CCDI Webinar: Moving towards building a Reconciliation action plan: Indigenous inclusion with employers
CCDI sits down with Indigenous Works to discuss frameworks and strategies to build more inclusive workplaces for Indigenous Peoples.
Audience/Level: This is an intermediate to advanced level webinar for any individual looking to learn about Indigenous inclusion in the workplace.
NOTE: This webinar will be offered in English with live French interpretation and closed captioning in both languages.
June 07, 2022 1:00 PM Eastern
ARCHIVED EVENTS
NextGen Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Data Symposium 2022: April 8th and 11th, 2022
Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Teaching, Learning, and Researching while Black
Book launch: The essays in this collection make visible the submerged stories of Black life in academia. They offer fresh historical, social, and cultural insights into what it means to teach, learn, research, and work while Black. Please welcome join Awad Ibrahim, Tamari Kitossa, Malinda S. Smith and Handel Kashope Wright as they reflect on how Blackness shapes academic pathways. Shirley Anne Tate will moderate the conversation.
Join the authors for the launch of Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy on Friday February 25th, at 1-2pm EST.
Please Register here.
The Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President Research (EDI) at the University of Calgary invites you to the Winter 2022 Courageous Conversations Speaker Series, which will commence with two internationally renowned scholars, Dr. Gurminder K. Bhambra (University of Sussex) and Dr. Yolande Bouka (Queen’s University), speaking on the topic of Decolonizing Disciplines and Structures of Inequality.
Decolonization: Rethinking the coloniality of power, knowledge and being. This second event in the Decolonization and Questions of Justice in the University series features Dr. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Dr. Altamirano-Jiménez who will explore theories and practices of decolonization, knowledge production in the contemporary university, and the rhetoric of liberation and freedom across time and space.
Beginning with the contemporary politics of knowledge, Dr. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s presentation will examine several interrelated themes: the need for a critical reflection on the grammars of liberation; the decolonial “turns” in a long struggle for liberation; the African experience with decolonization of knowledge; and, finally, conclude with a focus on the resurgent and insurgent decolonization of the 21st century. In examining decolonization beyond the English-speaking world, Dr. Altamirano-Jiménez’s presentation will explore knowledge production, thinking feeling and interculturality; decoloniality and its discontents; decolonization in relation to land, body and Indigenous freedom; and, finally, conclude with a discussion of thinking-feeling-doing Indigenous futures.
October 21 12-1:30PM MDT
“I pass the talking stick to you”: Sharing, Reading, Teaching Residential School Stories
A Virtual Conference
October 22-23, 2021
David Alexander Robertson, Michelle Good, Jordan Abel, Nicola Campbell, Bevann Fox, Emalene Manuel, and Joanne Arnott
Alma Poitras, Marie-Eve Bradette, Melanie Braith, Warren Cariou, Michelle Coupal, David Gaertner, Aubrey Jean Hanson, Sarah Henzi, Sophie McCall, Sam McKegney, Deanna Reder, Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, and Linda Warley
The program and registration can be found on the conference website.
TWENTY YEARS OF A “WAR ON TERROR”: ISLAMOPHOBIA, RACE, GENDER AND IMPERIALISM
The events of September 11, 2001, inaugurated a “war on terror” whose effects have been profound and wide-ranging. This workshop will explore a range of political and legal concerns on this topic: security regimes and securitization, methods of surveillance on racialized populations, the renewal of gendered forms of Islamophobia, and neo-imperial warfare in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, all of which are part of the ongoing reconfiguration of the global order.
Speakers:
- Natasha Bakht, Professor and Shirley Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession, University of Ottawa: “Niqab Bans and Anti-Muslim Racism: Routes in Law”
- Arun Kundnani, Author of The Muslims are Coming! and Independent Scholar: “Abolish National Security”
- Sunera Thobani, Professor, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia: “Islamophobia: The (Re)making of the International Order”
Moderated by Brenna Bhandar, Associate Professor, Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. Hosted by the Anti-Racism and the Law Initiative (ARLI), newly launched by Allard Law professors, with support from the Centre for Law and the Environment, Indigenous Legal Studies, and Centre for Business Law
Date: October 5, 2021, 12:30-2PT
The theme of the 2021-2022 Courageous Conversation Speaker Series is, “Decolonization, Disciplines, and Indigenous Knowledges in the University.”
In her presentation, Dr. Marie Battiste will focus on how disciplinary colonialism and Indigenous knowledges form a split that has been created and continues to be reinforced within contemporary universities and in the K-12 education system. In early education, through to high school, there’s been a piecemeal approach to building up to specialized disciplinary knowledges. Dr. Battiste will explain how this additive approach functions to maintain the coloniality of the education system through its supposed rationalized structures, and why decolonizing knowledges and curricula matter to universities.
In her presentation, Dr. Catherine Odora Hoppers will focus on the higher education system, especially the disciplines of law, science, and economics. It will focus on education with a small “e”, the discipline and subject-based western education. It will also discuss Education with a capital “E”, as focusing on life-long learning, and life ward learning, including the ethics of our connections to the planet, and relationships as reflected in the philosophy of Ubuntu. The presentation will show how economics, science, and law can operate to produce false universalisms. Drawing on decades of research and policy work in South Africa, Uganda, and world-wide, Dr. Odora Hoppers will explain why cognitive justice is necessary for all forms and traditions of knowledge to co-exist without duress in the public sphere.
Date and Time
Thursday, September 23
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. (MDT) – Online
Reflecting on Racism & Discrimination: The Educational and Social Costs of Life in the Suburbs for Black Youth
This session will look at the educational and social costs of life in the suburbs for Black youth. Does our education system provide complete and appropriate access, protection from discrimination, as well as well-trained and sensitive educators that will lead to successful outcomes for people of African descent? Special emphasis will be placed on outcomes for racialized students in suburban areas.
Presented by Dr. Carl James, Professor, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora, York University.
June 22, 2021
Register here.
The National Forum on Anti-Asian Racism
On June 10–11, 2021, a constellation of community organizers, scholars, and public intellectuals, along with key figures in government, health care, media, journalism, the corporate world and the not-for-profit sector will convene frank discussions about anti-Asian racism in our country with the aim of articulating bold and concrete recommendations for action.
The first day of programming will be open to the public, with sessions focusing on the issues impacting Asian Canadians, coalition building across Asian Canadian communities, and effective access and advocacy for systemic change. The second day will be a working session with sector leaders, informed by the outcomes of day one. The event will culminate in a public session; this will be an opportunity to share the list of bold actions and key priorities that will be presented for implementation.
More details available here
From Isolation to Inclusion: How diversity drives equitable innovation
To make this ever-changing world a better, more inclusive place for all Canadians, innovators must recognize and value difference and cultivate a welcoming space for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC). Join our panel of innovators and researchers on campus and in the community to discuss how diversity is driving equitable innovation.
This webinar is presented in partnership by the University of Calgary and the Rideau Hall Foundation as part of Canadian Innovation Week.
May 17, 2021
Register Here
Conversation with Murray Sinclair
The Honourable Murray Sinclair joins us to discuss his Truth and Reconciliation Report and what it means to our community and our country.
May 11, 2021
When we think about challenging antiblack pedagogies, it is easy to limit our thinking to a quest for toolkits of ready-to-implement strategies. Such an approach does not take seriously the ways in which antiblackness is endemic to our institutions, the default logics that frame our work, and how these foreclose on the pedagogies we seek. This session will explore some of the ways in which antiblackness structures the university context, and foster a conversation about the commitments it might take to create the conditions of possibility for Black life and Black thought to flourish with/in/out our classrooms and institutions.
May 12, 2021 11:00 AM EST
Register Here
Exploring Indigenous Voices in the English Classroom
Join us as we talk with author Waubgeshig Rice about his life growing up, his experience as an author, and the importance of centering Indigenous voices in the classroom. Learn more about his novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow and new works on the horizon.
April 28th, 2021 at 4PM EST
Indigenizing the Academy with Marie Battiste, March 30, 2021
Western University’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives, in partnership with the President’s Office and the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion panel, are pleased to present Marie Battiste.
Marie Battiste: “Indigenizing the Academy: Unraveling Key Concepts of Decolonization, Indigenization and Reconciliation”
Moderated by Candace Brunette-Debassige
30 March 2021, 12:30PM
2021 IDERD Conference at the University of Toronto – The Work Continues: Deepening Anti-Racism Action through Systemic and Intersectional Change
Join the University of Toronto’s Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO) at the 5th annual International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD) Conference to learn about approaches and strategies to deepen anti-racism action through systemic and intersectional change. We will be joined by local community experts, academics, administration and student leaders to engage in critical dialogue and information sharing.
Date: Mar 19, 2021
Courageous Conversations: Complaint, Diversity and Other Hostile Environments
In this lecture, Dr. Sara Ahmed will bring together stories about making complaints by academics and students of colour to show how universities remain hostile environments despite or even through official policies on diversity and inclusion. She explains why doors keep coming up in stories of complaint with specific reference to the “diversity door.” People of colour are assumed to enter that door, which is often shut by appearing to be open. The lecture explores how those who complain become strangers or suspects, “persons to be interrogated.” Complaints about hostile environments are made in hostile environments.
About the speaker
Sara Ahmed is a feminist of colour scholar and writer. Her work addresses how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. The lecture is drawn from her book Complaint! which will be published by Duke University Press in September 2021. Previous publications include What’s the Use: On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2016).
Date: Monday, March 22, 2021
Time: 12 p.m. (MDT)
Register HERE
Embedding Anti-Racism and Decolonization in University Approaches to EDI
You are invited to join us for an afternoon discussion on the importance of embedding principles of anti-racism and decolonization in the core missions of Canadian universities, featuring special presentations by Dr. Malinda S. Smith (Calgary) and Dr. Sheila Cote-Meek (York).
Webinar at Western University: 23rd March, 1 p.m. EST
CCDI Webinar: Busting the myth – Reverse racism
Conventional wisdom is teaching us that the argument for reverse racism is rooted in theory and not in fact. Traditionally, it has been posited by individuals within the dominant race group who feel threatened by the diversity and inclusion conversation and by certain policies and practices which favour individuals belonging to minority race groups. That feeling of exclusion is real and needs to be addressed. This webinar will explore promising practices in addressing the fear of reverse discrimination and how we can work to deconstruct the myths that perpetuate it.
Date: March 23, 2021
Learning with Syeyutsus Speaker Series
This is a FREE learning series proudly presented by the Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools, in collaboration with UBC Press and their authors as part of TRC Call to Action #57. The series will be recorded and available for ongoing educational purposes and deeper learning.
Together, we are seeking to promote a deeper conversation towards rebuilding our relationships with Indigenous peoples and the Land for a stronger Canada.
Information about dates, speakers, and registration can be found here.
Equity Unbound: Imagining a Socially Just Academia
This open, networked, long-term project will be a series of listening sessions, conversations, and workshops aimed at dismantling oppression and promoting decolonial and antiracist practices in academic institutions, research practice, curricula and teaching practices. This project idea arose as a continuation of an Equity Unbound event held on June 30, 2020 entitled “Inclusive Citation, Inclusive Academy?” where participants expressed a need to continue the conversation and build a community around these important issues.
This invitation is open. Anyone with a role or an interest in “dismantling oppression and promoting decolonial and antiracist practices in academic institutions, research practice, curricula and teaching practices” is welcome. If you care about these issues and would like to listen, participate and/or take action, whether you have experience or not, whether your role currently permits you or not, you are welcome. This invitation is open for early career, senior and retired academics, university support staff, students (graduate and undergraduate), parents, NGOs and anyone with a stake in higher education or even education as a whole. You are welcome. Feel free to invite your colleagues and students.
You can find more information here: http://unboundeq.creativitycourse.org/uncategorized/invitation-to-join-imagining-a-socially-just-academia-launch-conversation/
Amplifying BIPOC voices: representation, visibility, and opportunity
As calls to action for social justice echo around the world, important conversations about race, racism, and barriers to success continue to be had at many levels across the country. At post-secondary institutions the challenge remains to not only amplify the voices of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) community but to redesign equity, diversity, and inclusion policies to better support student success on and off campus.
What role must post-secondary institutions play in addressing systemic racism in Canada and what steps can institutions take to move from celebrating diversity to driving meaningful change?
In this episode, our expert guests will reflect on innovative strategies to reduce barriers to equality and ask the difficult questions that help expose implicit and unintentional biases.
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm EST
Black History Month Panel Conversation – Lessons for February
Join human rights nonprofit FAST, and an esteemed panel to discuss ways to honour Black history and culture – in preparation for February: Black History Month with opening remarks from BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commisioner.
Educators, parents, and all citizens will surely find the conversation engaging and useful, offering tangible takeaways on ways we can ensure Black Canadians feel heard, respected, and appreciated.
Black communities experience inequities and inequalities in many facets of their lives – from a lack of opportunity (within education and the workforce), to discrimination faced when renting or purchasing a home (among other things), to stereotyping among friends, to microagressions expressed by non-Black citizens.
Many Canadians wish to be ‘better’ – to behave more respectfully, but they don’t always know what they are doing wrong, or how to alter their behaviour. This expert panel will provide us all with the information we need to move forward in a more positive, inclusive way during February – and every month we live in this wonderful country.
OPENING REMARKS by Jocelyn Kelln, Manager of Engagement, the BC Office of the Human Rights Commissioner.
FEATURED PANELISTS:
o Dr. Ali A. Abdi – Professor, UBC, Department of Education
o Dr. Lisa Gunderson – psychologist, founder of One Love Consulting
o Silvia Mangue Alene – founder Kulea Love, Kulea Culture and President BC Black History Awareness Society
o Rachel Luke – Ontario educator, 2020 recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence
o Hayden Atwell – Ontario educator
o Olaolu Adeleye – faculty, Royal Roads University
Webinar — Courageous Conversations Speaker Series: Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University
This panel examines how the politics of race and settler colonialism are presently negotiated by, and within, Canadian universities. The decades of privatization and deregulation in the late twentieth century initiated a far-reaching transformation of the public sector, including institutions of post-secondary education. While the effects of funding cuts to education have been much studied, far less attention has been paid to the impact of these structural rearrangements on the relations of race and on the institution. The presenters on this panel assess the contemporary remaking of racial and colonial politics by, and within, the academy.
Moderator: Dr. Malinda S. Smith (Vice Provost, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion)
Panelists:
- Dr. Sunera Thobani (University of British Columbia), “Present Pasts: The Anxieties of Power”
- Dr. Annie Ross (Simon Fraser University), “Don’t Cry, Fight!’ vs Deference to the Corporate State: Abrogation of Indigenous Rights and Title, Civil Rights, Social and Environmental Justice at the Imperialist University”
- Dr. Delia D. Douglas (University of Manitoba), “Access denied: Safe/guarding the university as white property.”
- Dr. Enakshi Dua (York University), “Our Canadian Culture has been Squeamish About Gathering Race-Based Statistics”: The Circulation of Discourses of Race and Whiteness Among Canadian Universities, Newspapers and Alt Right Groups”.
January 27, 2021
12 p.m. (MT) – Online
City of Richmond Virtual Diversity Symposium
The 2020 City of Richmond Virtual Diversity Symposium is a free, week-long, virtual conference for professionals, volunteers and community members interested in learning, sharing and advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion in their communities. This year’s symposium will be held remotely from October 19 to 23, 2020.
Presented by the City of Richmond, this year’s Virtual Diversity Symposium aims to equip participants with the knowledge, skills and tools to build diverse, equitable and inclusive communities.
To register, please go to www.richmond.ca/diversity.
National Dialogues and Action for Inclusive Higher Education and Communities
The National Dialogues are a series of national forums focused on addressing equity and inclusion in Canadian post-secondary education. The first in the series is a National Dialogue that will focus on anti-Black racism and Black inclusion in Canadian higher education, and will take place on Thursday, October 1 and Friday, October 2, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. (ET). Details can be found here.
Scholar Strike Canada
From Sept 9-10, Canadian scholars will participate in a Scholar Strike. This “day of action/ teach-in/ social justice advocacy” is a response to the WNBA and NBA strikes. According to the Scholar Strike Canada website, “The Canadian action is aligned with the one in the U.S., in its call for racial justice, an end to anti-Black police violence and it adds a specific focus on anti-Indigenous, colonial violence.”
Many scholars will be refusing teaching and administrative duties on these days, but there are other ways to participate, including:
- Taking part in the virtual teach-in, which will include scholars like Desmond Cole and Eve Tuck. (Full schedule).
- Talking about racism, racialized violence and systemic oppression with your students.
- Visiting the Scholar Strike Canada website at https://scholarstrikecanada.ca/
- Following the event on social media, especially Twitter, using the hashtag #ScholarStrike and #ScholarStrikeCanada . You can also follow strike organizers Kevin Gannon (@TheTattooedProf) and Anthea Butler (@AntheaButler) for more information.
- Checking out https://scholarstrikecanada.ca/get-involved/ for more ways to get involved, including signing a letter of support.