Fall 2021
Hope in Resistance: Towards Equity keynote event - SFU Public Square, Nov. 25
SFU Public Square and Vancity are proud to present Hope in Resistance, featuring Melina Laboucan-Massimo, co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action; Anjali Appadurai, climate justice lead at Sierra Club BC; and Naisha Khan, co-founder of Banking on a Better Future, in a conversation moderated by Nahlah Ayed (host of Ideas on CBC Radio One).
These climate justice advocates will analyze the plans and commitments that emerged from the COP26 climate summit and discuss the necessity of hope and joy in fighting the climate crisis. They will share stories of communities defending their land, water and climate within Canada and around the world. And they will leave us with tangible actions we can support to make a just transition to a more equitable and sustainable future for everyone.
This keynote event of Towards Equity will be livestreamed from The Cultch's Historic Theatre in East Vancouver with opening and closing words and songs from Shamantsut Amanda Nahanee (Squamish, Nisga’a).
Inclusion in the Classroom Week - Centre for Educational Excellence, Nov. 1-5
Inclusion in the Classroom Week is five days of workshops and discussion that look at different aspects of inclusion: from walking the path of reconciliation to harnessing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to foster student engagement, and from employing inclusive and anti-racist writing in the classroom to incorporating trauma-informed pedagogy and practice.
WIL-EDI Resource Hub - Addressing Discrimination and Barriers to Inclusion in Work-Integrated Learning - Work Integrated Learning, Oct. 25
Funded through the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training’s recent investment in Work Integrated Learning (WIL), members of SFU’s WIL Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Team led a project developing EDI resources for WIL practitioners and employers across BC. The project brought together WIL practitioners from throughout the province to identify barriers to WIL faced by students who experience marginalization. Members of the SFU WIL EDI Team led and coordinated the collaborative development and curation of resources and create an online EDI Resource Hub. The hub is designed to support WIL practitioners and employers to create more equitable, inclusive, and empowering WIL opportunities for students who experience marginalization.
For more information, contact Akanksha Thakur at arthakur@sfu.ca.
2021-22 annual public lecture series: Highlighting Black Histories - Department of History, October 2021 - April 2022
The SFU Department of History is pleased to announce the 2021-2022 installment of our Annual Public Lecture Series. In "Highlighting Black Histories", we bring together three remarkable scholars whose work focuses on the untold stories of Black Canadian History. We'll hear about the impact of Pan-Africanism and the Civil Rights movement in Canada, the boundaries of racial belonging along the Canada / US Border, and the fascinating story of the "Banker Ladies"—Black women who participate in informal banking cooperatives.
Taking Action! event series: From Structural Racism to Personal Practices - Embodying Anti-Oppression for Reconciliation - SFU Public Square, October 6, 2021
This lecture provided participants with insight on how racism is a design element, not a flaw, of settler colonial states like Canada. Citizens of Canada (and those subjected to its power) unwittingly carry behaviours that manifest racism in our social, political and economic structures. This was the first lecture in the Taking Action! series, part of a partnership between SFU and the Resilience BC Anti-Racism Network.
Work Integrated Learning EDI Team offers free Effective Intercultural Communication course - Work Integrated Learning, September 20, 2021
The EDI Team in Work-Integrated Learning offers the online learning opportunity Effective Intercultural Communication to all current SFU students free of charge and for co-curricular credit. The course is designed to support students’ intercultural development and capacities to engage across difference. The next free course offering will begin September 20, 2021. EIC has been shared through a letter of understanding with 15 other universities and colleges across Canada. An employee-facing version of the course, Foundations of Intercultural Development (FID), also explicitly focuses on intercultural development from the lens of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. The FID curriculum has been offered out nationally and internationally through partnerships with the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) (2019 -ongoing) and Colleges Institutes Canada (2020).