By Dr. Arig al Shaibah, Associate Vice-President Equity & Inclusion and Honorary Associate Professor Educational Studies
As we near the end of the 2024 calendar year, I’m pleased to share highlights of some 2024 achievements and a few aspirational goals looking ahead to 2025.
December days of significance
Before I list some of our accomplishments and aspirations, let me point to the December days of significance relevant to our equity and inclusion mandate.
December 3 marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and UBC hosted several opportunities to engage with and celebrate the day. December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women and in respect of this day, UBC lowers the flags on the UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan campuses to half-mast and hosts the annual 14 Not Forgotten ceremonies, organized by the Faculty of Applied Science at UBC Vancouver (UBCV) and the School of Engineering at UBC Okanagan (UBCO). December 10is Human Rights Day, a day of particular relevance to the EIO and university’s efforts to advance, educate and advise on human rights.
For more information on cultural and religious days of significance, access the multicultural/faith calendar.
Retrospective: 2024 highlights
I want to sincerely thank the entire UBC Equity & Inclusion Office (EIO) team for their ongoing efforts to enable the university to advance its equity and inclusion goals and priorities this past year. I also want to thank all portfolio and Faculty equity leads for completing the first iteration of the StEAR inventory. We gained extremely valuable insights into the extent of equity anti-racism engagement across our campuses and the successes, as well as barriers, in progressing the work. Those learnings contributed to our first StEAR Progress Report.
Thank you, also, to all the community members who participated in more than 20 events and various initiatives organized by our office, including joining one of several StEAR town halls organized in the summer, attending regular EDI Action Network meetings, finding community through affinity groups, completing the Employment Equity Survey – which now has a very healthy response rate of 89 per cent – and much more.
We have launched the second year of the reimagined StEAR Enhancement Fund, and have now completed two of the three calls for applications, disbursing some $200,000 in support of student, faculty and staff-led initiatives which aim to address racial, gender, and disability equity. Decisions on the last set of applications due December 16 will be shared in January 2025.
Forthcoming: 2025 highlights
Advancing accessibility at UBC
Looking ahead to 2025, we will continue to progress work on institutional accessibility planning and implementation in accordance with the Accessible BC Act. We have established an accessibility hub and developed an accessibility feedback form soon to be launched. We will also be releasing the first iteration of a comprehensive accessibility plan in the new year, to be followed by a robust campus consultation to further inform the refinement of the plan. We are also hiring an additional staff member to lead accessibility planning efforts.
Reporting on employee and student diversity
In spring, we are looking forward to releasing the 2024 edition of the annual Employment Equity Report, which will include further refinements such as intersectional data. We are also working with the Planning and Institutional Analysis Office (PAIR) to release the university’s first Student Diversity Census report.
Launching an educational resource hub
We have been working on an online educational resource hub, and we will begin to post new resources that are part of an EDI Foundations Series that will be launched next year. Among those resources are three educational booklets, one on human rights obligations, one on anti-Jewish discrimination, and one on anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination. Additionally, we will soon be releasing a new version of the hiring equity course and associated guides to support hiring equity in faculty and staff recruitment.
Supporting Black excellence
In 2024, the university has launched the second year of the Black Faculty Cohort Hiring Initiative, and the EIO has invested in administrative support to an expanding Black Faculty Network established to advise on UBC’s Black Excellence commitments. Looking to 2025, we will continue to support these efforts, which will include forthcoming engagement opportunities and informational and community building resources. For more information about and/or to join the network, please send us an email.
While the work to advance equity and inclusion across the university and in our communities is rewarding in terms of its promise to improve educational and employment access and equity, it has been a particularly challenging year in the face of geo-political events and their implications on fostering a culture of respect and inclusion as well as institutional transformations to address the root causes of historic, persistent and systemic marginalization. With that consideration, I wish everyone some respite over the holiday closure so that we restore our energy for the work that remains ahead.
Arig