UBC launches inaugural Student Diversity Census 

UBC launches inaugural Student Diversity Census 

October 19, 2023

New census will provide UBC with important demographic data to better understand the diversity of the student body, identify barriers to inclusion and opportunities to enhance student experiences, and assess progress. 

Advancing equity and anti-racism is one of UBC’s institutional priorities. Core to advancing these commitments are efforts to identify and address systemic barriers and inequities where they exist for historically, persistently or systemically marginalized (HPSM) students. The newly launched Student Diversity Census is an important step to obtaining a more accurate understanding of student diversity and of the barriers to equitable and inclusive access to programs and services.

Launched on September 25, all UBC students are encouraged to complete the confidential and secure census at their earliest convenience – and in advance of the first data analysis which will use the information provided by students up until December 11. The link to complete the census is available in a student’s Canvas inbox.

“Our efforts to improve student access, inclusion, wellness and success for all students are enabled by our ability to collect student diversity and student experience data,” says Ainsley Carry, Vice-President, Students. “This census provides a quick but important way for students to help us refine our programs and services.”

What’s the difference between a census and a survey? 

While surveys tend to rely on a smaller sample of respondents from a community, a census aims to collect information from everyone (aiming to get as close as possible to 100 per cent participation). A census is used to maximize accuracy when the aim is to gather more robust information on sub-groups within a population. 

The census takes between 5 and 10 minutes to complete. Every question has an “I choose not to disclose” option so that students can participate in the census to the fullest extent with which they are comfortable. 

The census, and census questions, have been developed and guided by consultations with students from HPSM groups. Only aggregate-level data will be reported on and no personally identifiable information will be shared. All information is confidential and hosted on a secure UBC platform. 

“This is now UBC’s principal tool to better understand the diversity of our student community, and it’s essential to our ability to identify barriers to inclusion faced by students,” says Arig al Shaibah, Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion.

“While we have qualitative data and a sense of where those opportunities already lie, the census will provide an additional and important dimension to deepen that understanding and better focus our efforts.” 

The census also fills an important gap in the coordination and standardization of student data collection. Until now, Faculties and programs have engaged in separate and varied ways to collect student demographic data. Now, through a more centralized process, Faculties and programs will be able to have access to a more robust data set for their local needs allowing them to better understand how they can support HPSM students. Faculty and staff interested in learning more about accessing or using student demographic data can contact the Student Demographic Data project team. 

In early 2024, a report on the results of the Student Diversity Census will be shared with the campus community and institutional leadership including the Board of Governors, to inform future decisions and guide institutional EDI efforts.  

Following this initial roll-out, the census will in the future be integrated into Workday Student. 

Learn more about the Student Diversity Census here.  

News and Stories |

Orange Shirt Day: Reflect, learn and act towards Truth and Reconciliation

September 29, 2023

September 30th is Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It is a day to honour Intergenerational Survivors of the Indian Residential School system and to commemorate those who didn’t return home.

Between the late 1800s and 1996, more than 150,000 children were taken away from their families and placed into a traumatizing system of oppression that worked to erase their culture and identities. 

The UBC Equity & Inclusion Office stands together with and in support of Indigenous community members at UBC and Indigenous communities broadly and reaffirms our commitment to supporting decolonization and Indigenization efforts at UBC. 

Today and every day, I invite non-Indigenous community members at UBC to engage in intentional learning about the harmful history of the residential school system, the legacy it has left behind and the work ahead that’s needed on the path to truth and reconciliation.

To commemorate this day, events are taking place at UBC and across Canada. Many of these events provide an opportunity to learn this history, including through deeply moving stories as told by survivors sharing the truths of their traumatic experiences inflicted through systematic abuse – survivors like Phyllis Webstadt, the founder of Orange Shirt Day. 

I encourage non-Indigenous students, faculty and staff to engage with empathy and humility in the many of the activities taking place to commemorate this day and to commit to continuous learning and reflection as to what you can do to support healing and to advance truth and reconciliation. 

Explore opportunities to engage with Orange Shirt Day and truth and reconciliation through events and resources at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan and build your competencies related to reconciliation, Indigenization and decolonization, including through the Weaving Relations course (developed by the Faculty of Applied Science) that explores Indigenous histories, people and contexts, as well as settler colonialism in Canada, through the lens of Indigenous-Canadian relationships. 

Every child matters.

Sincerely and respectfully, 

Arig al Shaibah 
Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion 

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UBC committed to welcoming community members from around the globe

September 28, 2023

As UBC continues to monitor geopolitical relations between India and Canada and to assess the implications for our diverse campus community, we are attuned to the ongoing distress experienced and expressed by many students, faculty and staff who are either directly or indirectly impacted or concerned by the situation.

We know the situation is particularly concerning for Indian diasporic and international community members – in all of their diversity – and also for many others who may be feeling the transnational effects of the tensions in our increasingly interconnected world.

The diversity of UBC’s regional, national and international student body, professoriate and staff complement is a source of tremendous pride that we are committed to nurturing. Our globally diverse community and our commitment to inclusivity contribute not only to our academic excellence but also to our ability to live up to our aspirations for societal betterment.

As this situation evolves, we want to assure concerned students, faculty and staff, as well as their families here in Canada and abroad that we remain steadfastly committed to welcoming community members from across the globe and fostering their safety, wellness, inclusion and belonging.

For information on academic, workplace, and personal supports available please see the resources available to you at UBC.

Arig al Shaibah
Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion

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Orange Shirt Day

September 27, 2023

News and Stories |

Resources and support for the UBC Community amidst geopolitical tensions

September 27, 2023

News and Stories |

UBC stands in support of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities

September 20, 2023

UBC prides itself on our diverse and vibrant learner, scholar, and professional communities – our local and global excellence and relevance is strengthened by this diversity, including the presence and contributions of 2SLGBTQIA+ students, faculty and staff. 

The increasing backlash against efforts to enhance the human rights, accessibility, inclusion and wellness of sexual orientation and gender identity minoritized peoples is extremely concerning. The waves of anti-SOGI protests planned across Canada do not align with UBC’s values. UBC is committed to universal human rights and fundamental freedoms – which are extended to all citizens. The Human Rights Commission has reinforced this sentiment in their own recent statement. 

The question is not one of choosing between competing rights and freedoms but rather of reconciling and balancing these rights and freedoms to promote accessibility, equity, inclusion, and justice for all.

Whatever one’s ethno-racial background, religious belief, or political affiliation, human rights and freedoms (justice) for any group cannot be attained without ensuring the human rights and freedoms of all humanity.  

The validation and empowerment of individuals and communities is key to human and just institutions and societies.

To the 2SLGBTQIA+ community at UBC, know that you are valued and that we stand behind you.

For support, please consider the following options available to you:

  • For safety and security planning or to report an incident of hate, please contact 911 in case of emergency or contact UBC Campus Security at UBC Vancouver (604-822-2222) and UBC Okanagan (250-807-8111).
  • For confidential advising on experience of harassment and discrimination, please contact the human rights team (604-827-1773) at the UBC Equity & Inclusion Office.
  • Students can also access:

Should you have concerns reaching out to or have had negative experiences with any of the services listed here, please get in touch with us at the Equity & Inclusion Office. We will help facilitate a connection and ensure you are provided with an appropriate and trauma-informed response.

Dr. Arig al Shaibah

Associate Vice-President Equity and Inclusion

Dr. Gage Averill

Provost & Vice-President, Academic (Vancouver) 

Dr. Rehan Sadiq

Provost & Vice-President, Academic (Okanagan) 

Messages from the AVP, News and Stories |

Fostering inclusivity through SOGI education: A shared commitment

September 20, 2023

News and Stories |

Remarks: Mahsa Amini Memorial Event

September 15, 2023

The following remarks were delivered by Arig al Shaibah, Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion during the Mahsa Amini Memorial Event on September 15, 2023.

Assalammu ‘Alaikum.

Let me start by acknowledging that the UBC campuses on which we are gathered for this event sit on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Syilx Okanagan Nations. This land acknowledgement serves to remind us of our positionality and relationship to the land and First Peoples who have sought to responsibly steward the land and its resources in a manner that promotes environmental and social sustainability and justice so that all life that traverses the land may flourish and live in harmony.

Thank you to the UBC Persian Club for organizing this important event and for inviting me to make a few remarks on behalf of the university.

One year since Mahsa Amini’s senseless death, today’s event serves both a commemorative and generative purpose.

We are being brought together to remember the life of Mahsa Amini, to recognize the pain inflicted on and to honour the courage of the Iranian community, and to renew our support for the ongoing women, life, freedom global liberation and social justice movement that was since spawned.

Whatever our nationality, ethno-racial ancestry, ability, sexual orientation or gender identity the women, life, freedom liberation movement is relevant to all of our communities and the collective humanity – geopolitical events and societal injustices around the world have far reaching implications and deep impacts on all of us.

The words of the late US civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. Writing while imprisoned for acts of civil disobedience while fighting for civil rights, Dr. King said:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

– Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

Mahsa Amini was a vibrant 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was reportedly severely beaten for allegedly improperly wearing the hijab according to the standards imposed by the government. She died in a hospital while still in police custody shortly after this encounter. Around the world, we have seen the outrage and an outpouring of support including through the “We Are All Mahsa Amini” campaign.

Iranian community members abroad and the Iranian diaspora in Canada have continued to experience trauma and grief, as a consequence of Mahsa Amini’s death and surrounding circumstances, as well as the persistent repressive actions of the country’s regime in response to the women, life, freedom movement – a movement calling for gender equity and respect of human rights.

We honour the courage and perseverance of the Iranian people who have risked their lives to speak out and relentlessly pursue gender equity and human rights before and after Mahsa’s death. Iranian-American author, Azar Nafisi, has written about the courage and perseverance of the Iranian people. She says:

I no longer believe that we can keep silent. We never really do, mind you. In one way or another we articulate what has happened to us through the kind of people we become.

– Azar Nafisi

As a queer, Arab-Canadian woman and cultural Muslim, I continue to experience the grief and survival guilt assoiated with reconciling the relative freedom I have in Canada in contrast to the curtailment of freedoms for women as well as sexual and gender minoritized peope in my country of origin – Yemen – and even among my diasporic communities here in Canada. To fight for these rights in a country were there is an accepted human rights framework as a starting point is very different from fighting for these rights to reform or transform the legal landscape itself.

In closing, this is a challenging time for the UBC Iranian community, and I am proud to stand with you and loudly declare our commitments to supporting human rights globally in a way that calls attention to the senseless death of Mahsa Amini, recognizes the resilence of the community, and declares our commitment to forging a more just world now and into the future.

Thank you for your generosity in inviting me and giving me the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment and support to the Iranian community at UBC.

Lastly, just before I step-off, I want to applaud the visible degree of community support.

For those who may wish to reach out for support or assistance, please consider some of the resources available to you at UBC. A handout is available for your consideration.

Thank you

Resources and Support

Mental Health/Wellbeing

For faculty and staff:

For students:

Academic Support or Concessions

Emergency Financial Support

Safety/Security

  • For safety and security planning or to report an incident of hate, please contact 911 in case of emergency or contact UBC Campus Security at UBC Vancouver (604-822-2222).
  • Download the UBC Safe App for UBC Vancouver.

 Human Rights Advising

  • For confidential advising on experience of harassment and discrimination, please contact the human rights team (604-827-1773) at the UBC Equity & Inclusion Office.

For more information on spaces and resources for connection and support, visit our Connection + Support page for UBC Vancouver.

Should you have concerns reaching out to or have had negative experiences with any of the services listed here, please get in touch with us at the Equity & Inclusion Office. We will help facilitate a connection and ensure you are provided with an appropriate and trauma-informed response.

Equity.ubc.ca | 604-827-1773 | info@equity.ubc.ca

Messages from the AVP, News and Stories, Remarks by the AVP |

New term: Welcome from the AVP, Equity and Inclusion

September 15, 2023

Dear EDI affinity groups, allies and agents for change,   

I hope you have all had an opportunity to rest and recharge over the summer as we prepare to start what I hope will be a productive academic year with respect to our shared interest to foster an ever more inclusive and equitable university community and environment. I’ve been so inspired and encouraged by the various ways that you have been championing equity, diversity and inclusion at UBC to date, setting up a strong, community-informed platform that we can continue building on.

This past year, the UBC Equity & Inclusion Office (EIO) has been preparing the Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism (StEAR) Framework and we are excited to soon be formally launching the implementation phase of this work that will activate priorities identified in a number of institutional plans and recommendations, including the Inclusion Action Plan, the Anti-Racism Task Force recommendations, and the Trans Two-Spirit & Gender Diversity Task Force recommendations. The EIO has also been supporting efforts – driven by disabled students, faculty and staff – to identify disability equity and anti-ableism priorities – work that is being taken up, in part, through an Accessibility Committee and which will inform that development of an Accessibility Plan, in accordance with the Accessible BC Act.

This coming year, the EIO will be focused on strengthening communication, consultation, collaboration and coalition building with all of you on across our Vancouver and Okanagan campuses. We will also be focused on enabling and supporting academic and administrative leaders across campuses to cultivate a culture of accountability for progress on accessibility, equity, anti-racism, and inclusive excellence commitments. You can expect a more detailed update on the progress of this work in October.

A new academic term brings renewed energy and with that hopefully an opportunity to refresh our various ways to engage with equity, diversity, inclusion and anti-racism.

Faculty members and staff colleagues: I encourage you to visit the inclusive teaching website that has valuable resources to enhance your curriculum, to explore our gender diversity knowledge hub, to review our guide for administrators receiving human rights disclosures and complaints and to engage with various EDI-related educational offerings (including our Hiring Equity and Positive Space Foundations courses) available on the Workplace Learning Platform and from our colleagues at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Research.

As we look at building on our collective efforts, I invite you all – students, faculty and staff – to connect with some of the many affinity communities or EDI committees and networks and to familiarize yourselves with various services and supports available to you.

We’ve just launched the StEAR Enhancement Fund and you can apply for funding ranging from $500 to $10,000. With that, I encourage you to reflect on what more can be done at UBC and consider putting those ideas into action by developing a project and applying for funding – together we can make a real difference. Institutions of higher learning are places from which some of the most transformative social justice movements have emerged and influenced social change – through your engagement, you are contributing to the power of community-led changemaking.

Lastly, if you are seeking general information about moving an EDI initiative forward, please get in touch with us using our consultation request form; if you have any specific questions or have concerns related to an experience of discrimination at UBC, please do not hesitate to get in touch with a member of our human rights advising team.

With gratitude for your courage and collaboration,

Arig al Shaibah
Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion

Messages from the AVP, News and Stories |

Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism Fund

September 13, 2023

News and Stories |