Join us for the first in-person EDI Action Network gathering of 2026. This is an opportunity to connect with like-minded faculty, staff, and students across campus doing EDI work, over refreshments and interactions.
This session has reached its capacity. Registration is now closed.
About the session
This session creates an opportunity for a practical and interactive application of the Foundations of Conflict Engagement (fCE) training course. This in-person training includes core concepts with a focus on skill-building, real-time reflection, and applied practice, allowing participants to actively work with the tools, language, and frameworks introduced in fCE.
Why it matters
By engaging directly with practice, participants will see how everyday decisions, communication patterns, and leadership behaviors shape the conditions in which conflict either escalates or becomes an opportunity for learning, accountability, and relational repair. This applied session strengthens participants’ ability to contribute to healthier team dynamics, increased psychological safety, and more equitable participation across the university.
Who can join
This network is open to all who fit the participation criteria:
- Working to advance an EDI initiative at UBC, including for example, creating an EDI strategy or plan or developing or changing existing programming with an EDI lens. The initiative may be within your immediate unit or connected to a broader effort such as a cross-portfolio working group or identity-based affinity group.
- In a position to influence the work of your EDI initiative including but not necessarily in a formal leadership role.
- Engaged in the continuous process of deepening your learning about EDI and your personal relationship to issues of power, privilege, and marginalization. This type of individual learning is essential to our ability to effectively navigate EDI change efforts, but is not the focus of the EDI Action Network. As a result, we expect members to find opportunities for this learning, either through lived experience or from experts and programs with that explicit focus (for example courses, workshops, discussion groups, and readings).
What to expect
Through guided exercises, scenarios, and facilitated discussion, participants will practice recognizing, assessing, and engaging conflict in ways that are thoughtful, constructive, equitable, and aligned with institutional responsibility. This session centers learning-by-doing—supporting participants to translate conflict literacy into concrete, embodied skills they can use in their day-to-day roles.
Learning objectives
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Apply a relational and systemic understanding of conflict to real workplace scenarios, moving beyond individual blame.
- Differentiate in practice between disagreement, conflict, dispute, complaint, and misconduct, and identify appropriate responses for each.
- Recognize and assess structural contributors to conflict (e.g., positionality, identity, history, and culture) within applied examples.
- Use a shared decision-making framework to determine when and how to engage in conflict situations.
- Practice dialogue micro-skills to support constructive conversation and relational accountability.
- Experiment with and reflect on communication approaches that contribute to a healthy, equitable conflict culture.
Facilitators
- Silvia D’Addario, Director, Community and Capacity Building, UBC Equity & Inclusion Office
- Ashley Moore, Associate Director, Dialogue and Conflict Transformation, UBC Equity & Inclusion Office
Accessibility & Virtual Event
The session is hosted on the 2nd floor of the Brock Commons South Building located at 6180 Walter Gage Road, Vancouver. Touchless wave and push button door openers are installed at the front entrance of the ground floor. Elevators to the 2nd floor are accessible from the main lobby of the building and gender neutral bathrooms are available on every floor.
We are committed to hosting an inclusive, accessible event that enables all individuals to engage in-person if desired. If you require an accessibility-related measure please indicate in the registration form.
For those who would prefer to connect virtually or who are unable to attend in person, please stay tuned for an online version of the event, which will be scheduled in the near future. For those based at the Okanagan campus, please stay tuned for the forthcoming EDI Action Network’s UBCO event.
Questions?
Please contact Silvia D’Addario, Director, Community and Capacity-building, at silvia.daddario@ubc.ca.