Written by Shannon Robinson, Education Consultant: Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning, CTLT Indigenous Initiatives
In June 2024, the Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning (A-RTL) team launched an exciting new program: Applying Anti-Racist Pedagogies in the Classroom (AA-RPC). This 4-week intensive cohort program was open to faculty from all departments. To learn more about the development of AA-RPC, see our Spring Update.
I was joined by colleagues Sue Hampton, Daniel Gallardo and Lauren Casey in co-designing and co-facilitating this program.
Coming together in challenging times
June was a difficult time on campus, with little space for fair and balanced dialogue regarding world events. The central goal of this program for us as facilitators was to create a generative space for Faculty to inspire one another towards hope. We worked as a team alongside AA-RPC participants to generate a brave space where there was room to share about emergent and contentious topics with care. It was important to name challenges and institutional pressures while identifying the barriers we face when trying to do transformative work within the institution. We built in celebration and discussion time that allowed participants to connect during downtime as well as during exercises to prioritize community building within the cohort.
In our approach to the program design, we wanted to be realistic with participants about the complexities of pushing for anti-racist and decolonial practices in a deeply colonial and inherently racist institution. Through a series of exercises, presentations, assignments and storytelling from guest speakers, the program was designed to show the humanity and complexity inherent in this work. Together, we created potential pathways for participants to incorporate their learning into their course design and their relationships with colleagues and students.
Most participants identified the connections and relationships built during the program as their most valuable takeaway. For the facilitation team, this felt like success; however, there is still a strong outcry for easily adaptable and practical methods that can be applied within different classrooms. In designing the program, we wanted to be realistic with participants about the complexities of championing this work within the institution. This is difficult, messy, and ongoing work where we might not always feel like we are successful in pushing for a better future. Above all, we wanted participants to know they are not alone and that everyone is part of expansive networks of supportive connections.
AA-RPC Program overview:
Session 1: Getting Grounded Together focused on building understandings of positionality and expanding those understandings to include relationality. In the session we learned where each other comes from in this work, identified to whom we are accountable and ultimately reflected on where we’d like to take this work in the future.
In Session 2: Creating Care in the Classroom, facilitators led an incredible discussion around meaningful allyship and solidarity that was both rooted in layered history and context while being viscerally tied to present solidarity movements, such as the UBC student encampment. We heard from virtual guest speaker Dr. Joaquin Muñoz (Faculty of Education) on generating care in classroom climate.
For Session 3: Re-Imagining Curriculum, participants were asked to reflect on their learning, professional and lived experience. We created a new A-RTL Curriculum Assessment tool for AA-RPC to support participants in identifying their strengths, barriers and challenges and name where they could implement real change. Session 3 hosted Laila Ferreira and Tara Lee from Journalism, Writing and Media (JWAM), as well as Ranjit Dhari from Faculty of Nursing. Our guests led us in conversation around the work they’ve each done within their faculty to develop anti-racist practices.
Session 4: Embodying Community Values at the Institution was the closing discussion for the program. Participants engaged in an action planning exercise centered on envisioning hopeful futures.
Next step reflections
The AA-RPC program was a pilot program: we developed new resources and tools, worked with frameworks that were sometimes challenging (often intentionally so) within the institutional context, and sought to bring values-aligned colleagues together to celebrate their efforts. We wanted to create a space that felt hopeful and inspiring for participants, and we ended up feeling more hopeful ourselves.
We are so deeply grateful for the generosity of AA-RPC program participants in walking with us on this journey. The sense of unity and togetherness we felt in this space inspired us as facilitators. UBC remains a challenging environment in which to do this work. As the A-RTL program takes its next steps, our learning from the AA-RPC will guide us towards exciting new iterations and expressions of its values. Stay tuned for more updates coming from Indigenous Initiatives and the A-RTL team!