after finishing my undergraduate degree, I’ve been able to realise my dream of living and working in other countries. I’ve worked as a teacher and researcher in France, Japan, and now here in Canada. I spent the longest time—10 years—in Japan, where I developed my research interest into the ways that identity, emotion and social structures interact to shape the lives of plurilingual people.
A great deal of my work to date has explored the relevance of queer people, identities and concerns to language education. I’ve explored the links between sexual identity and language learning motivation; taken a critical look at the learning needs of queer students; studied how students make decisions about how to manage queer facets of their identity in language classrooms; and developed a taxonomy of different forms of representational heteronormativity in teaching materials.
I was honoured to be one of this year’s recipients of the Joseph Katz Memorial Scholarship, awarded to students studying in the area of multicultural and minority education who have made substantial contributions to the fields of anti-oppressive education and education for diversity.
One of the great dilemmas for emerging education researchers today is how to secure a stable career—which often depends on publishing in high-tier, paywalled journals—while also finding ways to mobilise our work and put in in the hands of people who can really make a difference: teachers!
Teachers often don’t have access to academic journals, let alone the time needed to sit down and read a research article. One solution is to share our work through podcasts and the Joseph Katz Memorial Scholarship has helped me to buy the equipment I need to start making them! I’m still getting started, but my aim is to create a standalone series exploring ten things all language educators can do to challenge heteronormativity and support queer inclusivity in their classrooms.
Doing work on anti-oppressive education and education for diversity can be challenging. Not everyone realises the relevance of queer issues to their teaching. Though progress is being made, especially here in BC, that progress is uneven globally. In fact, there are many governments around the world, such as in the United States and Uganda, that are actually tearing up hard-won protections and introducing new oppressive laws. Our work is far from over. The donors who support awards like the Joseph Katz Memorial Scholarship don’t just provide us with vital funds to keep doing our work—it’s also an act of recognition that tells us, “We see you. The work is important and there’s lots more to do. Keep going.”
**To access a copy of the PowerPoint Presentation and resources discussed at the end of the video please email Karen Lee.
