Academic Women Meeting with President Joy Johnson

Academic Women membership will meet with President Joy Johnson.

Time: January 22, 2024 at 3:30pm

In-person: If interested to attend, please email aw-board@sfu.ca for details.

Joy Johnson, SFU’s 10th president and vice-chancellor, is passionate about SFU’s academic and research mission.

As president, Joy is committed to enhancing student learning experiences, working towards reconciliation, and advancing equity, diversity and inclusion across SFU. Prior to her appointment as president, Joy served as SFU’s vice-president, research and international from 2014 to 2020. She currently leads SFU’s equity, diversity and inclusion initiative.

Annual General Meeting

Opening Remarks: Dr. Amy Parent

Time: Thursday, June 29, 2023 12:30-2:00pm

Academic Women Executive Committee invites you to join AW Annual General Meeting. We will start the meeting with opening remarks by Dr. Amy Parent. The meeting with continue with member Q&A, executive board report, and planning for the upcoming year.

Title: It is more than a name change: An oral editorial on the creation of the "Critical Understandings of Land and Water: Unsettling Place at Simon Fraser University" film series

Dr. Amy Parent’s Nisga’a name is Sigidimnak’ Noxs Ts’aawit (Mother of the Raven Warrior Chief). On her mother’s side of the family, she is from the House of Ni’isjoohl and is a member of the Ganada (frog) clan in the village of Laxgalts’ap in the Nisga’a Nation. On her father’s side of the family, she is of Settler ancestry (French and German). Dr. Parent is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Education & Governance (Tier 2) in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She has also recently been nominated as Co-Chair for the Indigenous Research Leadership Circle with the Tri-Council Agencies and is the inaugural Associate Director for the SFU Cassidy Centre for Educational Justice (formerly the Centre for Education Law & Society).

Since returning to the SFU Faculty of Education in 2022, she has focused her decolonizing efforts with the Curriculum and Instruction: Equity Studies in Education Program Cognate and supporting the Indigenization of the faculty’s governance, programmatic, and course offerings in collaboration with the Indigenous Education Reconciliation Council. She also continues her commitment to supporting Indigenous self-determining research through her Canada Research Chair programme which aims to strengthen and support on-going matriarchal led leadership processes to attain B.C. First Nations control of Indigenous research jurisdiction and governance.

Dr. Parent has produced 14 films as part of a film series with respected Coast Salish Knowledge Holders and leaders titled “Critical Understandings of Land and Water: Unsettling Place at Simon Fraser University” since 2018. The film series aims to examine the praxis of land-based education by providing an understanding of the implications of Indigenous rights and sovereignty on Coast Salish lands and waterways while disrupting the glorified settler narrative of Simon Fraser. She has recently filmed an oral editorial detailing the Indigenous Storywork methodology (Archibald, 2008) that she engaged for the creation of the film series. The oral editorial also provides guidance to support deeper pathways for Settlers to engage with their decolonizing responsibilities on Coash Salish lands and waterways. She is honoured to continue working with respected Coast Salish Knowledge Holders and Settler scholar, Dr. Jeannie Kerr to undertake a collaborative research project to support curriculum development for the film series. Dr. Parent’s keynote presentation will: provide the origin story of the film series creation, detail the methodological and pedagogical intentions of the series; and provide concrete actions that SFU faculty and leaders can undertake to support decolonizing solidarities to ensure that we are collectively doing more than changing the name of “Simon Fraser” University.

Learn More about Dr. Parent’s Scholarship:

Parent, A. (Producer & Writer). (2019). Montage for Critical Understandings of Land and Water: Disrupting Place at Simon Fraser University Series. Centre for Educational Excellence and Faculty of Education: Simon Fraser University: Simon Fraser University. https://vimeo.com/828704699/f4a5118c39

Canadian Commission: United Nations Education Scientific & Cultural Organization (2021). Land as teacher: Understanding Indigenous land based education. Retrieved from: https://en.ccunesco.ca/idealab/indigenous-land-based-education.

Parent, A & Kerr, J. (2022). Contemporary colonialism and reconciliation in Higher Education: A decolonial response through relationality. In Sandra Styres and Arlo Kempf’s (Eds.), Troubling Truth and Reconciliation in Canadian Education: Critical Perspectives (pp. 281-295). University of Alberta Press. [E-book available through SFU library]

Further information on Dr. Parent’s publications, films and teaching please visit: https://amyparent.ca/publication/

Annual General Meeting

Opening Remarks: Joy Johnson

Time: Friday, June 24, 2022 12:30-2:00pm

Academic Women Executive Committee invites you to join AW Annual General Meeting. We will start the meeting with opening remarks by President Joy Johnson. The meeting with continue with member Q&A, executive board report, and planning for the upcoming year.

Joy Johnson, SFU’s 10th president and vice-chancellor, is passionate about SFU’s academic and research mission.

As president, Joy is committed to enhancing student learning experiences, working towards reconciliation, and advancing equity, diversity and inclusion across SFU. Prior to her appointment as president, Joy served as SFU’s vice-president, research and international from 2014 to 2020. She currently leads SFU’s equity, diversity and inclusion initiative.

AW Pace Circles: Yabome Gilpin-Jackson

Time: Tuesday, May 31, 2022 5:00-5:50pm

Yabome Gilpin-Jackson is the Inaugural Vice-President, People, Equity, and Inclusion, Simon Fraser University. Throughout her career, she has helped people and organizations advance EDI and belonging in workplaces and society. 

Prior to SFU, Gilpin-Jackson served as chief people officer of the British Columbia Lottery Corporation, executive director of organizational development for Fraser Health and regional lead of organization development for Vancouver Coastal Health. 

She is the founder of Supporting Learning and Development Consulting Inc., which has helped organizations, including SFU, advance leadership and development and create processes for systemic and social change.

Gilpin-Jackson holds a MA and PhD in human and organizational systems from Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, well as an MBA and undergraduate degree from SFU Beedie School of Business. She is an associate faculty member at Beedie.

AW Pace Circles: Mary-Catherine Kropinski

Title: Associate Dean roles for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: The Promise and the Peril

Time: Tuesday, April 19, 2022 5:00-5:50pm PT

Mary-Catherine Kropinski is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and is currently the Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Science at Simon Fraser University. She has served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics at SFU from 2017 to 2019, and was co-chair of the 2016 Salary Equity Recommendation Committee. Mary-Catherine has a BSc in Mathematics from Queen’s University, an MMath from the University of Waterloo, and a PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  Prior to joining SFU in 1995 as an NSERC Women's Faculty Award holder, Mary-Catherine held a Postdoctoral appointment at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.

AW Pace Circles: Lauren F. Klein

Title: Data Feminism

Time: Tuesday, March 29, 2022 5-5:50pm PT

Lauren Klein is Winship Distinguished Research Professor and Associate Professor in the departments of English and Quantitative Theory & Methods at Emory University, where she also directs the Digital Humanities Lab. Before moving to Emory, she taught in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech. Klein works at the intersection of digital humanities, data science, and early American literature, with a focus on issues of gender and race. She is the author of An Archive of Taste: Race and Eating in the Early United States (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and, with Catherine D’Ignazio, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020). With Matthew K. Gold, she edits Debates in the Digital Humanities, a hybrid print-digital publication stream that explores debates in the field as they emerge. Her work has appeared in leading humanities journals including PMLA, American Literature, and American Quarterly; and at technical conferences including NACCL, EMNLP, and IEEE VIS. Her research has been supported by grants from the NEH and the Mellon Foundation.

AW Pace Circles: El Chenier

Title: Radical Inclusion Redux

Time: Tuesday, March 8, 2022 5-5:50pm PT

El Chenier (they/them) is the past president of Academic Women and author of Radical Inclusion: Equity and Diversity Among Female Faculty at Simon Fraser University (2020). A professor and oral historian in the Department of History, their teaching and research focuses on the history of sexuality in modern Canada and the United States. They are the founder of the Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony, a unique collection of oral interviews housed on SFU's Special Collections.

AW Pace Circles: Carol Anne Hilton

Title: Situating Indigenous Economic Empowerment in our now and in our future

Time: Tuesday, February 15, 2022 5-5:50pm PT

Carol Anne Hilton, MBA is the CEO and founder of the Indigenomics Institute and the Global Center of Indigenomics. Carol Anne is a dynamic national Indigenous business leader, author, speaker and senior adviser with an international Masters Degree in Business Management (MBA) from the University of Hertfordshire, England. Carol Anne is of Nuu chah nulth descent from the Hesquiaht Nation on Vancouver Island.

Carol Anne is the author of "Indigenomics: Taking A Seat at the Economic Table" and is an adjunct professor at Royal Roads University’s School of Business.

Carol Anne was the only Indigenous person appointed to the Canadian Economic Growth Council as a senior advisor to the federal Finance Minister. Carol Anne most recently served on the BC Emerging Economy Taskforce, and the BC Indigenous Business and Investment Council. Carol Anne currently serves as a Director on the McGill University Institute for the Study of Canada, MITACS Research and the BC Digital Supercluster.  

Carol Anne’s work has been recognized with the 2020 BC Achievement Foundation’s Award of Distinction in Indigenous Business and the 2018 national Excellence in Aboriginal Relations Award from the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.