Symposium on Anti-Racism, March 21, 2023
Call for proposals for KPU’s inaugural symposium on anti-racism
Please note that this call is for KPU students and employees only
When: March 21, 2023: 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: Surrey Conference Centre
KPU’s Task Force on Anti-Racism released its final report with 64 recommendations in October 2022. One of the recommendations is to “Establish an ‘Anti-Racism at KPU’ Day to have an annual full-day symposium to discuss and encourage confronting racism and to share internal and external research, scholarship, and creativity on racism/anti-racism.” Following up on this recommendation, KPU’s Office of Anti-Racism will host its first symposium on March 21, 2023, to align with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Please consider contributing to KPU’s inaugural symposium on anti-racism.
Students, faculty, and staff members across KPU are encouraged to submit proposals showcasing research, scholarship, and creativity focused on anti-racism topics and initiatives. Please submit proposals that will appeal to a broad range of interests and audiences, including faculty, students, staff, and members of the public.
We are particularly interested in submissions that showcase collaborative undertakings with students and the transformative impact that involvement in anti-racist initiatives can have on the quality of students’ educational experience. We welcome submissions focused on innovative research methods, non-traditional approaches, research-creation, Indigenous ways of knowing, and more.
We are planning to have a 90-minutes panel with 4 to 5 presentations. Presentations should be no longer than 10-15 minutes allowing ample time for question-and-answer period.
Proposals will be reviewed by a committee formed by the Office of Anti-Racism, which may suggest revisions to the presentation’s title (for marketing purposes, for example), focus, and/or format to ensure accessibility and broad appeal.
Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Anti-racist approaches to teaching
- Racism/anti-racism in the classroom
- Anti-racist ways of knowing
- Anti-Indigenous racism in academia and/or beyond
- Anti-Black racism in academia and/or beyond
- Anti-Asian racism in academia and/or beyond
- Role of art and creativity in fostering anti-racism
Proposals should include:
1. Your name(s) and department(s)/unit(s)
2. A brief and engaging title (Please keep these shorter in length for marketing purposes/posters).
3. A short description (three sentences max) of the topic and how it will appeal to a broad, non-specialist audience.
4. A paragraph description (up to 250 words) that outlines (a) the topic; and (b) how the presentation will engage a non-specialist audience, including members of the public.
5. Consent to have your presentation live streamed, video recorded and showcased on KPU platforms.
Proposals due: Friday, February 17, 2023
Please email proposals to: oar@kpu.ca
Applicants will be informed of the final selection by March 3, 2023.
Archived Events
Indigenous Dialogue Series: Reconciliation: Where are we?
by Chief Dr. Robert Joseph, OC, OBC
Date: Friday, April 22, 2022
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Location: Zoom Webinar
Chief Dr. Robert Joseph, OC, OBC is a Hereditary chief of the Gwawaenuk First Nation who has dedicated his life to bridging the differences brought about by intolerance, lack of understanding and racism at home and abroad.
As one of the last few speakers of the Kwakwaka’wakw language, Chief Joseph is an eloquent and inspiring Ceremonial House Speaker. He is currently the Ambassador for Reconciliation Canada, a member of the National Assembly of First Nations Elders Council and an Honorary Witness to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
He has served as the Executive Director of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. As Chairman of the Native American Leadership Alliance for Peace and Reconciliation and the Ambassador for Peace and Reconciliation with the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IFWP), Chief Joseph has sat with the leaders of South Africa, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Washington, DC to learn from and share his understanding of faith, hope, healing and reconciliation.
Please Register HERE
Coloniality and Racial (in)Justice in the University: Counting for Nothing?
Date: Thursday, March 10
Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
Location: Zoom Webinar
Register HERE
Provost Presents: Provost Presents… is a speaker series organized by Dr. Diane Purvey, Provost & Vice President, Academic, pro tem, at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Each event will provide opportunities for KPU students, staff and faculty to hear from experts in higher education about timely, compelling issues that are pertinent to work and study in the field of academia.
This presentation will focus on discussions surrounding critical race and Indigenous theory. Each chapter of the book challenges Euro-centric knowledge, institutional whiteness, and structural discrimination that are the bedrock of the institution. Situating universities at the heart of these momentous developments, this collection debunks the popular claim that universities are on the way to overcoming histories of racial exclusion.
This event will be held virtually.
Speakers:
Sunera Thobani is a professor in the Department of Asian Studies at UBC. Her scholarship focuses on critical race, post-colonial, and feminist theory; globalization, media, citizenship, and migration; South Asian women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and violence, Muslim women, and the War on Terror. Dr. Thobani has served as director of the Race, Autobiography, Gender, and Age Centre at UBC; the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair of Women’s Studies at SFU; and the President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
Benita Bunjun is an associate professor at Saint Mary’s University in the Department of Sociology and Criminology. Her research examines organizational and institutional power relations with an emphasis on the discourses of nation-building. Other research interests include colonial gendered encounters, academic well-being of racialized students, mental health and labour, and (im)migrant/indentured labour.
Enakshi Dua is a professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at York University. She has published extensively on theorizing race and anti-racism, the racialized and gendered histories of immigration processes, racism in Canadian universities, equity and anti-racism policies, and the racialization of masculinity and femininity. She has more than thirty years of experience in anti-racist work in the community as well as within the academy.
TFA Workshop for KPU Employees: Fundamentals of Anti-Racism: A Free Workshop with Shanique Kelly – March 21, 2021, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. PST
KPU’s Task Force on Anti-Racism is proud to present this opportunity for all KPU employees.
March 21st is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. On this day, please join us for “Fundamentals of Anti-Racism” – a free workshop presented by Shanique Kelly from Bakau Consulting (formerly Cicely Blain Consulting)
March 21st, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. PST (registration required)
To register, please email tfa@kpu.ca with subject line: “Please register me for March 21 workshop with Shanique Kelly.” Please use your KPU email ID to register. Please email as early as possible, but no later than March 17th. A Zoom link will be forwarded to all registered participants 24 hours prior to the workshop. For cyber safety reasons, the link will be sent to KPU email IDs only. Please do not share the link with anyone outside of KPU.
Fundamentals of Anti-Racism is an immersive and in-depth workshop that exposes our complicity in racist power structures that exist all around us. This workshop is both personal and political: an exploration into bias, systemic oppression, language, cultural appropriation, and intersectionality. Participants gain a deeper understanding of the manifestations of racism from systems of power to workplace microaggressions and most importantly gain the skills to speak up and combat racism in their communities.
Indigenous Dialogue Series: Decolonizing the Academy: Trans-systemic Transformations by Dr. Marie Battiste
Date: Thursday, February 24, 2022
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Location: Zoom Webinar
The second event in the series features Dr. Marie Battiste. This presentation will focus on the mandates, challenges and tensions of Indigenization and reconciliation arising from what counts as knowledge, how Indigenous knowledges differ from Eurocentric disciplinary knowledges, and how Indigenous faculty and students must navigate diverse knowledges and systems often to their detriment. Dr. Battiste will explain the diverse ways Indigenization is practiced across Canada in universities and why decolonizing knowledges in carricula and decolonizing systems matter to universities.
Dr. Marie Battiste is a Mi’kmaw educator from the Potlotek First Nation and from Aroostook Band of Micmacs in Maine. A Professor Emerita at the University of Saskatchewan, she has returned to Nova Scotia and is currently a Special Advisor to the Vice President Academic at Cape Breton University on Decolonizing the Academy. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of Maine at Farmington and graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford universities, and has been honoured with four honorary degrees (UMaine Farmington, St.Mary’s, Thompson Rivers, and Ottawa).
Widely published, she is author of Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit (Purich Press, 2013) and co-authored with J.Y. Henderson on Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge (Purich Press/UBC Press, 2000), edited several collections, the most recent are Visioning Mi’kmaw Humanities: Indigenizing the Academy (2016), Living Treaties: Narrating Mi’kmaw Treaty Relations (2016), and The Engaged Scholar Journal for Community Engaged Research, Teaching and Learning on the theme of Indigenous and Trans-systemic Knowledges. She is a 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow, an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada, and an elected Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada.
Please Register Here
Unlearning Anti-Blackness – TFA Workshop for Employees
KPU’s Task Force on Anti-Racism is proud to present this opportunity for all KPU employees.
Please join us for “Unlearning Anti-Blackness” – a free workshop presented by Udokam Iroegbu from Bakau Consulting (formerly Cicely Blain Consulting)
Unlearning Anti-Blackness is a deep dive into unpacking the manifestations of anti-Black racism in our society. The session weaves together key events in Black history, contemporary examples of racism and tangible actions for allies. Unlearning Anti-Blackness explores themes such as cultural appropriation, solidarity, activism, intersectionality, Black and queer identity, microaggressions, intergenerational trauma and transformative justice. This workshop is recommended for groups who have intermediate to advanced social justice knowledge and competency as well as a core foundation of anti-racist vocabulary.
October 25th, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. PST (registration required)
To register, please email tfa@kpu.ca with subject line: “Please register me for October 25th workshop with Udokam Iroegbu.” Please email as early as possible, but no later than October 21st. A Zoom link will be forwarded to all registered participants 24 hours prior to the workshop.
As we have limited seats, please double check your calendar to ensure you can attend and if you realize you no longer can, please cancel your registration at least 3 working days before the start date by emailing us at tfa@kpu.ca.
KPU Indigenous Dialogue Series: Reconciliation with Radical Thought, Action, and Heart with Len Pierre
The first event of KPU’s Indigenous Dialogue Series (2021-2022) will feature Len Pierre (Pul-ee-qwe-luck), Special Advisor, Indigenous Leadership, Innovation, and Partnerships at KPU. Len is Coast Salish from Katzie First Nation. He is an educator, TEDx Speaker, Knowledge Keeper, and cultural practitioner who specializes in Decolonial, Reconciliatory, and Indigeneity work with organizations. With a background in adult education and Indigenous methodology, Len aims to decolonize and transform corporate systems, approaches, policies, and curriculum content in any professional discipline. Len will talk about how reconciliation can move from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’ in higher education. Len says “We have everything we need for the journey ahead”. There are countless documents, research, and literature led by Indigenous peoples that give us the blueprint to build reconciliation into our practices, policies, principles, and physical places. Len will guide us through reconciliation strategies, ethics, dilemmas, pitfalls, and leave the floor open for dialogue.
Date: Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
TFA Workshop for Employees: Inclusive Language and Anti-Oppressive Communication
Inclusive Language zooms in on language and communication practises that bring teams together for more respectful workplaces. This workshop combines media literacy, cultural safety and LGBTQ+ inclusion to dive deep into conversations about inclusive language. Participants can expect to practice with real world scenarios, mind map best practices for communication both in person and online and discover meaningful ways to foster inclusion with dialogue.
Shanique Kelly is an equity and inclusion consultant and educator, event producer, community organizer, and DJ. Born and raised on the unceded, ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, Shanique works passionately to carve out safer community spaces for marginalized folks to connect, create, and celebrate in.
We look forward to welcoming our colleagues to this workshop.
June 16th, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. PST (registration required)
To register, please email tfa@kpu.ca with subject line: “Please register me for June 16th workshop with Shanique Kelly.” Please email as early as possible, but no later than March June 14th. A Zoom link will be forwarded to all registered participants 24 hours prior to the workshop.
As we have limited seats, please double check your calendar to ensure you can attend and if you realize you no longer can, please cancel your registration at least 3 working days before the start date by emailing us at tfa@kpu.ca so that we may offer the spot to someone else.
TFA Workshop for Students: Introduction to Anti-racism
Please join us for “Introduction to Anti-racism” – a free workshop presented by Litzy Baeza
In this workshop, participants will expand their awareness of anti-racism work. They will explore the roots of racism and recognize the impacts of racism on an individual, institutional, and societal level. Participants will learn about ways to build awareness and encourage action to make communities more anti-racist, respectful, and equitable for all people.
June 18th, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. PST (registration required)
To register, please email tfa@kpu.ca with subject line: “Please register me for June 18th workshop for students.” Please email as early as possible, but no later than June 15th. A Teams link will be forwarded to all registered participants 24 hours prior to the workshop.
As we have limited seats, please double check your calendar to ensure you can attend and if you realize you no longer can, please cancel your registration at least 3 working days before the start date by emailing us at tfa@kpu.ca so that we may offer the spot to someone else.
Inclusive Digital Pedagogy in Exclusionary Times
When: May 18, 2021
Description: Many of us are familiar with the tenets and practices associated with Inclusive Pedagogy. But much of the literature and case-study work in this area centers traditional, face-to-face courses. This year, however, has underscored our urgent need for models of critically inclusive pedagogy for hybrid and fully-online spaces. What does it mean to teach inclusively in an online course? How can we ensure that digital learning spaces are spaces of radical welcome, as opposed to marginalization and exclusion? In this session, we’ll identify some principles with which we might answer those questions, and think about how they might be embodied in our own praxis.
Register at: https://www.kpu.ca/dpws
Anti-racism and Lessons from Liberation: A Free Workshop with Udokam Iroegbu (for KPU employees) – March 24, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Please join us for “Anti-racism and Lessons from Liberation” – a free workshop presented by Udokam Iroegbu from Bakau Consulting (formerly Cicely Blain Consulting)
March 24th, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. PST (registration required)
To register, please email tfa@kpu.ca with subject line: “Please register me for March 24th workshop with Udokam Iroegbu.” Please email as early as possible, but no later than March 22nd. A Zoom link will be forwarded to all registered participants 24 hours prior to the workshop.
Anti-Racism and Lessons from Liberation is an immersive and in-depth workshop that exposes our complicity in racist power structures that exist all around us. This workshop is both personal and political: an exploration into bias, systemic oppression, language, cultural appropriation and intersectionality. Participants gain a deeper understanding of the manifestations of racism from systems of power to workplace microaggressions and most importantly gain the skills to speak up and combat racism in their communities.
We look forward to welcoming our colleagues to this workshop.
As we have limited seats, please double check your calendar to ensure you can attend and if you realize you no longer can, please cancel your registration at least 3 working days before the start date by emailing us at tfa@kpu.ca so that we may offer the spot to someone else.
Treating Stories with Care: A Workshop on Appropriation, Ethics, and Telling Your Own Stories
A Free Workshop for KPU Students: March 11, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. PST
Registration is not required. Please email tfa@kpu.ca to get the link to the event
Description: An increasing engagement with Indigenous and 2Spirit/Queer stories and perspectives presents important opportunities for learning and deepening relationships, but it also carries the potential for appropriation, tokenizing, and harm. This 90-minute workshop and discussion will focus on how participants can engage Indigenous narratives with ethical care and draw on their own personal stories to act in solidarity, address systems of oppression, and foster social change.
Facilitated by Shane Sable
Shane Sable is a 2spirit Gitxsan artist, activist, and facilitator whose work focuses primarily on rematriating Indigenous sexuality through burlesque and community-engaged art and cultural activities. Shane is the convening member of Virago Nation, Turtle Island’s first all-Indigenous burlesque collective and the 2Spirit Programmer at the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival.
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Workshop with Udokam Iroegbu for KPU employees: Fundamentals of Anti-Oppression
Fundamentals of Anti-oppression dives deeper than your typical diversity and inclusion workshop. In this workshop, participants are given the opportunity to explore systemic oppression, social justice, privilege, identity and allyship through a variety of engaging activities. Through self-reflection, community- based inquiry, lessons from history and collaborative problem solving, participants gain the knowledge and skills to view the world through an anti- oppressive lens.
A Zoom link will be forwarded to all registered participants a minimum of 2 days prior to the workshop.
As we have limited seats, please double check your calendar to ensure you can attend and if you realize you no longer can, please cancel your registration at least 3 working days before the start date by emailing us at tfa@kpu.ca so that we may offer the spot to someone else.
February 18th, 10:00 a.m. to noon PST
Activism Outside and Inside the Institution: Strategies and Tactics for Increasing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
When: February 23, 2021
Description: In this session Tara Robertson will share some of the research on diversity, equity and inclusion, some of her personal experiences as an activist and DEI practitioner, strategies and tactics for advocating for systemic change both outside and inside institutions. Together we will co-create some tactics for making post-secondary education a more diverse, equitable and inclusive place.
Register at: https://www.kpu.ca/dpws
Treating Stories with Care: A Workshop on Appropriation, Ethics, and Telling Your Own Stories
Faculty Session: February 11th, 3-4:30PM
Student Session: TBA
Description: An increasing engagement with Indigenous and 2Spirit/Queer stories and perspectives presents important opportunities for learning and deepening relationships, but it also carries the potential for appropriation, tokenizing, and harm. This 90-minute workshop and discussion will focus on how participants can engage Indigenous narratives with ethical care and draw on their own personal stories to act in solidarity, address systems of oppression, and foster social change.
Facilitated by Shane Sable
Shane Sable is a 2spirit Gitxsan artist, activist, and facilitator whose work focuses primarily on rematriating Indigenous sexuality through burlesque and community-engaged art and cultural activities. Shane is the convening member of Virago Nation, Turtle Island’s first all-Indigenous burlesque collective and the 2Spirit Programmer at the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival.
“Hope in A Time of Climate Grief: A Conversation with Jenna Butler”
October 29, 2020, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. PDT
Join us for a virtual conversation with Jenna Butler who will speak about climate grief, trauma and recovery, farming, and beekeeping.
Dr. Jenna Butler is a Canadian poet, essayist, editor, and professor. She is the author of: three books of poetry; a collection of ecological essays, A Profession of Hope: Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail; and the Arctic travelogue Magnetic North: Sea Voyage to Svalbard. Her newest book, Revery: A Year of Bees, is out with Wolsak and Wynn in October 2020.
Butler’s research into endangered environments has taken her from America’s Deep South to Ireland’s Ring of Kerry, and from volcanic Tenerife to the Arctic Circle onboard an ice-class masted sailing vessel, exploring the ways in which we impact the landscapes we call home. A woman of colour interested in multiethnic narratives of place, Butler teaches creative and environmental writing at Red Deer College in Alberta and runs an off-grid organic farm.
Please hold the date for: October 29, 2020, 1:00-2:00pm PDT.
Please register here: https://www.kpu.ca/bipocws
For further details, please contact Dr. Asma Sayed: asma.sayed@kpu.ca
Hosted by the Canada Research Chair in South Asian Literary and Cultural Studies and KPU Task Force on Antiracism
Anti-Oppression 101
When: Oct 14th from 12 – 2pm
Description: Join renowned anti-racism, diversity and inclusion expert Cicely Blain for an engaging workshop on anti-oppression. Anti-oppression 101 dives deeper than your typical diversity and inclusion workshop. You’ll explore systemic oppression, social justice, privilege, identity and allyship through a variety of engaging activities. Through self-reflection, community- based inquiry, lessons from history and collaborative problem solving, you’ll gain the knowledge and skills to view the world through an anti-oppressive lens. This event is free, but it will fill up fast, so register now. You can register here.
A Zoom link will be forwarded to all registered participants a minimum of 2 days prior to the workshop. Please log in to the session 10 minutes prior to the start time.
