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PIE Circle 1

#1) Camp Kawartha reconciliation and outdoor education retreat, SOC B47  

Faculty Lead: Dani Kwan-Lafond, Assistant Professor - Teaching Stream, (Department of Sociology)

Project Description: This project offers an immersive land-based and experiential learning trip for 50-60 SOC B47 Social Inequality undergraduate students through a 3-day retreat to an outdoor education centre. Focused on experiential and Indigenous co-facilitated learning, learning outcomes include curricula on land-based education and students gaining insights into the TRC, guided by Peter Sackaney, a residential school survivor from Treaty 9 (Cree). Activities include the Kairos Blanket Exercise, outdoor hikes, and a sharing circle with Peter about his experience with the TRC. The program culminates in a visit to Curve Lake First Nation to meet a survivor and artist. Pedagogical and curricular planning takes place collaboratively with Indigenous experts, survivors, and knowledge keepers. By engaging directly with the narratives and lived experiences of Indigenous peoples, students emerge from this trip with a deepened understanding and respect for Indigenous cultures, histories, and current issues.

#2) Building Bridges: Creating Inclusive Francophone Learning Networks 

Faculty Co-Leads: Corinne Beauquis, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream Jeri English, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, Maud Pillet, Part-Time Lecturer, Malama Tsimenis, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, (Department of Language Studies and Department of Historical and Cultural Studies)

Project Description: This project seeks funding for their French language curriculum redesign project which is built upon four innovative components that will provide all DLS students with transformative, experiential, curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular learning opportunities redesigned through equity-based, accessible, anti-racist, and anti-colonial lenses. 

These components comprise of the following initiatives: 

1). An intensive curriculum redesign to better reflect the diversity of French speakers and offer more inclusive and accessible French language courses; 2). New community-engaged learning opportunities that will allow students to create connections to the wider Francophone community of the GTA; 

3). A UTSC community initiative that will create a strong and inclusive community of Francophones at UTSC and UofT, including Francophone professors and students outside the DLS; 

4). A partnership component that will facilitate the interconnection of DLS students with Francophone students in Quebec and internationally. 

Their broad goal is to foster a diverse and inclusive community of French learners in the DLS, by renewing our curriculum and pedagogies. 

#3) ACMD98H3F Land-based Learning and the Arts 

Faculty Lead: Marla Hlady, Associate Professor (Department of Arts, Culture and Media)

Project Description: This project works through two interrelated concepts, reciprocity and relation, to achieve a higher level of connection to the local community amongst ACM students. Students in several Music and Culture courses are participating in co-creating a Scarborough music archive as a curricular innovation. This archive will serve future generations of UTSC students as well as the local Scarborough community. Ultimately, this project, which is in partnership with the UTSC Library and the Music Library (UTSG), will deepen connections between local music, future curricula, and members of the local Scarborough community. This project began in 2022-2023 in two C-level Music and Culture courses with a series of guest speakers, a local field trip, and participant-observation and interviews with local community music organizations. With this second year of funding, they plan to expand this project to A- and B-level courses.

#4) Cultivating Cultural Safety: Empowering Graduate Students and Teaching Assistants through EDI Training for Inclusive Excellence

Faculty Lead: Shadi Dalili, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream (Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences)

Project Description: This project aims to develop a hybrid Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) training course tailored for Teaching Assistants (TAs) in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences as part of their professional development. The training aims to increase understanding and awareness of EDI principles in all academic settings, such as classrooms, labs, and tutorials. The modules developed in this training course cover key EDI concepts, highlighting challenges faced by underrepresented student groups, and emphasizes the crucial role of TAs in fostering an inclusive learning environment through sample scenarios, case studies, and quizzes. Anticipated outcomes include promoting inclusive teaching strategies and equitable participation, addressing microaggressions and power dynamics, and inspiring TAs to actively support diversity, equity, and inclusion. Continuous feedback will be collected through surveys to assess the impact of the training on both TAs and undergraduate students, contributing to the creation of a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive department.

#5) Reimagining Captivate: UTSC’s Digital Storytelling 3rd Annual Competition 

Faculty Leads: Joanna Heathcote, Associate Professor. Teaching Stream OB/HR (Department of Management)

Project Description: This project seeks to promote Captivate as a digital storytelling competition for UTSC students of all disciplines, organized by the UTSC Library and the Department of Management. It invites students to create and share a short digital story that reflects their personal experiences and to compete for prizes. This competition honours the legacy of Professor Emeritus Sanford Borins, Management’s founding Chair, who was passionate about storytelling and its role in public policy. 

PIE Circle 1 – Renewal

#1) The Equity-Based Classroom: Moving beyond Allyship

Faculty Lead: Sanaz Mazinani, Assistant Professor (Department of Arts, Culture and Media)

Project Description:  This project proposes a two-day symposium focusing on anti-oppression training and development for UTSC staff, faculty, Librarians, Postdoctoral and graduate students. This symposium will move us past allyship and towards solidarity actions. With a focus specifically on humanities curriculum, the symposium will provide space for workshops, presentations, and discussion towards a decolonial and anti-racist student learning environment, offering the UTSC community a space to challenge thinking and to broaden perspectives toward new pedagogical futures.

#2) Indigenous Perspectives Across the Curriculum: An HCS Indigenous Speaker Series 

Faculty Lead: Connie Guberman, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream (Department of Historical & Cultural Studies)

Project Description:  This proposal seeks to establish a second-year-long Indigenous speaker series hosted by HCS. Indigenous guest speakers will be invited to a dozen or more of our large introductory courses (primarily A- and B levels) throughout the year to introduce students to themes, issues, approaches, and learnings (and

unlearning) from Indigenous perspectives that are directly related to course themes. These presentations will be scheduled during class time and tailored to course needs, but open to other students and faculty across UTSC. This initiative addresses several recognized campus priorities in the area of inclusive pedagogy and curriculum, as outlined below. It also follows a direct recommendation of the HCS Equity Committee that we increase opportunities for both students and faculty to learn about Indigenous issues, methods, and epistemologies and their relevance for our courses.

#3) Cultural Dialogues: A Global Learning Experience

Faculty Lead: Bettina von Lieres, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream (Department of Global Development Studies)

Project Description:  This project seeks to foster international virtual exchange and intercultural student dialogue and learning in the curriculum. In partnership with the UTSC International Student Centre (ISC) and Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation (GCDI), it will convene UTSC students participating in IDSA02/AFSA03 - Experiencing Development in Africa - with students participating from Stellenbosch University, the University of the Western Cape, (South Africa), and University West (Sweden). Engaging students as partners, this will be a co-created global learning space for dialogue, partnership, and shared learning and meaning-making. Through a series of student-centered and equity-driven workshops and facilitated synchronous sessions, this project aims to center Black (and African) knowledges, racialized perspectives, and international and intercultural perspectives, while also foregrounding the importance of essential intersectionality and interdisciplinarity.

PIE Circle 2

O.N.E. Community 

Faculty Co-Leads: George Quan Fun, Professor, Teaching Stream Accounting Joanna Heathcote, Associate Professor, Teaching Stream OB/HR, David Taylor, Academic Coordinator, Jacqueline Dean, Coordinator, Office of the Chair (Department of Management)

Project Description:  was launched in May 2021 within the Department of Management. In alignment with the goals of UTSC’s strategic plan and inspired by our desire to advance “equity-based, holistic, accessible, anti-racist, and anti-colonial pedagogies and curricular development”. Our focus is on elevating Black excellence in a way that shows our students its value in business, leadership, and academia. We see Black excellence as that which has so often been placed in the shadows, marginalized, and/or misappropriated as equal to the excellence of all others, now in the light. We aim to increase Black representation within the Management Department's space by presenting our members with opportunities to get involved, network, and engage with the UTSC community. Our mission is to nurture the leaders of tomorrow through intentional connection with Black leaders of today.

EDI-BioSci Outreach and Inreach

Faculty Project Co-Leads: Ivana Stehlik, Associate Professor Teaching stream,  Aarthi Ashok, Professor Teaching stream, Ina Anreiter, Assistant Professor, Karolyn Keir, Lab manager, Luciana Baruffaldi-Yanez, Research Associate (Department of Biological Sciences)

Outreach: Student interest and persistence in STEM, especially among historically underrepresented groups, is influenced by active learning experiences in high-school science courses[1]. The project team proposes co-developing a curriculum-linked, in-class science enrichment program with teachers from four Scarborough schools, who lack resources for meaningful STEM activities. Hiring an Outreach Coordinator to enrich the curriculum and train Undergraduate Outreach Mentors, will diversify and strengthen the pipeline of prospective UTSC biology program students.

Inreach: Strengthening faculty-student relationships to build a strong sense of belonging, establishing effective communication channels with our large, diverse student body, and creating student-alumni mentoring opportunities are central Inclusive Excellence goals of EDI-BioSci. The project team seek to hire an Inclusive Excellence Coordinator to facilitate several initiatives aimed at fostering a sense of belonging, and retention of students from historically underrepresented groups, in line with the recommended actions of the curriculum review and inclusive teaching and learning practices at UTSC.

PIE Circle 1

Indigenous Perspectives across the Curriculum: An HCS Indigenous Speaker Series - Faculty Lead: Professor Connie Guberman (Department of Historical and Cultural Studies (HCS))

• Project Description: This project seeks to establish a year-long Indigenous speaker series hosted by HCS. Indigenous guest speakers will be invited to a dozen or more large introductory courses (primarily A- and B-levels) throughout the year to introduce students to themes, issues, approaches, and learnings (and unlearning) from Indigenous perspectives that are directly related to course themes. These presentations will be scheduled during class time and tailored to course needs, but open to other students and faculty across UTSC. This initiative addresses several recognized campus priorities in the area of inclusive pedagogy and curriculum. It also follows a direct recommendation of the HCS Equity Committee to increase opportunities for both students and faculty to learn about Indigenous issues, methods, and epistemologies and their relevance to the courses.

Integrating Global and Intercultural Lived Experience and Co-curriculum into Curriculum - Faculty Lead: Professor Bettina von Lieres (Department of Global Development Studies)

• Project Description: This project seeks to foster international virtual exchange and intercultural student dialogue and learning in the curriculum. In partnership with the UTSC International Student Centre (ISC) and Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation (GCDI), it will convene UTSC students participating in IDSA02/AFSA03 - Experiencing Development in Africa - with students participating in one course (TBD) within the Sociology and Social Anthropology Honours and Masters Module at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Engaging students as partners, this will be a co-created global learning space for dialogue, partnership, and shared learning and meaning-making. Through a series of student-centered and equity-driven workshops and facilitated synchronous sessions, this project aims to center Black (and African) knowledges, racialized perspectives, and international and intercultural perspectives, while also foregrounding the importance of intersectionality and interdisciplinarity. Anticipated outcomes include: greater student agency over curriculum; heightened cultural intelligence; developed skills in leadership and group facilitation; and significant opportunities to share lived experience.

Symposium: The Equity-Based Classroom: Moving Beyond Allyship - Faculty Lead: Professor Sanaz Mazinani (Department of Arts, Culture and Media)

• Project Description: This project proposes a two-day symposium that will focus on anti-oppression training and development for UTSC staff, faculty, Librarians, Postdoctoral and graduate students. This symposium will move past allyship and towards solidarity actions. With a focus specifically on arts curriculum, the symposium will provide space for workshops, presentations, and discussion towards a decolonial and anti-racist student learning environment, offering the UTSC community a space to challenge thinking and to broaden perspectives towards new pedagogical futures.

The program will include three key segments:

• Radical Solidarity in the Workplace - Anti-oppression training with a specialized Facilitator focusing on Social Justice and Liberation.
• Disrupting the Collection - Panel of experts focusing on how various voices get represented in postsecondary Libraries and Archives, and how these decisions apply to experiential teaching and learning within the arts curriculum.
• Confronting Racism in the Classroom - Workshops sharing practices and tools on decolonizing the classroom.

Catalysing Knowledge Co-production and Equitable Community-University Partnership through Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) - Faculty Lead: Leslie Chan (Department of Global Development Studies)

• Project Description: This project was seeking funding to support two interrelated activities:

1. A Summer Institute on CBPAR hosted by the Takaronto Knowledge for Change (TK4C) Hub, a partnership between the Knowledge Equity Lab at UTSC, CL&D, and OCIC. The Institute will take place at UTSC over two days in late June 2023.
2. Hiring a co-op student for three months starting in May. The student will support the logistics and promotion of the Institute. After the Institute, the student will continue to coordinate the sustainability planning process for the TK4C Hub. This will ensure TK4C can continue with a variety of community engaged learning and research initiatives.

The Institute will broaden CBPAR methodologies to community practitioners and students engaged in addressing equity and social justice issues in their respective communities. It will strengthen KEL and TK4C’s pioneering effort in community-engaged scholarship, and equitable and reciprocal partnership building with local and international community organizations.

Unlearning Environment: Engaging Indigenous Perspectives in Environmental Sciences - Faculty Co-Leads: Professor Stuart Livingstone, Professor Karen Smith, and Professor Elyse Caron-Beaudoin (Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences)

• Project Description: This project seeks to promote anti-colonial and anti-oppressive pedagogy at UTSC through the co-development of an experiential learning opportunity for UTSC Graduate students in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences. The interdepartmental team aims to work with community partners to co-develop a field trip to the Indigenous lodge, Akinomaagaye Gaamik, on the New Credit First Nation. Here, where students will have an opportunity to engage with Indigenous culture and practice and reflect on their own values, conceptions and responsibilities through an immersive land-based learning experience. The trip and associated curriculum would be integrated into the core seminar course for the Master of Environmental Science program (EES1100). Anticipated outcomes are 1) developing students’ knowledge of Indigenous culture and contemporary experience in Canada, 2) creation of an open access digital archive of student reflections from these experiences, and 3) fostering the creation lifelong Indigenous allies in our students.

SOC D02 Global Field School Indigenous Costa Rica - Faculty Lead: Professor Danielle Kwan-Lafond (Department of Sociology)

• Project Description: This project was requesting funding for the travel portion of a summer course (SOC D02 Global Field School Indigenous Costa Rica) that focuses on learning United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) principles and decolonization through experiential and land-based learning, and through meaningful community engagement with Indigenous university students and their communities in Costa Rica. The course takes place first on campus (seminar-style classes), then through an intensive travel experience to TEC University and to Indigenous territories in Costa Rica.

PIE Circle 1 – Renewal

Opportunities Networking Engagement (O.N.E.) Community Initiative - Faculty Lead: Professor Julie McCarthy (Department of Management)

• Project Description: O.N.E. Community is an initiative that was launched in 2022 within the Department of Management. In alignment with the goals of UTSC’s strategic plan, this initiative is inspired by the desire to advance “equity-based, holistic, accessible, anti-racist, and anti-colonial pedagogies and curricular development”. A key goal of O.N.E. community is to advance student learning by attracting Black professionals to the department to become sessional lecturers, guest speakers in a class or event, mentors for students and/or collaborators on student projects with the BRIDGE. With a particular focus on Black knowledges, racialized perspectives, and international and intercultural perspectives. This will be accomplished by fostering and engaging in relationships with Black professionals in the community and surrounding area. Outcomes of this project include the incorporation of Black ways of knowing, experiences, and excellence in the classroom, as well as increased representation of Black professionals.

Relation and Reciprocity: Scarborough Music Archive - Faculty Co-Leads: Professor Mark Campbell and Professor Laura Risk (Department of Arts, Culture, and Media (ACM))

• Project Description: This project works through two interrelated concepts, reciprocity and relation, to achieve a higher level of connection to the local community amongst ACM students. Students in several Music and Culture courses are participating in co-creating a Scarborough music archive as a curricular innovation. This archive will serve future generations of UTSC students as well as the local Scarborough community. Ultimately, this project, which is in partnership with the UTSC Library and the Music Library (UTSG), will deepen connections between local music, future curricula, and members of the local Scarborough community. This project began in 2022-2023 in two C-level Music and Culture courses with a series of guest speakers, a local field trip, and participant-observation and interviews with local community music organizations. With this second year of funding, they plan to expand this project to A- and B-level courses.

PIE Circle 2

BioSci 360-Degree EDI: Fostering belonging and inclusive community through academic and co-curricular supports for biology students - Faculty Co-Leads: Professor Aarthi Ashok and Professor Maydianne Andrade (Department of Biological Sciences)

• Project Description: The Department of Biological Sciences (BioSci) seeks funding for its multi-pronged approach to supporting wholistic student success through inclusive curriculum, connections between students and faculty, financial support, and research opportunities. The literature is clear on how personal relationships, co-curricular engagement, mentoring, research experiences, and inclusive environments increase retention and success, particularly for students from under-represented groups, and particularly in the sciences. Creating community in BioSci is challenging due to large class sizes (A level:~1000; C-level ~100 on average) and relatively high student:faculty ratios. Overcoming these challenges of scale is urgent given mandated BioSci enrolment increases as part of the SAMIH agreement. Inclusive programs can attract and retain more students. Outcomes to be realized within a year include sustainable establishment of the programs described, high uptake by current students, and benchmarking of student satisfaction metrics (surveys). In the longer term, increased student satisfaction, engagement, and student retention are anticipated.

PIE Circle 1

Opportunities Networking Engagement (O.N.E.) Community - Faculty Lead: Professor Julie McCarthy (Department of Management)

• Project Description: This project builds on existing successes in the Department of Management and holds significant potential to enrich inclusive teaching and learning opportunities at UTSC and further grow relationships between the Department of Management and Black leaders and professionals.

A key goal of the O.N.E. community is to advance student learning by attracting Black professionals to the Department of Management to become sessional lectures, guest speakers in a class or event, mentors for students and/or collaborators on student projects with the BRIDGE.

Critical Landscape - Faculty Lead: Professor Alexander Irving (Department of Arts, Culture, and Media)

• Project Description: This new course offering will support Indigenous artists and advance students' understanding of treaty partnerships through land- and arts-based learning.

Relation and Reciprocity: Scarborough Music Archive - Faculty Co-Leads: Professor Mark Campbell and Professor Laura Risk (Department of Arts, Culture, and Media (ACM))

• Project Description: This project works through two interrelated concepts, reciprocity and relation, to achieve a higher level of connection to the local community amongst students. Students in MUZC80 and MUZC01 will participate in co-creating a Scarborough music archive as a curricular innovation that will serve future generations of UTSC students as well as the local Scarborough community.

PIE Circle 2

The BRIDGE Lab: Out of Many, One Mural Art Project - Faculty Lead: Professor Andre Cire (Department of Management)

• Project Description: The purpose of the project is to embed an inclusive community art installation that centers and is created by Black voices into the fabric of the Department of Management, that aids to foster a deeper sense of belonging amongst its diverse users and the wider UTSC community and external partners.