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CELEBRATING THE BEST OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FRASER VALLEY
THE INDIGENIZER Shirley Hardman’s journey of discovery guides her mission at UFV
RESILIENCE
16 UNPACKING ASSUMPTIONS Nerlap Sidhu helps her students to challenge injustice and create positive change.
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20 OPPORTUNITY IN ADVERSITY While COVID-19 disrupted society on all levels, it also provided UFV researchers with the opportunity to study various aspects of a pandemic in real time.
24 JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY Before Shirley Hardman could become a guide and leader for Indigenous students, she had to find her own way back to her culture and heritage.
Photo: Darren McDonald
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Ellie Sinclair didn’t have the first year she was hoping for, but she rallied to find academic success while waiting for the green light on her COVID-postponed volleyball plans.
Photo: Sandy Tait
It was, of course, a challenging year for universities, and UFV was no exception. One where we all adapted. Coped. Even, in some cases, flourished. Studying from home and being unable to play the sport she loves wasn’t volleyball player Ellie Sinclair’s game plan for her first year of university. But she buckled down, sought help, and ultimately succeeded in her studies. We go back a long way with resilience at UFV. Back in 1990/91 those advocating for bachelor’s degree-level programming and university-college status for Fraser Valley College were told, repeatedly and emphatically, “NO!” But they persevered and won the day. The University College of the Fraser Valley was announced 30 years ago on July 5, 1991, setting the stage for the development of our first bachelor’s degrees and, 17 years later, university status. As women of colour, Shirley Hardman, Nerlap Sidhu (BA ’04), and Jasmin Kaur (BA ’17) have all faced barriers as they pursued their goals and work towards social justice for all. All three have shown resilience and achieved success. Donors Aird and Sheila Flavelle see and value the strength and resilience shown by UFV and its people, and continue to be among our biggest fans, even when our events are offered remotely.
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12 BUMP, SET, SPIKE!
28 WRITING HER WAY
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Jasmin Kaur’s poetry and prose is having an international impact. Creative writing classes at UFV helped this published author and self-described shy person find her voice.
32 HISTORY IN THE MAKING 2021 marks 30 years since Fraser Valley College was transformed into the University College of the Fraser Valley and we began to develop our own degree programs. But it didn’t happen without a struggle.
44 UFV BOOSTER Aird Flavelle is a big proponent of the benefits of having a university in one’s community.
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Skookum: good, best, ultimate, first-rate. From the Chinook jargon, a trade dialect that bridged different cultures as it was used by groups of Indigenous people and multi-ethnic newcomers to British Columbia.
DEPARTMENTS & SECTIONS 4 6 8
President’s Message Our new Strategic Plan UFV News
ALUMNI
24 On the cover: Shirley Hardman is a familiar figure at UFV and has led many initiatives aimed at Indigenizing the university. Photo: Britney Berrner
36 Alumni Notes 38 Distinguished Alumni — Catching Up 40 Keeping in Touch
GIVING 47 Celebrating the impact of UFV Ripple Makers 49 A Lasting Legacy
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Photo: Darren McDonald
t President Joanne MacLean participated in UFV’s online Convocation ceremony on June 18. You can view the ceremony by scanning the QR code below.
A YEAR OF RESILIENCE, WITH HOPE ON THE HORIZON A MESSAGE FROM UFV PRESIDENT JOANNE MACLEAN
The release of Skookum coincides every year with the celebration of our graduating class. And this year, I’m struck once again by the feeling of hope for our graduates as they head out into the world and onto their next phase of life, but this year, I’m also focused on another glimmering light on the horizon. Science and research have delivered the COVID-19 vaccines that will ultimately put an end to this pandemic. One year ago we were in the midst of the first wave. People in all segments of life were puzzling out how to adapt. How to deliver education, how to work, how to study, how to live. Now we see the shining possibility of returning to classes, community, and a more normal life this Fall. Over the past year and a half, I have witnessed collaboration, hard work, adaptation, kindness, determination, and patience. UFV students, faculty, staff, and our broader society, have persevered and showed great tenacity in continuing our mission of engaging learners, transforming lives, and building lasting and diverse communities. Sadly, we have also witnessed social upheaval and absorbed devastating news within the Indigenous and Muslim communities. I hope that as a society we show the strength, compassion, and courage in these difficult times as the majority of Canadians have during this pandemic. 4 SKOOKUM
Shirley Hardman understands better than most the need for education. The Senior Advisor on Indigenous Affairs at UFV has been instrumental in continuing UFV efforts to include Indigenous ways of knowing and learning. Her own lived experience has prepared her well to provide assistance to students seeking guidance; she also graciously helps faculty and staff leaders incorporate Indigenization into curriculum, ceremonies, and everyday life at UFV. Making positive change in society definitely requires leadership. Nerlap Sidhu (BA ’04) earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at UFV in 2004 and teaches at Eugene Reimer Middle School in Abbotsford. She is now a relentless volunteer with a strong ability to articulate her vision and push societal change. She has overcome discrimination and shapes the world by leading community projects that are detailed in her story. The world is a complicated place, but I take solace and pride in knowing UFV prepares students and graduates to thrive and contribute to a better world. And we have been doing so for decades. As UFV looks toward our 50th anniversary in 2024/25, Skookum also looks back at our history and how we became UFV. For Jasmin Kaur (BA ’17), who has yet to turn 30, earning a Bachelor of Arts
with a major in English in 2017 changed her world. Her transformation came after she discovered creative writing at UFV. Named a rising star by Vogue, and a writer to watch by CBC Books, her work explores themes of feminism, womanhood, social justice, and love as mechanisms of healing and reclaiming identity. Ellie Sinclair was just looking to reclaim her freshman year at UFV, but now she is proof that students have not just survived but thrived in tough circumstances. As a first-year student, she was looking forward to playing volleyball with the Cascades when the pandemic turned her world upside down. She tells her story of overcoming obstacles and academic challenges in a year like no other. I hope you will find comfort and inspiration in these stories and in the knowledge that the transformative effect UFV has on many lives will help our society rebound and stride toward a brighter and more inclusive future just over our horizon.
Joanne MacLean, PhD — UFV President & Vice-Chancellor
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OUR MISSION
Engaging Learners / Yoystexw ye totilthet Transforming Lives / Ayeqet kw’e shxwaylexws Building Community / Thayt kw’e st ’elt ’elawtexw OUR PROMISE
We will work to realize this Vision by honouring our three-fold mission statement OUR GOALS
to engage learners…
to transform lives…
to build community…
Provide inclusive learning environments for everyone
Provide opportunities for people to discover, develop, and share their gifts while also recognizing and celebrating the gifts of others
Collaborate and partner in pursuits that enrich the lives of all people on our campuses, in our local communities, and beyond
to engage learners…
to transform lives…
to build community…
+ Honour Indigenous knowledge at all touchpoints of learning
+ Dismantle settler colonialism by centering Stó:lō ways of knowing and being in the University
+ Commit to achieving the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
OUR STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES
+ Identify and remove access barriers for individuals from marginalized and underrepresented groups
Ey swayel. After two years of consultation with internal and external stakeholders, we are excited to be launching our new Integrated Strategic Plan, which we call IYAQAWTXW — House of Transformation. OUR VISION
UFV will be known as a gathering place for learners, leaders, and seekers. We will pursue diverse pathways of scholarship, leading to community connection, reconciliation, and prosperity, locally and beyond.
+ Enhance deep listening, dialogue, and democratic civil engagement + Foster interdisciplinary and integrated forms of engagement + Emphasize active and experiential forms of learning + Provide opportunities for students to participate in experiential learning and/or research and scholarly activities with faculty members + Enhance digital literacy and access to technology + Provide accessible and flexible opportunities to support personalized, lifelong learning.
+ Prioritize the health and well-being of our community members and our ecosystems + Integrate equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) into all aspects of our institutional culture + Support various pathways that lead to the attainment and recognition of students’ educational goals + Develop institution-wide experiential learning opportunities + Support targeted personal and professional development for faculty and staff + Foster meaningful collaboration and engagement opportunities with members of our community + Share and celebrate the accomplishments of our UFV community and alumni with others.
+ Offer programs and conduct scholarly activities that enrich the lives of those in the Fraser Valley + Improve community access to UFV’s programs + Build programs that educate our students to act as ethical and engaged global citizens who redress historical injustices + Develop a vibrant and diverse culture on each of our campuses + Develop meaningful community partnerships and action-oriented projects that support social innovation, economic development, and environmental sustainability + Create opportunities for the world to positively interact with the Fraser Valley and for the Fraser Valley to positively interact with the world.
OUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT
UFV is situated on S’ólh Téméxw, the traditional lands of the Stó:lō.
Learn more at ufv.ca/strategic-planning
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UFV NEWS
PANKRATZ AT THE HELM OF BOARD John Pankratz (UT ’80) has returned to UFV for a second term as Board of Governors chair, effective August 1, 2020. His first term was from 2016–19. A Chartered Professional Accountant, Pankratz is a partner in the Abbotsford office of Grant Thornton LLP. He is also an alumnus of UFV. He attended in 1979/80. Pankratz is grateful for a post-secondary system that allows students to explore while they find their strengths. He initially wanted to be a veterinarian, so took introductory science at UFV (then FVC). After deciding vet school was not in his future, he tried other courses, checking out philosophy, history, and other disciplines. Then he decided a business degree was a good route to an administrative job. While studying upper-level business courses at Simon Fraser University he found that accounting courses were the ones in which he excelled. This inspired his choice to become an accountant. “I went into post-secondary with one intention, and emerged as an accountant at the end. I’m grateful for everything I learned along the way, and that the educational system allowed me the flexibility to explore different disciplines.”
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MURRAY SELECTED AS DEAN OF ARTS
ABBOTSFORD’S BUILDING A-EAST GETS A REFRESH
Dr. Sylvie Murray will be the new Dean of the College of Arts. Her career at UFV spans 27 years. Her experience includes positions as a faculty member and department head in the History department, Senate member, and executive member of the UFV Faculty and Staff Association. Murray served as Program Development Coordinator within the Vice-Provost’s office from 2013 to 2016 before joining the College of Arts Dean’s office as Associate Dean of Faculty. Murray holds a PhD in History from Yale University, and an MA and BA in History from the University of Quebec at Montreal. She is the author of two books in her field of expertise (20th-century American history), a number of book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed publications, and reviews in many journals.
The new year ushered in a new look on UFV’s Abbotsford campus. Building A-East now has a dramatically improved exterior, vastly improved insulation, and extensive tech and cosmetic upgrades. Most noticeably, the aging exterior has been removed and replaced with an upgraded exterior insulation and finish system (EIFS), allowing for wall inspections, improved insulation, and upgraded windows — significantly improving energy efficiency while substantially reducing operating costs. The project also included upgrades to wi-fi, fibre networks, lighting, flooring, roofing, stairwells, window coverings, and more.
CELEBRATING EMPLOYEE EXCELLENCE UFV honoured employees in six categories with Employee Excellence awards this spring in the following categories: • Faculty Service Excellence: Satwinder Bains, South Asian Studies Institute • Leadership: Nicole Adams, Director, Financial Services • Research Excellence: Scott Sheffield, History • Staff Excellence: Shelley Hayes (pictured), Agriculture • Teaching Excellence: Awneet Sivia, Teacher Education • Teamwork: IT Service Desk.
SIDHU REAPPOINTED AS CHANCELLOR Dr. Andy Sidhu has been reappointed as UFV Chancellor by the UFV Board of Governors. His three-year term began on April 1. A champion of community engagement and integration, Dr. Sidhu was first appointed in 2018, as UFV’s third Chancellor. He took over from Dr. Gwen Point, who served as UFV’s second Chancellor from 2014 to 18, following two terms by Dr. Brian Minter. UFV began the practice of appointing a Chancellor after receiving university status in 2008.
LITTLE SISTER SIGNS ON TO MAKE FOR POWER TUCHSCHERER TRIO Julia Tuchscherer’s decision to sign with the UFV women’s basketball program will probably not come as a huge surprise to B.C. basketball observers. It’s well known, after all, that the Tuchscherer family’s connection to UFV runs deep. Julia’s father Al (BA ’01) is in his 19th year as head coach of the Cascades women’s hoops squad, sister Deanna is a standout forward with the Cascades, and mother Denise (BA ’99) is a Cascades Hall of Famer who led the program to three national medals in the mid-1990s. Yet it’s the timing of Julia’s arrival that might catch some off guard.
The current 2020-21 school year was supposed to be Julia’s Grade 11 year — she was originally on track to graduate as part of the Class of 2022. But as a high academic achiever who had worked ahead on her core subjects throughout her high school career, combined with taking the odd elective by correspondence in the summertime and jumping on the opportunity to work ahead during the COVID-19 pandemic, Julia found herself on track to finish high school this year. Welcome to UFV, Julia, although we guess you’ve been here all along!
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UFV NEWS
SASI RECEIVES $1.14 MILLION IN FUNDING UFV’s South Asian Studies Institute, with support from the Abbotsford Community Foundation, has received $1.14 million in funding from the Province of BC to deliver Haq and History: A Punjabi Canadian Legacy Project. The funding allows SASI to continue work showcasing past and present contributions of the Punjabi community to British Columbia. “A primary goal of the project is to improve the historical record of the significant contributions of South Asian Canadians with the goal of reducing racism while underscoring the value of B.C.’s diverse society,” says SASI Director Satwinder Kaur Bains. The funding is an extension of two phases and six years of combined effort between SASI and the Royal BC Museum. This partnership has been researching, collecting, and sharing histories through the Punjabi Canadian Legacy Project — with South Asian Canadian community partners in Golden, Prince George, Vancouver Island, Kelowna, Vancouver, Surrey and Abbotsford.
EDI ACTION PLAN UNVEILED
UFV LAUNCHES CAREER MAPPING TOOL
STUDENT MEDALISTS
UFV has implemented an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) action plan, based on the recommendations of the UFV President’s EDI Task Force and seven working groups. The plan has four overarching goals and 40 action items that UFV has committed to in order to help achieve these goals. The purpose of the action plan is to identify and address barriers to equity of access and opportunity for under-represented students, faculty, and staff. This plan is a living document and will be reviewed each year. Most recently, UFV hired Sundeep Hans as its first Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. She holds a Master of Arts in Global Diplomacy from SOAS, University of London, and most recently served as the senior leader on equity and diversity at the Waterloo Regional District School Board in Ontario.
The Centre for Experiential and Career Education (CECE) has a new tool for UFV students, faculty, and staff — the Career Mapping Tool. This robust, one-of-a-kind tool is designed to help students explore and engage with future careers. It is designed specifically for UFV and is tailored to the university’s diverse student population and academic programming. The Career Mapping Tool will help identify education-to-career gaps and reduce the confusion students often face when thinking about their future. This tool can be used in career planning, in the classroom, and in day-to-day activities where staff and faculty are helping students connect their current studies to careers and opportunities after they graduate. UFV is grateful to RBC for the support of the Centre for Experiential and Career Education and the development of the Career Mapping Tool.
Our academic medalists were feted at a special video version of UFV Convocation on June 18. The Governor General’s Gold Medal went to Ryan Buhrig, who earned a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice. The Governor General’s Silver Medal was received by Tanner Boos, who earned a Bachelor of Science. The Governor General’s Bronze Medal was earned by Early Childhood Education diploma graduate Alona Gurieva. And the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal went to Faria Firoz, a Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate.
BLM SOCIAL JUSTICE ART PROJECT SHOWCASED IN COMMUNITY
TWO NEW RESEARCH CENTRES LAUNCHED UFV formally launched two new research centres this academic year. The Peace and Reconciliation Centre (PARC) will focus on local, national, and global issues of peace and reconciliation, and serve as a place for collaboration for UFV faculty, students, and community partners. Dr. Keith Carlson is the Director of PARC. The Oikodome Foundation, run by the Vanderpol family of Abbotsford, is a major funder of PARC. The Esposito Family Centre for Innovation
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& Entrepreneurship (EFCIE), established through a generous endowment provided by the Esposito family, is based on the idea that great minds working together help build great communities. Dr. Jon Thomas (pictured at left) has been appointed as the Director of EFCIE. “Our centre will work to foster an inclusive, vibrant, and resilient space for innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives for the UFV and Fraser Valley communities,” Thomas said.
UFV FOOD AND AGRICULTURE INSTITUTE RECEIVES CLOSE TO $235,000 IN FUNDING Researchers at UFV will be exploring the future of food thanks to a grant from a federally funded organization dedicated to strengthening skills development in Canada. The UFV Food and Agriculture Institute (FAI) has received a grant of $234,859 from the Future Skills Centre (FSC) in support of FAI’s research in the field of emerging agricultural technologies and the future of food in Canada. The research explores the potential of cellular agriculture —
food made using cell cultures instead of animals or plants — to create a sustainable year-round supply of nutritious food and develop jobs in this emerging sector. The UFV Food and Agriculture Institute will work with research partner New Harvest, an independent nonprofit research institute that supports open, public research on food grown from cell cultures and that is fully dedicated to advancing the field of cellular agriculture.
UFV’s CityStudio Abbotsford inspired a project that led to the creation of a fourcanvas travel-ready exhibit examining issues surrounding racism. Two UFV professors, Shelley Stefan and Cherie Enns, worked with four local BIPOC artists and a cultural mentor to paint canvas art that will spread awareness of the Black Lives Matter message. “The idea is to send this message to the community through creativity,” notes Prabhjot Kaur, a UFV computing student, who supported the project as a workstudy student focused on web design and community engagement. The four artists featured are Michelle Msami, Faria Faroz (BFA ’21), Rain Neeposh, and Dona Park. They were guided by cultural mentor Desiree Dawson.
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Photo: Dan Kinvig Photo Illustration: Marie Tary
COVID dashed plans for volleyball season, but supporters helped rookie succeed academically
T N A FERE F I D T U B E D BY DAN KINVIG
Put yourself in Ellie Sinclair’s shoes. Back on March 2, 2020, when she was introduced as part of the UFV women’s volleyball team’s class of incoming recruits, she had a very distinct picture of what her first year of university would look like. She’d attend in-person classes primarily on the Abbotsford campus, pursuing her Criminal Justice degree alongside likeminded peers, with future employment with the Canadian Border Services Agency as the end goal. She’d compete in front of supportive home crowds at the UFV Athletic Centre, making history as part of the first Cascades women’s volleyball team to play at the U SPORTS level. (The volleyball team made the leap up to this highest level of Canadian university competition in 2020.) She’d travel extensively, making volleyball road trips across Western Canada with a group of teammates who would become some of her closest friends.
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That vision began to melt away in slowmotion in March of 2020, when the World Health Organization officially recognized COVID-19 as a pandemic. University classes shifted primarily to online. The U SPORTS season was cancelled in stages, limiting teams to practising within strict provincial protocols. And thus, Ellie’s freshman year became an exercise in adaptation.
“ Personally, I found it pretty hard,” she says, reflecting on watching her academic and athletic expectations slip away over the course of the spring, summer, and fall. “It was a struggle some days to find motivation.”
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Dating back to elementary school, Ellie’s academic journey has been complicated by a reading comprehension learning disability. She was good with numbers, so math came easily. She had a good memory, so she generally tested well. But absorbing and interpreting the written word was a tremendous struggle. To fully comprehend a text, she’d have to read it over at least four times, whereas most of her classmates would achieve the same level of understanding in one or two readings. Despite that, Ellie was a solid student during her time at Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary in Surrey, B.C., posting A’s and B’s while receiving supplementary academic input from learning support team (LST) teachers. When it came time to pick a university, Ellie wasn’t simply fixated on the volleyball situation. Recruited by volleyball programs at Simon Fraser University and Douglas College in addition to UFV, she spent a lot of time researching each school’s academic support infrastructure. And in the end, what UFV could offer through its Centre for Accessibility Services (CAS) was a major factor in her decision to sign with the Cascades.
A subpar mark on her Psychology 101 midterm was Ellie’s wake-up call — “like a punch in the face,” she says. She reconnected with Helen at the CAS, who helped her obtain digital versions of her textbooks along with a software called Kurzweil 3000 that could read her textbooks out loud to her. The CAS also reached out to her professors, and she was granted additional time to complete exams. She also leaned heavily on her veteran teammates with the Cascades women’s volleyball team. Fourth-year studentathlete Lauren Poirier took Ellie under her wing academically, explaining how to use the Blackboard Learn software, and breaking down how to stay on top of her academic workload. That involved hanging an oversized calendar on the wall above her desk, and transferring all of her readings, assignments, and exam dates from her course syllabi onto it, colourcoding with highlighter. As Ellie began to find her footing academically, she also started to feel at home with the Cascades. Third-year veteran Grace Warkentin came alongside to show her what it took to compete at a high level in practice, day in and day out. She also got to know her teammates better thanks to a number of creative activities organized by head coach Janelle Rozema. While the squad wasn’t able to enjoy casual social interaction at the gym due to pandemic protocols — they’d do a COVID symptom check upon entry, practise in accordance with the latest provincial guidelines, then exit immediately in a socially distanced fashion, Coach Rozema built community by hosting bonding activities via Zoom, including watch parties of The Last Dance (Netflix’s Michael Jordan documentary series).
“ They were superwelcoming at CAS,” she says. “I had multiple meetings with them when I was in Grade 11 and 12. I didn’t feel like I was going to be alone going to UFV.” Over the course of her senior year of high school, Ellie developed a relationship via email with CAS accessibility advisor Helen Twentyman, who gave her feedback on what academic supports would be available to her at UFV. When the fall 2020 semester began, though, Ellie didn’t initially lean on those supports. The volleyball schedule proved to be a bit of a whirlwind, more demanding than she’d expected. Even with no games on the schedule, the Cascades were doing skill and fitness work daily. Keeping up with the readings across all of her classes proved a major challenge.
“ I feel like I always have someone to talk to,” Ellie says. “I’ve never really not been part of a sports team,
so I don’t know any different — what it would be like not to have those people. But I always feel like I have someone by my side. I don’t even feel alone.” At the conclusion of the fall semester, Ellie’s jaw dropped when she saw her GPA: It was at 3.89, putting her on the Dean’s List and on track for U SPORTS Academic All-Canadian honours. “I didn’t think I was doing that well,” she says. “I had to try very, very hard. In high school, I wasn’t used to having to work as hard as I needed to in university, so it was kind of a shock. I definitely couldn’t slack off one bit. “I felt proud of myself. I wasn’t expecting that, at all. It gave me more confidence going into the next semester.” As she looks to the future, Ellie is optimistic… and a bit nervous. On one hand, she’s added a lot of tools to her toolbox this year. She understands how hard she has to work academically, and how to manage her time to give herself the best chance at success. She knows how to access the learning resources that make such a big difference for her. And she’s got a built-in support system around her in her Cascades teammates and coaches. At the same time, as Ellie looks ahead to the planned return of in-person classes in the fall, there’s a bit of trepidation. “Other than my campus tour, I’ve never been anywhere at UFV other than the gym,” she says with a wry chuckle. “I’ll be a second-year, but I still feel like a first-year because I’ve never been there for in-person classes. “After this year, I do feel more prepared, but I’m also a little nervous. “But I’m excited. It’ll be a new experience.”
Ellie Sinclair playing high school volleyball. COVID-19 restrictions cancelled her first university season. 14 SKOOKUM
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to assimilate with her predominantly white classmates. Hours were spent on the volleyball court and the soccer field. She felt at home there, and learned leadership skills, discipline, a work ethic, and sportsmanship. “I found sports was a really neat space where you didn’t really have to worry about the colour of your skin,” she recalls. “So, I found that a real kind of safe space for myself personally.” In those days, Nerlap was known as Anita at school. A teacher anglicized her name, as was common practice in those days. Decades later, at age 38, she reclaimed the Punjabi name her mother gave her, Nerlap, for use in all aspects of her life. But athletic talents, intelligence, or blending in cannot completely shield people of colour from ignorance, microaggressions, and occasional side comments. Nerlap remembers being called a derogatory name by a classmate on the playground. Sometimes it was subtle, sometimes it was overt. “You think that you fit in with everybody else to a certain degree, and then you realize, well, I’ve been called these derogatory names and I am different,” she says. “And, that kind of startles you.
TEACHING SOCIAL JUSTICE How Nerlap Kaur Sidhu is transforming the classroom and empowering youth BY GERALD NARCISO PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN McDONALD
Inside Nerlap Kaur Sidhu’s classroom, there’s a giant sign that reads: If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you. Underneath are more than 30 colourful self-portraits neatly lined up and symmetrically organized into three rows. More important than the art quality is the diversity, the pride, and most importantly, the stories, derived from each of the pre-teens’ faces in the portraits. Their self-portraits reflect the ethnic diversity of Abbotsford today. Each one original and each one authentic.
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“We all have a story,” says Nerlap, a teacher at Eugene Reimer Middle School in Abbotsford, and a UFV alumna who earned her BA in geography in 2004. “Our youth need to understand that their life stories matter. Most importantly, that they matter.” Discovering self-identity and understanding your roots is a journey Nerlap is well familiar with: the complex cultural experiences she navigated locally in her own youth in the 1970s and ’80s make her both credible and relatable. Nerlap is an Abbotsford homegirl.
Her grandparents and mother immigrated from India, but she was born in B.C. and grew up on a dairy farm on Sumas Prairie, about 20 km away from the school where she now teaches. And the family connection to UFV runs deep. She remembers her father driving her mother to English as a Second Language classes at the Abbotsford campus. At her own elementary school, she was one of the few children of South Asian descent. But despite the cultural and appearance differences, Nerlap was able
“So, that part of my childhood definitely brings me to the social justice work I am so passionate about.” For the past 17 years, Nerlap has been teaching in public school in Abbotsford. Not just teaching the curriculum, but instilling confidence into her students by encouraging them to embrace their heritage and who they are. “No child should have to feel uncomfortable in their skin,” she says.
PROMISES MADE It starts with a pledge printed on a horizontal 8-by-11 sheet of paper stapled to the side of a cardboard handcrafted backpack. I promise...to be the best me...to fight for what’s right...to be there for family and friends through dark and hard times... to never give up...to work my hardest... to stand up for others...to get right back up...to respect others... If you turned on CBC News or checked the local papers around the Fraser Valley last fall, chances are you noticed that students at Eugene Reimer were at the forefront of a local social justice movement. Children from multiple ethnicities donned artistic cardboard backpacks with anti-racism, inclusion, and equity messages. Dubbed Equity Backpacks, each displayed messages that were both
authentic to their own back stories and signaled empathy to marginalized people. The year 2020 was historic on many levels. On top of the coronavirus global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and social justice reform in the United States hit a breaking point, intensified by the racially charged killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. “I was very disheartened, it was like a gut-wrenching pain witnessing all of those experiences that were playing out in the world,” says Nerlap. “As an educator it broke my heart knowing that people are treating each other like that and that it is still continuing to happen.” Although she had spent the better part of the past decade building community and promoting equity amongst her students, Nerlap knew she would have to be a bold educator to have the students make a meaningful contribution to the conversation sparked by the events of 2020. The backpacks not only focused on race, but also addressed inequities in gender, age, ability, and class. The goal was not just to make a stand against biases, but also have students highlight aspects of their present identity, while showing understanding for people’s differences. “For me, the most critical piece is that the students were empowered,” says Nerlap, who is also the mother of two adult children. “They felt heard, they felt seen, and it’s an opportunity to actually change the world in a positive way — to bring people together.” The equity backpacks have been well received by students, parents, and faculty alike. Her passion for instilling inclusive values and standing up to injustices has rubbed off across her community. “The initiatives are relevant and timely and connect with the real-time issues that are occurring in the community and the world,” says Ian Levings, the principal at Eugene Reimer. “We value inclusion and respect for everybody in our school community and this project is an example of actually putting theory into practice.”
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BEYOND THE BACKPACKS Nerlap knows that erasing inequities and putting kids in a position to succeed goes past a backpack campaign. She understands that changing the narrative means consistent and open community dialogue. “She has impacted the students and their families by giving them learning opportunities that are exciting and relevant,” says Levings, mentioning We are Canada, a community project that Nerlap helped lead while the school was in remote learning mode last year during the pandemic. “Project-based learning is a key aspect of her teaching as students have been given a voice in their learning.” Nerlap routinely organizes community projects at Eugene Reimer, where her students get to interact with everybody from firefighters to the Mayor of Abbotsford and other community leaders. “It’s about paying it forward and opening your hearts to others,” she says, adding that her students completed multiple random acts of kindness in the community. “And that was my goal. I wanted them to think past themselves.” Paying it forward is a trait that Nerlap developed as a UFV undergrad in the early 2000s. She remembers a strong community feel on campus. She can recall many of her geography professors being understanding and empathetic to her as a young mother paying her way through school by working shifts at the local pharmacy.
“ We all have a story... Our youth need to understand that their life stories matter. Most importantly, that they matter.”
One professor, Doug Nicol, held a bus for a field trip as she was more than half an hour late because of competing parenting duties. “And he’s like, ‘of course I waited, I knew you wouldn’t miss class,’” Nerlap says with a laugh. “The kindness I felt at UFV, you probably don’t see often at larger or more urban institutions. It changed my identity by making me see and understand the beauty of a connected community and the different roles we can play in it.” When it was time for Nerlap to apply to get her teaching certificate at SFU, Nicol provided recommendations that helped secure her acceptance. “He did that on one of the last days before he passed away; he actually did that for me,” she says. “I never forgot that.” She also remembers the late Ken Brealey, another Geography professor, who would scribble motivational notes on her papers, inspiring her to pursue and complete her master’s degree, which she eventually did. “There are many times that I reach back into my memory and pull out the golden nuggets that UFV profs shared with me,” she says.
As a result, Nerlap is never more than a phone call away for the UFV community. Recently, she presented to UFV’s Teacher Education students, and was also on an anti-racism panel, where she shared a story with the panel that was “incredibly powerful and resonated deeply with many of our students” according to program head Vandy Britton. In 2020, Nerlap received the UFV Betty Urquhart award, which is given annually to a person within the area UFV serves who exemplifies their commitment to community service. To say educating and empowering students or citizens is Nerlap’s passion and purpose would be an understatement. “She has endless passion for learning and teaching,” Levings adds. “Many times, she is the last person out of the school in the afternoon. She has created community projects every year for the last six years with the goal of bringing the community together. She values and understands that each student comes with a story that matters.”
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UFV researchers conduct real-time studies on COVID impacts BY ANNE RUSSELL
RESEARCH MATTERS The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on society. It has forced us to change many of our daily habits and challenged our assumptions about routines and activities we took for granted in the past. It also provided researchers with the opportunity to conduct real-time research on the effects of a pandemic. UFV researchers have been involved in several studies related to COVID-19.
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Impact on travel
A team led by Dr. Cindy Jardine, UFV’s Canada Research Chair in Health and Community, conducted research on the health information needs and gaps faced by families visiting friends and relatives (VFR) in their countries of origin. The research was conducted in partnership with two UFV-based centres: The South Asian Studies Institute and the Community Health and Social Innovation Hub. “Containing an emerging disease such as COVID-19 depends on stopping the spread of the disease to other areas around
the world,” Jardine notes. “People who travel back to their countries of origin to visit friends and relatives are often at a higher risk of getting the disease and then spreading it to others. And, of course, travel has changed considerably with COVID-19! A better understanding of these travelers’ knowledge, risk perceptions, information needs, barriers to pre-travel care and advice, and access to protective measures will help us better develop strategies to keep travelers healthy when they can travel again.” Part of the team’s research results have been summarized in a report titled UFV Student Experiences with Travel, Health, and COVID-19. The report summarizes the responses given by nearly 1,500 UFV students who participated in a survey issued in April 2020, at the outset of the pandemic. Some of the key findings indicate: + Students demonstrated high awareness of COVID-19 symptoms and protective strategies, as known/recommended at the time of the survey + Most students get their COVID-19 information from the Internet, TV and social media + Students’ overall vaccination rates for recommended diseases ranged from 60% (e.g. seasonal influenza) to 75% (measles). + Emails from the University of the Fraser Valley communications team were the most usedchannel for university-related COVID-19 information. Other components of the study included focus groups with members of the Chinese and South Asian populations in the Fraser Valley and a survey (with follow-up interviews) with family physicians about their experiences in providing pre-travel advice to VFR travelers.
Jardine and her research associates also conducted follow-up focus groups with volunteers from the University of the Fraser Valley student survey to provide some important context for their survey responses. The results from these study components are also being reported separately. Engaging communities in COVID-19 research and vaccine discussion Although the results from focus groups conducted as part of the study have not been published yet (pending verification from participants), Jardine and research associates Marinel Kniseley, Kusum Soni, and Sherry Wang recently had an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences in engaging the Chinese and South Asian communities in COVID-19 research and vaccine discussions. A video of these reflections is part of an online resource (developed by Genome BC, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Simon Fraser University Faculty of Health Sciences and the BC Centre for Disease Control) for health communications professionals and communications researchers involved in developing and sharing information about the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in British Columbia. Some of the highlights include: + Members of the Chinese and South Asian communities were understandably initially cautious about the research, wanting to make sure they understood the purpose and how the results would be used. Using several methods to describe the research (including videos from the researchers and from trusted community members) greatly helped in recruitment. + Relationships and trust are key to engaging community members. + Communities would like transparency in government communications about
COVID-19, and also want information provided in their own language. + Government and healthcare organizations should work with the ‘ethnic media’, service organizations that focus on ethnic communities, and churches and gurdwaras to get the message out about COVID-19 guidelines and vaccinations. + Role models can be significant influencers: communications should feature success stories from prominent community members who have taken the vaccine. + Emphasize that by taking the vaccine, it will bring us closer to a time when we can travel to visit friends and family again. + Acknowledge that the Chinese community took COVID-19 very seriously right from the beginning, and were early adopters of masks, physical distancing, and handwashing.
Restrictions on physical activity impact women’s mental health When the pandemic suddenly forced us all to change our habits and stay close to home, it had repercussions on all aspects of our lives, including our fitness routines. A study by UFV kinesiologists looked at the impact of those restrictions, and examined whether they impacted men and women differently. The results showed that that the initial restrictions, including the closures of gyms and fitness studios, provincial parks, and some playgrounds, affected women more than men. “We found that women were struggling with their mental health more during the pandemic,” says Dr. Iris Lesser, an assistant professor of kinesiology at UFV, who conducted the study along with colleague Dr. Carl Nienhuis.
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Photo: Anne Russell
Dr. Iris Lesser keeping active with baby Kaia.
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Lesser notes that she was disappointed that playgrounds were closed off during the first phase of the pandemic restrictions and happy to see the yellow tape surrounding playground equipment come off during the less restrictive summer in British Columbia. “We recognize that the threat posed by the pandemic is real and that the barriers were intended for our benefit, but we also need to consider the impact on physical activity and mental health,” she said. “Given the challenges that women uniquely face due to pandemic restrictions, we need to find ways to provide environments and support for physical activity to reduce the mental duress that some women are experiencing. We need to aim for physical activity options that can include and engage children.”
Impact of provaccine memes
As the pandemic continued to rage on impacting more and more people a team led by Dr. Jason Brandenburg in the School of Kinesiology at UFV questioned the importance of physical fitness on the severity of the COVID-19 virus. Regular physical activity and associated cardiorespiratory fitness has been shown to enhance immune function and therefore the investigators hypothesized that fitness individuals may have improved COVID-19 outcomes. The results showed that those who self-reported higher cardiorespiratory fitness (as determined by the pace to cover 4.8km without becoming overly fatigued) had lower odds of self-reported hospitalization than those with the lowest cardiorespiratory fitness. However, the research team did not find an impact of fitness on COVID-19 symptom severity or number of symptoms. “We found that fitness may play a role in the likelihood of hospitalization from COVID-19, at least between the lowest and highest fitness groups,” says Dr. Jason Brandenburg, the director of the UFV School of Kinesiology, who conducted the study along with colleagues Dr. Cynthia Thompson, Dr. Iris Lesser and Dr. Luisa Giles. “This study parallels results seen from other large studies which have shown that higher cardiorespiratory fitness reduces the likelihood of severe COVID-19 resulting in hospitalization.” Lesser adds that the results underline the importance of supporting physical activity opportunities, even during a pandemic. “It remains a public health priority to advocate for physical activity and ensure that there are opportunities to be active among all ethnicities and socioeconomic groups for both mental and physical health” says Lesser, one of the study team members, who also studied the impact of the pandemic on physical activity and mental health.
The impact of memes on attitudes towards vaccination was the subject of a study Dr. Shawn Geniole, a UFV psychology professor. “We examined the effects of provaccination memes (vs control images) on intentions to vaccinate and found they boosted such intentions, but that these effects surprisingly weakened (rather than strengthened) once a safe/effective vaccine was announced in November,” he notes. Despite global efforts to rapidly distribute COVID-19 vaccines, recent estimates suggest that 29-35% of the population are hesitant/unwilling to receive them. “Countering vaccine hesitancy is an urgent priority if mass vaccinations are going to be successful,” says Geniole, whose study was awaiting publication at the time of our print deadline. “We show that brief exposure to pro-vaccination memes boosts the potentially life-saving intention to vaccinate against COVID-19. These intention-boosting effects, however, weakened once a COVID-19 vaccine became a reality (i.e., after the announcement of a safe/effective vaccine) suggesting meme-based persuasion may be context-dependent and most influential in readying the public in anticipation of (rather than during) vaccine rollout. Nevertheless, these data offer preliminary evidence that naturally circulating memes may be something that can be leveraged for increasing public intentions to vaccinate against COVID-19 and thus — given their brevity and virality — may hold potential more generally as a scalable tool for wide-spread influence.”
Effect on temporary foreign agricultural workers It became apparent very early in the COVID-19 pandemic that Canada’s vital relationship with temporary foreign workers (TFWs) would need to be carefully managed. Dr. Cindy Jardine, UFV’s Canada Research Chair in Health and Community, and her research partners received $348,075 in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to determine the COVID-19 experiences of TFWs and farming operations in British Columbia during the 2020 season. TFWs are known to experience many health and structural inequities such as occupational health hazards, inadequate hygiene, and barriers to health services. Often, they accept these conditions for fear of losing their jobs. This situation was made worse during the COVID-19 outbreak. Federal and provincial government agencies subsequently announced several programs to safeguard TFWs and relieve the burden on farmers. “We will also assess whether workers and farmers think the government
programs to safeguard them from COVID-19 were effective in controlling disease transmission and making it easier to continue farming operations in both 2020 and 2021,” says Jardine. The research team will interview 40 TFWs and 20 farm owners who employ TFWs for seasonal agriculture work in the Fraser Valley area of British Columbia, as well as eight members of BC agricultural councils. The research will include cooperation and participation from knowledge users (including the BC Provincial Health Officer, BC Centre for Disease Control, BC Agricultural Council, regional health organizations and community organizations who provide assistance to TFWs) to ensure the research meets their needs and is conducted appropriately and respectfully. Their involvement also means the results can be readily mobilized into practice. “The results from our research will be used to develop recommendations to continue to reduce the inequitable burden of disease for this population now and in the future, and to ensure food security for Canadians,” notes Jardine.
Photo: Darren McDonald
“Women are statistically shown to be more anxious and less physically active than men, and COVID-19 restrictions made it even more challenging for them to keep up with physical activity further impacting their mental health.” Those who were able to be active reported better mental health results than those were less active, the study reports. Some of the barriers that women faced were unique to pandemic times, such as gym closures or having their children at home needing care 24 hours per day rather than going to school or daycare for part of the day. Other barriers were already present before the pandemic, such as the challenge of balancing multiple roles such as parent and full-time worker. The research team’s solution? Encourage and promote physical activity options that allow parents to be active with their children.
Physical fitness and COVID-19
Dr. Cindy Jardine, UFV’s Canada Research Chair in Health and Community
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THE
Shirley Hardman’s journey of discovery guides her mission at UFV BY ANNE RUSSELL PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN McDONALD
Shirley Hardman remembers the shock she felt when a government clerk asked: “And what kind of Indian are you?” “How do you know I’m an Indian?” replied Shirley, whose Stó:lō name is Swelchalot. “I can tell just by looking at you,” replied the clerk. The thing is, at that point in her life, Shirley wasn’t all that sure what kind of “Indian” she was. These days, Shirley encourages people to use terms such as Indigenous or member of a certain nation to describe the people who were the first to call B.C. home, not the outdated and inaccurate “Indian” term. In her role as Senior Advisor on Indigenous Affairs she guides UFV’s journey of Indigenization and Reconciliation. But back then, in the eyes of people like the government clerk, she was “just another Indian.”
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Now a proud member of the Shxwha:y Village living in her home community with her grown son and among friends and relations, Shirley cannot escape the fact that she spent the first few decades of her life without a clear sense of her Indigenous identity. Raised by a loving white couple in the Okanagan since the age of three, she remembers little of her life before her adoption. But her birth mother did give Shirley a key to come back: she registered her baby as a member of the Shxwha:y Village (known then as the Skway Band), which allowed Shirley to eventually formally claim her Indigenous status. Shirley has mixed feelings about her upbringing, and being separated from her birth family as part of the Sixties Scoop (the large-scale removal of Indigenous children from their families and home communities and adoption by white families in the 1960s). “It’s a bittersweet feeling when I look back on my childhood. I did not grow up with my culture, and I knew something was missing. But I did have loving parents. My adoptive dad really believed in me and told me I could do whatever other girls could. I was the only brown girl in school. I experienced racism, but Dad told me I was just as good as every other girl. He instilled values in me, told me not to quit, to be responsible.” FINDING A WAY HOME Ironically, the B.C. girl found her way back to her Stó:lō roots via Edmonton. “The University of Alberta helped me find my way home. It’s where I got introduced to the sweat lodge and other aspects of Indigenous culture. Nobody had ever told me who I was before I got there.” But it wasn’t easy for Shirley to take those first steps and enroll in university. “I remember rolling into campus in my then–boyfriend’s huge truck and
practically driving on the sidewalk as I went through the gates at the University of Alberta and thinking ‘I can’t possibly come to school here. I don’t belong.’” While filling out the application for her student loan she found out exactly where she came from. “I had to prove what band I belonged to or the Alberta government would not allow me to access a student loan. And it turns out that my band had not forgotten me. Even though I never got the chance to meet my birth mother before she passed away, her registering me did enable me to get status and find my people.” UNIVERSITY A TURNING POINT Shirley will never forget that it was her post-secondary experience that introduced her to her Indigenous culture and reconnected her to her roots. It also provided her with the education and professional experience she needed to qualify for employment. When she moved back to S’olh Téméxw (the Fraser Valley) one of her first jobs was as District Aboriginal Education Coordinator for the Fraser Cascade School District. This led to her serving on the Aboriginal Community Council at what was then UCFV (University College of the Fraser Valley), her first connection with her future employer. “I was a real admirer of the work that Theresa Neel was doing as First Nations Access coordinator and founding coordinator for the Aboriginal Access Centre at UFV. As I worked helping students transition from the school district, I realized that my passion was to get more Indigenous students coming to university and feeling comfortable when they get there.” When Theresa left for a job at another institution, Shirley came on board as First Nations Access coordinator. While the primary focus of her job was to support Indigenous students and run
an access centre where they could come for help and as a home away from home, she quickly decided that for UFV to truly embrace Indigenous students, it needed to make the whole university feel like home, particularly given that it is situated on the ancestral lands of the Stó:lō people. “I myself was well supported and praised when I went to university. I was treated like I was the cream of the crop, but I knew many more Indigenous people who knew so much more than me, who were just as smart as me, but who were not there knocking on the door of the university. We needed them to help rebuild our communities and culture, and we needed them to be educated.” Having an Indigenous Student Centre and supporting Indigenous students was a great start, but Shirley’s vision went further. “I viewed my main job as making the whole university safe and welcoming and reflective of Indigenous culture and values so Indigenous students don’t need a place that’s ‘just theirs’. The whole university is theirs and should feel safe for all students. Nobody should feel marginalized.” Her administrator at that point was the late Tim Segger, Vice-President Administration, who had responsibility for student affairs. “He supported my belief that we needed to support students, but at the same time educate non-Indigenous people about how Indigenous people view the land, and also about our worldview.” At the same time, Shirley recognized that, like she did when she was an undergraduate, many Indigenous UFV students need cultural immersion themselves. “A lot of my work is with students who are not connected to their culture,” she notes. “They are seeking teaching and guidance. They were adopted, or in care, or their parents did not have or remember the knowledge of heritage. For some of us,
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Indigenous people who have received honorary degrees from UFV university is the first place we learn about Indigenous knowledge. That’s why it’s so important to be accurate, and to have the knowledge here to share.” Early Indigenizing efforts led to cultural events on campus, the appointment of Elders in Residence, Indigenous protocol at UFV events, land acknowledgements, Indigenous art installations, and the use of Halq’emeylem in the university’s official coat of arms and in names for entities such as the gallery and events like New Student Orientation. UFV’s new strategic plan reflects these and further Indigenization goals and plans. In 2009 Shirley received the new role of Senior Advisor on Indigenous Affairs, reporting to then–Provost and VicePresident, Academic Eric Davis. With this new mandate, she worked to implement the recommendations of an Indigenizing report commissioned by UFV in 2005 and prepared by local Indigenous educator and leader Mark Point.
“In a way, I was in the right place at the right time,” Shirley says. “Certain faces and hearts at UFV during my time here have allowed my work to go forward. And that has been key to the success of any Indigenizing initiatives. Administrators, the Provost, board members, faculty members, and staff colleagues have shared the vision. That’s what has allowed us to have success. Universities as an entity don’t change. People in universities do. My job has been to help transform minds and hearts.” Now Shirley is turning her experience as a leader of Indigenization into doctoral research at the University of BC. In 2020, she received a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) doctoral fellowship to help fund her studies. Her research focuses on how people need to change in order for an institution to change, and posits that this change can be encouraged through sharing the
Sqwélqwel (stories) of educators who have become Indigenizers. Shirley uses “storywork”, as defined by scholar Dr. Joanne Archibald, with “respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy at its centre,” and invites us to imagine a path to Indigenizing the academy through the hearts and minds of educators in post-secondary education. And she feels like it’s getting somewhere. “I am encouraged to see that here at UFV there are signs that people are beginning to genuinely recognize that it is time to learn ‘from’ Indigenous people. It is the knowledge from the community that is valuable and it is what we should cherish. I invite my colleagues to join me in Indigenizing our university. This is no easy task, I know, but I believe that we have turned a corner and that the process cannot, and will not, be stopped.”
As part of its commitment to Indigenization, UFV leadership has consciously sought to honour those who have led the way in encouraging understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing. Steven Point (2000) Linnea Battel (2003) Elizabeth Herrling (2004) Stan Greene (2007) Tantoo Cardinal (2010) Chief Frank Malloway (2010) Madeleine MacIvor (2011) Ray Silver Sr. (2012) George Littlechild (2013) Margo Kane (2015) Dr. Nadine Caron (2017) Siyamiyateliyot Elizabeth Phillips (2018) — pictured below Francis Horne Sr. (2019)
Aboriginal Access Centre opens Theresa Neel formally becomes UFV employee when Aboriginal Access Coordinator position created
Aboriginal Gathering Place opens on new Chilliwack campus (2012)
She works for Stó:lō people as education coordinator for Indigenous students Fraser Valley College programming at Coqualeetza in 1970s, including Basic Skills Training Development program
College Achievement Program, an introduction to college studies popular with the Indigenous community, offered on Chilliwack campus and at Coqualeetza grounds
Place-name tours with Sonny McHalsie launched
Annual Medicine Wheel event at St. Mary’s site
bon graham [b.wyse]
Halq’eméylem language courses introduced
(Graphic: Canadian Salish Aboriginal artist and UFV alumna Bon Graham [b.wyse])
UFV hosts Indigenous Day of Learning (2013)
Dr. Gwen Point, first Indigenous Chancellor, appointed (2015)
Indigenous art on campus and use of Halq’eméylem in naming places and events
2010s
2000s
1990s
1980s
INDIGENIZING UFV: A TIMELINE
1970s
Aboriginal Community Council launched (1997)
Dr. Wenona Hall, first professor of Indigenous Studies, hired (2012)
New Coat of Arms with Halq’eméylem motto: Yaqawtxw “house of transformation”
2020s
Theresa supported local students for 30 years in various roles
Bachelor of Indigenous Studies launches (2012) Lens of Empowerment photography project, reflecting Indigenous student views of Sto:lo culture, travels to England
UFV hosts Indigenizing the Academy conference (2012)
Witness Blanket exhibit comes to UFV (2017)
UFV’s new integrated strategic plan (see pages 6–7) incorporates goals connected to Indigenous people and ways of knowing. It states, in part, that UFV will honour Indigenous knowledge at all touchpoints of learning
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TELLING HER TRUTH BY ANNE RUSSELL
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Photo: Tajinder Kaur
Pursuing her passion leads to success for author Jasmin Kaur
Jasmin Kaur’s imagination is taking her places. From her bedroom office in Abbotsford she is living the life of a twice-published author and worldwide influencer. Her novel If I Tell You The Truth, is interspersed with poetry and tells the story of Kiran, an international student who stays illegally in Canada to raise a baby daughter conceived via sexual assault, and Sahaara, the daughter who grows into a young woman facing her own challenges. This latest book was was preceded in 2019 by When You Ask Me Where I’m Going, also a combination of prose, poetry, and illustration that introduced readers to the characters who are developed more fully in the second book. Jasmin, who has yet to turn 30, earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English from UFV in 2017. Before she created this imaginary world for her characters, she had to imagine a life for herself that went beyond the traditional career-focused goals of her generation of students. “Heading into university, Grade 12s face a lot of pressure to know what they are going to do, to have a plan in place for a career, so my plan was to become a teacher,” she recalls. “But once I started taking creative writing courses at UFV, I enjoyed them more than anything else. When I fell in love with creative writing, my life plans changed drastically. We are not socialized to believe that a career as a writer is practical or accessible. I pursued writing simply because I loved it, and that has resulted in a career for me.” Ironically, it was a digital platform that brought Jasmin to the classic art of writing poetry. As a teen, Jasmin discovered the genre of spoken word poetry through You Tube videos and was transfixed as a viewer and listener. “I gave writing poetry a shot and found I really enjoyed writing and performing it. But I was very shy. I tried out performance at a summer camp for young Sikh women, which gave me the confidence to carry it to a more public space.”
She started hosting poetry events in Surrey and Delta, B.C. And once she tapped into social media, she truly found her audience. “I discovered Instagram in 2012 or so. I started to post my poems there and found it so cool that I could write a poem and someone somewhere across the world could engage with it, without mediation by any gatekeeper. The emergence of social media made for a really creative space for young artists to share their work.” Taking the creative writing courses at UFV contributed to her development in a major way. “Learning with professors Michelle Superle and Andrea MacPherson played a momentous and life-changing role in building my passion for writing. Some of the work that ended up in my books began in those classes, which were in a workshop format. We would share our work with professors and peers and then come back and have conversations about it — what our peers saw and loved, and where there was space for growth. I was very shy and introverted — the idea of handing someone my work terrified me but they made the spaces very safe and empowering. Once I graduated, I missed workshop spaces — it’s one of the reasons I am pursuing my Master of Fine Arts now.” UFV also helped her evolve as an activist. She was always drawn to stories that relate to BIPOC and marginalized communities, beyond the traditional canon of Shakespeare and Milton and other male writers from previous centuries. “Learning about injustices other communities faced — for example a course that I took on Romany literature that showed how marginalized that group has been — is exactly what the study of literature should do,” she notes. She did become a teacher, and enjoyed a six-month foray into teaching Grade 4 in Abbotsford in 2018. “Teaching was very positive experience for me. When I was growing up as a
Punjabi girl in Abbotsford most of my class was brown like me, but we didn’t see teachers who looked like us. “I wanted to be a teacher partly because wanted someone who looked like me to be at the front of the classroom. Kids naturally want to share and connect with teachers, and they can to some extent, but I think it does subconscious damage if you don’t see yourself reflected in this key profession.” One legacy of her brief teaching career was to encourage students to correct other teachers on their pronunciation of Punjabi names and not allow the normalization of mis-pronunciations. But she wasn’t ready to settle into a multi-decade career as a teacher. “I knew I had a book bubbling in me, but it was hard to have time for it as I was so focused on my education and career,” she recalls. “I had a whole pile of poems written, and the winter after I finished teacher training I locked myself in my bedroom, focusing on writing and polishing my poetry, creating a manuscript, and filling in the gaps with new poems. Then I edited them in a twoweek burst over spring break.” A friend she had met through the spoken word poetry community passed her manuscript on to a publisher, but also recommended that she get an agent. “I had noticed a literary agent from New York was following me on Instagram so I thought I would reach out. She said she had followed me because she was interested in working with me.” This led in rapid fashion to a two-book deal with HarperCollins in spring 2018, the publication of her first book in 2019, and the follow-up book this past January of 2021. “What a whirlwind it was! I was shocked. Would not ever have planned that I would have a two-book contract so quickly, one that allowed me the time to pause and work on writing exclusively.” Jasmin’s writing blends poetry and prose, and its content is infused with her passion for social justice.
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to them. If you speak the truth about social issues you can shake up the world in a powerful and real way. There is immense power in the accessibility of social media. I am in constant awe of how young people are learning and evolving tactics for new platforms like Tik Tok.” Jasmin finished writing If I Tell You the Truth right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the timeline of the narrative extends into 2020 and 2021. Rather than adjust the story to reflect the pandemic, she included afternotes about how it may have affected her characters. And while a pandemic where we all have to stay home might seem like the perfect time for a retreat into writing, Jasmin found she had to take a breather like many others. “Many thought that during COVID would be a good time to hunker down and be creative, but for me it was overwhelmingly drastic shift in how we live. My energy was consumed by contemplating what life will be like in long term. And I had just finished writing a book. Creativity needs to be replenished by rest and consuming other media rather than creating it. Then, after a restorative period when I learned how to make sourdough like everyone else, I jumped full force into starting my MFA and working on my new novel.” Her latest work is a fantasy novel about set in Abbotsford, featuring a teenage Punjabi witch. She will have more news to share about this project soon. “Writing full time is a challenging career but every single day I am grateful,” she says. “It’s hard work but an intriguing way to live. You invest your life in an imaginary world that you make so believable and real that people around the world connect with it. And it’s magical that something I pounded out from my brain is now a bound and published book that I can hold in my hands.”
JASMIN KAUR’S ADVICE FOR WRITERS: Writers who want to be published want to get it out because they have something say. Know that the work is ultimately for you. Just get it out. Don’t be stuck because of perceived external expectations. Don’t overthink. Words that come out are more compelling and thoughtful if you just let them flow. Take the creative licence to make mistakes.
Named a rising star by Vogue Magazine, and a writer to watch by CBC Books, Jasmin Kaur’s work has been celebrated at the American Music Awards by musical icon Jennifer Lopez and shared by celebrities like Tessa Mae Thompson and Reese Witherspoon. She has been featured by Harper’s Bazaar India, Huffington Post, The Indy 100, Elle India, Popsugar and other publications. Follow her on Instagram at @Jusmun.
Photography: Lara Kaur | Florals: Mallory Browne | Models: Seema Hari, Tyra Preston, Angel Barnett.
“Poetry is my first literary language. I have been writing poetry since I was 19,” she says. “I find it a very concentrated, compact way of telling a story, one in which you can channel emotions. I am drawn to poetry as a way to navigate difficult subjects. I use poems as a way to convey the emotions of my characters, to offer catharsis for the trauma experienced by them.” Her work highlights political and social issues through experiences of her characters, including sexism, violence against women, racism, classism, and political oppression. “I have always been passionate about social justice and advocated for equity and against racism. My passion is informed by my experience as a Punjabi Sikh woman. As a person in a brown body in a racist society you can’t help but live it.” Her poem Scream (see right sidebar) speaks to the experience of women in her life who have faced injustice but who have not been heard. But it has been adopted as a poetic anthem by women all over the world. “I was surprised at Scream taking off like it did. It’s even been used in court as part of victim-impact statements.” If I Tell You the Truth is like a longer, narrative version of Scream, and it does not shy away from examining difficult issues or shining a light on inequity in her own culture. It even comes with an eight-item trigger warning. “Violence against women is a serious issue in all cultures, even within our community, and it will be forever, or until men decide to take ownership of the problem and take a stand against it.” She also engages in activism, mostly via social media. “There are amazing conversations on Twitter about the farmers’ protest in India that have created such a ripple around the world that the Indian Prime Minister is responding
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BLAST FROM THE PAST BY ANNE RUSSELL
Photo: Sandy Tait
UFV will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2024. As we anticipate a bright future, we look back at our roots and key moments in our development. The year was 1991. Fraser Valley College had 2,254 students, offering first and second-year studies only. If you wanted a degree, you had to leave town. Nirvana topped the music charts, Thelma and Louise and Silence of the Lambs graced the silver screens, while grunge jeans, scrunchies, and doc martens walked the runways. And 30 years ago, two single mom students led the charge to transform a college into what would eventually become UFV.
Student Society President Wilf Vicktor, Community Coalition founder Sue Gadsby, Fraser Valley College President Peter Jones, Advanced Education Minister Peter Dueck, and Fraser Valley College Board Chair Brian Minter celebrate at the University College of the Fraser Valley announcement on July 5, 1991.
July 5, 1991, marked a watershed moment for UFV. This is the date that Fraser Valley College (FVC) became the University College of the Fraser Valley (UCFV), after a long and hard-fought community campaign. This was one of the key turning points in UFV history. Thirty years later, those who enjoy studying and workin at a degree-granting university in the Fraser Valley owe a debt of gratitude to those who fought for this.
There would be no UFV without the UCFV phase. It served as a transition from a two-year college to a full-fledged university. It’s possible to think of UFV’s journey from small community college to full-fledged regional university as a fait accompli, or destiny, but the road to university status was filled with stumbling blocks and barriers. The transition to university-college status allowed the institution to begin offering third- and fourth-year
programming, at first granting other universities’ degrees, and then eventually its own. British Columbia first began experimenting with the university-college concept in 1989, when the new status was conferred upon Okanagan, Cariboo, and Malaspina colleges. In March 1988, Stan Hagen, the BC Minister of Advanced Education and Job Training, announced the ‘Access for All’ initiative, which would allow selected colleges to become university colleges, and in 1989 the government designated three community colleges as the first of this new breed of institution. “Stan Hagen apparently went into a meeting having chosen Kamloops, Kelowna, and Prince George as the location of the new university colleges,” relates former FVC/UCFV president Peter Jones. “But Bruce Strachan, the MLA for Prince George, said no way, and that he would settle for nothing but a real university. So that’s where the University of Northern BC came from. The premier then asked Stan what community he would choose instead of Prince George, and he chose Nanaimo. That’s how Okanagan, Cariboo, and Malaspina became the first university colleges. Fraser Valley College was thought to be too close to the city.” Still, there was a general recognition as the ’80s turned to the ’90s that something had to be done to increase access to education in the Fraser Valley. The Social Credit government commissioned former MLA Harvey Schroeder to conduct a formal consultation into access to postsecondary education in the area. He travelled the area, attending community forums and meeting with interested parties in the fall of 1990. FVC saw an opportunity to push for the university-college status it had missed out on in 1989. Meetings were held, brochures published, briefs produced. The public attendance at meetings was solid and community support was good. Enthusiasm was high for moving to the next level in the Fraser Valley.
Community members lobby for university-college status at a rally held at Chilliwack Secondary.
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Then Schroeder’s report came out. It recommended that a new freestanding university be built and become operational somewhere in the Fraser Valley by 1995, and that Simon Fraser offer an extension program of upper-level courses in the Fraser Valley, perhaps by using Kwantlen and Fraser Valley College classrooms. It did not endorse the university-college model for which many Fraser Valley residents had vociferously lobbied. FVC would not be permitted to grant degrees.
Students, faculty, administrators, staff, and community members were all dismayed that FVC’s proposal to become UCFV was being overlooked and seemingly dismissed. Sue Gadsby (Dip ’91) and Jaclyn Rea (BA ’95) were two FVC students at the time, roommates and single mothers sharing a townhouse in Chilliwack while attending classes and raising their young sons. They had pinned their hopes on university-college status for FVC, knowing that it was the only way they and other students in their situation could afford to pursue a degree. They also loved FVC and its instructors and desperately wanted to continue their studies here. “We’d been feeling pretty good about the prospect of getting UC status when the Schroeder commission was conducting meetings,” recalls Sue. “A lot of the community felt the way we did, that it was a ‘done deal’ that we’d get the status because community support was so strong. “When the report came out without a strong endorsement of the concept, suddenly it was in jeopardy and seemed like it likely wouldn’t happen. We just decided that we weren’t going to take no for an answer. We wanted to ensure that the community was heard because it seemed that Schroeder hadn’t heard us the first time. So we created a community coalition to make it clear that Fraser Valley community members had a strong opinion about this. We wanted to show
Photos are from promotional material for Fraser Valley College taken in 1991. Photos: Sandy Tait and Bob Warick
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that it wasn’t just employees or even just students.” “When we heard that the Fraser Valley wouldn’t be getting a university college, that really sparked the community,” recalls Bob Warick, who was director of community relations at FVC. “We knew that we couldn’t run a campaign entirely out of the college — the support had to come from the community. And the support was there. Individuals and businesses stepped up to buy ads to publicly support the cause.” Fraser Valley communities were used to having to apply pressure on government to get what they wanted when it came to higher education. It had taken over a decade and various false starts for the college itself to be legislated into existence in 1974. The Fraser Valley rallied once again, thanks in no small measure to the Community Coalition to Support the University College Concept, run by Sue and Jaclyn out of their shared townhouse in Chilliwack. Others were involved too. The late Pat McQueen (Dip ’93) was an eloquent FVC student from Abbotsford who was always willing to speak on the cause’s behalf. The FVC Student Society, at that time chaired by future Hope mayor Wilf Vicktor, helped organize large student rallies in Abbotsford and Chilliwack. And the FVC administration and the Faculty and Staff Association were strong and vocal proponents of the concept.
FVC’s Access committee (chaired by history instructor Dr. Jack Gaston), which had been tasked with finding a made-atFVC solution to the access to education question and which had championed the university-college concept, met weekly to strategize. FVC president Peter Jones and FVC board chair and noted horticulturalist Brian Minter were in constant contact with Victoria, letting the powers-that-be know that this issue wasn’t going to go away. “Brian and I went to Victoria on several occasions to talk to Ministry of Advanced Education representatives and anyone else who would listen,” recalls Peter Jones. “Brian always brought flowers for the secretaries so that smoothed our way. Eventually, Advanced Education Minister Bruce Strachan, who was very focused on developing the new university in his own Prince George riding, summoned us to a meeting. He was fed up with all the politicking going on in the Fraser Valley about this. He told us that we would not be getting university-college status and that there was no point in going further with our lobbying. “Well, Strachan hadn’t encountered a community leader like Brian Minter before. Brian drew himself up purposefully and said in a polite but forceful way: ‘We will not be giving up on our quest. You’ll be hearing more from us.’ And he was right. The communities of the Fraser Valley refused to back down.” Letters were written and petitions
were signed. The community coalition made presentations to city councils and civic organizations and did guest spots on local radio and were interviewed by print media. Community rallies were organized. As had been the case when lobbying for a community college was going on years earlier, community meetings were held in Chilliwack and Abbotsford. “We got amazing attendance in Chilliwack,” Sue Gadsby recalls. “One man got up at that forum and said ‘when our kids go away to university they don’t come back’, and he made a passionate plea for making it possible for them to complete their degrees here.” “The community really came through beautifully for us,” Peter Jones concurs. The two women leading the coalition led a frenzied life, balancing parenting duties, studies, and this impromptu community campaign. It was the days before email, Facebook, and the internet, so there were a lot of phone calls and letters and face-to-face meetings. “We certainly racked up some huge phone bills,” Sue Gadsby remembers. “And the aviation students were prepared to fly us to Victoria for a meeting but that didn’t end up happening.” It was an interesting time politically. The Social Credit party was coming to the end of a long reign. Premier Bill Vander Zalm had resigned amidst scandal and Rita Johnston, an MLA from Surrey, was now the premier. Local Socred
MLAs knew that their party’s chances of winning the next election were slim, so they were eager to get what they could for their communities while they still held the balance of power. “This whole crazy campaign was going on during the dying days of the Social Credit government, but we were too deeply immersed in it to have much perspective on what that meant for our chances,” Sue Gadsby says. “It looked pretty bleak for a while. We heard that we’d been called naïve for even pursuing it by our own political science instructor, but we proved him wrong.” The key to success was securing the support of the region’s MLAs. “We knew we needed to convince them that this was vitally necessary for the region,” recalls Peter Jones. “We brought in the former president of the University of Victoria, Howard Petch, who was quite a fan of the university-college concept. After Chilliwack MLA John Jansen met with him, he agreed to throw his weight behind the idea.” There were several cabinet shuffles in the last months of the Social Credit government, and the stars seemed to finally align for Fraser Valley College’s ambitions when Chilliwack MLA John Jansen was appointed Minister of Finance and Central Fraser Valley MLA Peter Dueck was named Advanced Education Minister. Many interpreted this as a signal that things were finally going to happen forFraser Valley College, and that was the case.
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ALUMNI NOTES MESSAGE FROM THE UFV ALUMNI ASSOCIATION CHAIR
What a year it has been! The 2020/21 year brought unforeseen challenges to the world in many ways, and the UFV community has been right there in the thick of it; from our nursing students and alumni creatively supporting our healthcare workers, to IT
students and alumni helping people figure out how to work from home, to many of us celebrating kindness by nominating others for Kindness Matters awards. Together, the UFV community: staff, faculty, students, and alumni, met those challenges. Most of us did not have ‘live through a pandemic’ on our bucket list, but we have done so with resilience and compassion. As you read through the stories of the UFV community over the last year we can be proud of what we have done. From teacher Nerlap Kaur Sidhu (BA ’04) making a difference by using experiential education to teach her middle
school students about social justice, to writer Jasmin Kaur (BA ’17) garnering international attention by creating a world of compelling characters facing challenges as marginalized BIPOC citizens, we are stepping up to do our part to create a better society. We also catch up with two of our former Disinguished Alumni Award winners: Shirzad Ahmed (UT ’94) now a Federal Court judge, and Tanya Jonker (BA ’09), now a research science manager for Facebook. The only constant thing in our life is change. And the UFV community is equipped to ebb, flow, and push forward. As we applaud the work that has been
done, we are a community that looks for constant improvement. Let’s have the difficult conversations, pledge to make change for the better, and move forward together into the future.
“ MOST OF US DID NOT HAVE ‘LIVE THROUGH A PANDEMIC’ ON OUR BUCKET LIST, BUT WE HAVE DONE SO WITH RESILIENCE AND COMPASSION.” DERRICK UITTENBOSCH (BA ’13), UFV ALUMNI CHAIR
STAY CONNECTED WITH UFV CONNECT
As UFV equips the leaders of tomorrow, UFV alumni represent the leaders of today. With the new UFV Connect platform, we’re creating a space for you to: • Expand your professional network, by connecting with other UFV graduates working and thriving in a variety of programs • Find mentors, or offer your support to fellow alumni and UFV students • Further your career with professional development opportunities, exclusive to UFV Connect members • Stay apprised of upcoming UFV events • Browse our job board or post a job to recruit from your alumni community • Raise your business profile within your alumni community by joining our business directory • Crowdsource advice, and influence decisions affecting your community • Make connections. Raise your profile. Influence the future.
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SIGN UP FOR OUR E-NEWSLETTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A GIFT CERTIFICATE FOR THE UFV BOOKSTORE. USE IT TO ORDER ONLINE AND HAVE YOUR ITEMS SHIPPED DIRECTLY TO YOUR HOME OR OFFICE. ENTER AT: ALUMNI.UFV.CA/HELLO BEFORE OCTOBER 29, 2021!
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ALUMNI ENDOWMENT BALANCES
2021 ALUMNI WINE This year’s Alumni Wine label was designed by Chantelle TrainorMatties (Dip Fine Arts ’20). Chantelle is an artist with Nisga’a and Metis heritage who specializes in illustration, graphic design, and painting. Her two designs (a stylized beaver for red wine and hummingbird for white) reflect her love of animals and her Indigenous heritage. She works for herself and does freelance work for private and commercial clientele. Her work ranges from bold formline to
WIN $250!
AS OF MAR 1, 2021 charming cartoons to painterly realism. Her favorite subjects are flora and fauna (particularly the weasel family), pop culture, the macabre, as well as contemporary North West Coast art deriving from her Indigenous heritage. “I’ve been practising contemporary Indigenous North West Coast artwork since 2018 and gradually developing a recognizable style. I’m an illustrator, painter, and graphic designer who practices an array of styles from illustrated
cartoons to realism and when it comes to my Indigenous work I blend my love for heavy bold stylized graphics with formline.” Order your wine for home delivery here: alumni.ufv.ca/ benefits/alumni-wine/
OVER THE PAST YEAR
150 ALUMNI DONATED A TOTAL OF $64,946.56
800+ ALUMNI HAVE UPDATED THEIR CONTACT INFO FOR THE 2020/21 YEAR.
41%
OF ALUMNI SURVEYED WORE/ DISPLAYED UFV APPAREL OR MERCH. IN THE PAST YEAR.
44,024 ALUMNI LIVE IN OVER
39 COUNTRIES
$234,324
ALUMNI BENEFITS There are perks to being an alumni of UFV! Here are just a few of the benefits available to you: • Invitations to online and in-person career development and personal/professional enrichment events • Invitations to online and in-person networking and social events • Discounted life insurance and health/dental benefits through TD Insurance • Discounted home and auto insurance through TD Insurance Meloche Monnex • Access to the BMO University of the Fraser Valley MasterCard: every time you spend on it, you help generate revenue to the UFV Alumni Association • Exclusive pricing from Dell
ALUMNI CHANGING LIVES BURSARY ENDOWMENT
• Discounts at the UFV Bookstore on Alumni and UFV apparel
$155,165
• Discounted accommodations at the Sandman Hotels in Abbotsford and Langley
UFV ALUMNI ASSOCIATION ENDOWMENT LEADERSHIP AWARD
$25,575 OUTSTANDING ALUMNI ENDOWMENT
• Access to the on-campus UFV Library. Check out our website: ufvalumni.ca for more details and a full list of benefits.
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ALUMNI NOTES
CATCHING UP WITH FORMER DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD RECIPIENTS 2014 YOUNG DAA RECIPIENT
2011 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI RECIPIENT
TANYA JONKER, BA ’09, PhD
JUSTICE SHIRZAD AHMED, UT ’94, JD ’00
BY ANNE RUSSELL
BY ANNE RUSSELL
When we last checked in with Dr. Tanya Jonker in 2014, she was pursuing her PhD in cognitive science and planning a career in academia. Since then, she has completed her doctorate and transitioned to a career in research and development as a research science manager with Facebook Reality Labs. She leads a team of interdisciplinary researchers exploring how wearable augmented reality devices could transform how we interact with and attend to the digital world. “We aim to understand how people process and interact with digital information, and then we use this knowledge to create systems that help support people’s cognition,” Jonker explains. “Augmented reality devices, such as a pair of glasses, have been proposed as the next wave of personal computing. They will allow people to have constant access to digital information, but the risk here is information overload. To address this potential issue, we are exploring what it looks like to create a system that understands your cognitive state and your task goals, and then adapts the system to make it easier for you to do what you want to do. If the system can understand your cognitive state, it can assist you without being disruptive, distracting, or requiring a lot of effort. “With our smartphones and computers, we are constantly choosing where to devote our attention and cognition — you are either focusing on the world and the people around you, or you are looking at your phone. This results in a lot of distraction
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and taskswitching, and perhaps even danger. What if there were no divide between the real world and your digital life? What if you could interact with a recipe while you’re busily cooking, without having to unlock your phone and shift all of your attention over to it? Or send a quick message while walking on a busy street without having to look down at a phone?” This role has allowed Jonker to directly apply the deep theoretical insights she learned and developed during her doctoral research to real-world problems. “During my postdoctoral fellowship in academia, I realized that much of the theoretical work I was doing did not have direct applications to the problems people experience in their daily lives. I loved the work and it was advancing our scientific understanding of human cognition, but I wanted to see my work carry through to better people’s lives. I also discovered that much of the technology sector was developing novel technologies without a deep understanding of how humans perceive, make sense of, and remember information. I chose to pursue a career in industry research because it allowed me to apply my scientific toolkit to futuristic technologies, which would enable us to create new technologies that enhance our
cognition rather than distract it.” Jonker also serves informally as a mentor to academic researchers who are transitioning into industry. She has shared a series of essays to help people understand various options for their research career. “During my transition to a career in industry research, I found it very difficult to learn what ‘the other side’ was like. There were very few clear resources on what it was like to have a career in industry research. Once I entered R&D in industry, I realized I was not alone. “Doctoral programs do not really educate their students about various career paths — they are tailored to the academic route. But there are many pros and cons to various careers, and ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all path! Ultimately, I believe that every person has a unique combination of strengths, and that fulfilling careers are found when one understands those strengths and then finds a role that draws on those strengths. My aim with my essays is to give people the information they need to help them find a deeply satisfying career, one that fits well with their skill set, their strengths, and their life goals.”
A former UFV student from the universitycollege era is now a Federal Court judge. Justice Shirzad Ahmed was appointed to the Federal Court on September 14, 2017. The Federal Court is Canada’s national trial court. It deals with cases in a broad range of areas of federal jurisdiction, including national security law, intellectual property law, maritime law, aboriginal law, and administrative law, which includes the vast area of immigration law. Justice Ahmed’s connection to UFV goes back to the early 1990s when what was then called the University College of the Fraser Valley was just beginning to grant degrees. Justice Ahmed knows what it’s like to be a refugee — stateless and far away from family and friends. As a young adult, Justice Ahmed left Southern Kurdistan, an area that suffered great oppression under the regime of Saddam Hussein and remains mired in conflict. He resided in Italy before immigrating to Canada. Justice Ahmed launched his postsecondary studies at UFV (then UCFV) as a mature student in 1992, finishing his BA at Simon Fraser and earning his law degree at the University of Calgary. He remembers his time at UFV fondly. “UFV is very close to my heart because of the people,” he said. “The best education I received was at Fraser Valley because of the amazing faculty members and the incredible access we had to them,” recalled Justice Ahmed upon receiving UFV’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2011. “It was a very communityoriented place, with small classrooms and
a wide range of amazing students, including many mature students. I made friends for life there, both among the students and the faculty and administration. The work was very hard there. The faculty had very high standards. People think about universities such as UBC and Dalhousie as prestigious universities, but sometimes the best university experience is right in your own backyard.” As his career has progressed the university has honoured him several times over, first as a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award, then as one of the Top 40 Alumni chosen to mark UFV’s 40th anniversary in 2014. In 2015, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (honoris causa) for his dedication in defence of human rights. Prior to his appointment to the Federal Court, Justice Ahmed was a sole practitioner in Calgary, practising exclusively in the areas of immigration, refugee, human rights, and civil liberties. Justice Ahmed is dedicated to the pursuit of social justice. He is a strong advocate for the protection of human rights internationally, and is invested in mentoring students and junior members of the legal profession in the areas of immigration, refugee, human rights and civil liberties
such that Canada will continue to set the standard for global human rights practices. He strongly believes in the importance of community service. He acted as a student advocate for students in need at both UFV and SFU. He served as an appointed community representative member of the UFV Board of Governors; and served as a member of the Board of Directors for Fig Tree Foundation, a Calgary-based non-profit organization seeking to assist and coordinate international humanitarian relief. In 2009, Justice Ahmed was inducted into the Alberta Order of Excellence, Alberta’s highest award. In 2008, he received the Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of Alberta Distinguished Service Award for Pro Bono Legal Service.
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KEEPING IN TOUCH Alumni: let us know what you’ve been up to. Send a photo too! Write to: alumni@ufv.ca
When Sheetal Deo (BA ’11) felt the call to become a lawyer after graduating from UFV, she headed Down Under and completed her Juris Doctor, Master of Laws, and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, all at Bond University in Queensland, Australia. Sheetal may be a lawyer by qualification, but she is an advocate by choice. She is passionate about leveraging platforms and privilege to amplify under-represented voices and experiences and improving access to education and legal services. She occupies several roles which she uses to facilitate her passions and drive social impact. After three years in private practice, Sheetal realized that the traditional law firm model was perpetuating access to justice issues for the ‘missing middle,’ so she started her own practice —Shakti Legal Solutions. Shakti Legal Solutions is an innovative, low-bono legal triage service. Sheetal created Shakti to engage individuals, law firms, and the community at-large to assist with bridging the justice gap. She is also an adjunct lecturer with the College of Law in Queensland.
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When Sheetal isn’t advocating on behalf of underrepresented and marginalized communities in the legal sector, she is advocating on their behalf for social justice and inclusion. To this effect, Sheetal is the founder and lead collaborator for The Diversity Collective, a social cooperative aimed at creating safe spaces to learn, grow and heal. TDC offers bespoke training and consulting services to help individuals and organizations better understand systemic and social structures underpinning ‘diversity and inclusion’ work. TDC couples lived experience with political science and leading research to create educational resources. This not only improves impact, relatability, and connection, but remunerates people from diverse backgrounds for sharing their experience for the benefit of others’ understanding and allyship. Sheetal attributes the foundation for this initiative to her undergraduate studies in political science and philosophy at UFV. Outside of these roles, Sheetal volunteers her time as the co-founder and President of Ethnic+ Inc, a not-forprofit member association aimed at supporting and championing diversity within the LGBTIQA+ community.. Ethnic+ aims to bridge gaps in awareness, understanding and education between diverse members of the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies by providing a safe place to
share stories and teachable moments. She is also the State Director (Queensland) for Out for Australia, a national organization aimed at providing support for LGBTIQA+ students and serves on the management committee for the LGBTI Legal Service, a community legal centre providing legal assistance to the LGBTIQA+ community.
Aieisha Luyken (BKin ’15) was a standout player on the most successful version of the UFV women’s basketball team to grace the gym in the USPORTS era. And she has continued to be a key part of the program since graduating. She and her teammates advanced to the CIS regionals in 2011 and 2012, earned a pair of Canada West medals (bronze in 2013, silver in 2014), advanced to the CIS Final 8 national championship tournament twice (2013 and 2014), were ranked number one nationally, and won the program’s first CIS (now USPORTS) medal, a bronze, in 2014. Along the way, Aieisha was twice named a Canada West conference all-star. After wrapping up her
athletic eligibility in the spring of 2014, Aieisha was back on the Cascades’ bench that fall while completing her kinesiology degree, joining her dad Anthony on the assistant coaching staff. She hasn’t been an official member of the coaching staff for all of her seven postplaying-career years — she took a two-year break, for instance, as she earned her registered massage therapist (RMT) credentials. But her impact on the program has been uninterrupted — even when her schedule did not allow her to be at practice, she’s served as a mentor for Cascades point guards. In recent years she’s rejoined the coaching staff on a more formal basis, even reorganizing her professional life to do so. She lives in Vancouver and works there two days a week; the other three weekdays, she runs her RMT practice out of Iron Cycle Club in Abbotsford, and structures her appointments around Cascades practice times. She has also joined her dad Anthony on a coaching trip to the Nis’gaa Valley in northwest B.C. For three days, they worked with different age groups of kids and coaches from morning to night, sharing their love of basketball.
Poppy Johnson-Renvall (BA ’99) currently holds the position of Director of Libraries at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM)
in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After working as an ESL teacher in Japan she went on to earn her Master of Library Science degree at the University of British Columbia in 2005. Poppy then went with her husband Brian Renvall (BA ’99) to Portales, New Mexico where he earned an MA in anthropology and where she took the position of Director of Media Services at the Golden Library at Eastern New Mexico University. After two years there, Poppy moved into the position of Library Director at Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, New Mexico. These positions gave her the experience to become first the Associate Director and then the Director of Libraries at CNM. A long-time member of the New Mexico Academic Library Association, Poppy served as its president in 2019. Working closely with numerous stakeholders, Poppy helps with statewide issues which revolve around dealing with funding, implementing projects, the sharing of resources and collection development. Poppy feels that the well-rounded liberal arts background provided through the history program at UFV prepared her for her position in academia as well as for life. “I love New Mexico but I do miss the beauty and the green of my Fraser Valley home and hope to move back in the near future with my husband and daughter.”
In her own words, Sandra (Sandy) Moulton (BFA ’11, Dip GDD ’14) was something of a late bloomer. She embarked on her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the age of 43. However, despite her unconventional start in higher education, a spark was lit and after crossing the stage for the first time 10 years ago, Sandy went on to become one of the first students to join the new Graphic and Digital Design program at the Mission campus, adding a diploma to her name. Despite her reservations about entering the graphic design workforce amid much younger competition, Sandy had no trouble putting her skills to great use. Her clients and assignments have been varied, and range from sole designer at a golf course, production artist in advertising, work for a commercial real estate firm and illustrator for two children’s books. She is perhaps most proud of her private commissions and also the rebranding of a formerly franchised coffee shop in Langley to a new independent business. Seven years on, Sandy’s work at The Joy of Coffee in Murrayville Square has stood the test of time — and the lattes aren’t bad either.
Like many others, Sandy has felt the pinch of COVID-19 and is on the lookout for her next project. But she remains optimistic. “I am confident that I will once again land that job that will utilize everything I’ve learned from my time at UFV. Here’s to more creative adventures to come!”
When Noah Arney graduated from UCFV (BA ’07), the university-college was gearing up to become a full university the following year, and he was off to UBC to become a high school teacher. After teaching for a while he changed careers and has been a student-affairs professional for over a decade, working in Vancouver and Calgary. In that time, Noah has worked as an academic advisor, career advisor, associate registrar, program administrator, and work integrated learning coordinator. He’s currently finishing up his MEd in educational research at the University of Calgary. He recently became a faculty member at Thompson Rivers University and moves back to BC this summer. With TRU he will be supporting students in their career development individually, through
workshops, and teaching classes, as well as continuing his research in career development, work-integrated learning, and skills development. Noah works to implement more relational and qualitative concepts in career development through his practice and research, and sees career development as being just a different aspect of our whole selves. Noah was very active on campus, being part of the Cascade, SUS, various clubs, and Student Life. He met his wife Trista (Closson) (BA ’06, Dip LIBT ’09) through the English Students Association, and they have one child, Logan.
Rebecca Kessler (AA ’06) furthered her studies at Simon Fraser University, completing her communications degree in 2009. Over the past decade, Rebecca has developed leading communications strategies and practices for health care, governance, and Indigenous organizations. Rebecca currently works in local government and oversees civil engineering and community developmentrelated communications. She is a certified public engagement specialist through the International Association of Public Participation. She resides in Chilliwack, and in
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KEEPING IN TOUCH her free time, volunteers with the International Association of Business Communicators helping further the industry. She enjoys exploring all the Fraser Valley, and beyond, has to offer.
Christopher Pascoe (BSc ’10) obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from UFV in 2010 with a major in biology and a pre-medicine
concentration. After completing his BSc, he obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia in the department of experimental medicine with a thesis focusing on the mechanical properties of airway smooth muscle in asthma. Post-doctoral training followed at the University of Manitoba in the department of physiology and pathophysiology with a focus on understanding the role of oxidized phospholipids in asthma. In 2019, Chris was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, in the department of physiology and pathophysiology, where he now runs a lab that focuses on understanding the role of
the early life environment in asthma pathogenesis and how the lungs use lipid mediators to coordinate cellular function. This work is funded by grants from CIHR and NSERC.
Since her graduation from the BSc Kinesiology program at UFV, Courtney Claggett (BSc Kin ’13) established her own business, CMC Fitness Consulting, where
her vision is to help women realize their potential for exercise during and after pregnancy. As a certified pre- and postnatal coach and postnatal fitness specialist, Courtney works with women at all stages of the reproductive spectrum, from those who are trying to get pregnant up to and including women who had their children years previously. Courtney provides one-to-one coaching as well as a three-month postnatal program that is more self-led and group workshops on Connecting to the Core and Pelvic Floor. She lives in Agassiz, BC.
Matthew Dirks (BA GDS ’14) was the winner of our recent Alumni Reconnect contest.
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Matthew is part of the leadership team at Communitas Supportive Care Society, a charity headquartered in Abbotsford and serving individuals with mental health challenges, developmental disabilities, and acquired brain injuries in the province of BC. “I oversee a group of our management team for several programs, am involved in launching social enterprises, and also lead our quality improvement strategy for the organization. I’m happily married to fellow UFV alumnus Kenzi Dirks (BA ’13) and we live together in Abbotsford. We have a 1-year old girl and are expecting our second child this December.
Natalie Alves’ (Dip GDD ‘17) graphic design skills have taken her far. About 6,000 miles to be precise. Having graduated from UFV’s Graphic and Digital Design program in 2017, Natalie was happy to return to the freelancing she had dabbled in prior to graduating, embracing the lifestyle with its fast pace and ever-changing challenges. “I learned quickly how
entrepreneurial you have to be in the creative industry and freelancing taught me many of the lessons I still live and work by today.” In 2018, with the flexibility of freelancing in her back pocket, Natalie and her partner relocated to the UK in search of a new adventure, and quickly fell in love with England. A new opportunity beckoned in October the following year, with a graphic design position at Twinkl, an educational publishing company. As the daughter of a teacher, and with her background in freelance design and illustration for children’s literature, it was perhaps no surprise that Twinkl’s mission statement “we help those who teach”
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resonated with Natalie. Based within the international department, and with a noticeably unique accent among her British colleagues, Natalie soon transitioned to supporting the company’s Canadian operations, where she took on first social media and newsletter communications, then other marketing duties to enhance market growth back in her homeland. She was obviously doing something right, as the Canadian market grew faster than anyone anticipated. By the end of the year, Natalie was promoted to the position of Twinkl’s country manager for Canada. Now, with a full-scale production team on board, CONTINUED ON PAGE 50
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Aird Flavelle brings energy and a wide range of interests to his unique connection with UFV
into a legacy: a $1,000 Political Science Endowment Leadership Award in Aird’s family name. “We changed it to political science because our world is very, very political now,” says Aird, who himself has run in four civic (as an Independent) and three provincial (as a Green Party candidate) elections and has yet to secure a victory. “We don’t have nearly enough great people in politics; we want to encourage the next generation of politicians.” Aird’s support for UFV runs deeper than writing a cheque or attending a lecture. For the last decade, he has served as a mentor for a few UFV students each year, meeting with them weekly (pre-COVID) in the foyer of the Student Union Building. “I spend a pile of time at the university,” he said. “I meet with a specific student for literally a couple of years until they graduate, and we talk about their goals and how to move closer to them.” He adds with a laugh: “I’m just the old guy trying to be a bit helpful.” Aird, 67, is a grandfather, but he’s not
BY GERALD NARCISO PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN McDONALD
Electric + Eclectic He may be the most interesting man in Abbotsford. He’s certainly one of the most eclectic. And Aird Flavelle is also one of UFV’s biggest fans. In an ordinary year, Aird — a local entrepreneur, politician, volunteer, pilot, and about a half dozen other things — can likely be spotted in a seat inside the lecture theatre in Building B on UFV’s Abbotsford campus enjoying a good lecture. And the topic doesn’t matter. It could be global politics, environmental reform, race relations, or emerging tech; Aird is locked in, engaged, and ready for discussion. “They have some of the most wonderful speakers and events in B101,” Aird says proudly. “I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I’ve been in there at that lecture hall —sometimes I
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think I’ve got the students beat on overall attendance!” It’s this connection to UFV that has inspired him to give back to the university as a mentor and a donor. Aird is not your typical academic. He dropped out of high school in Coquitlam in Grade 9 (although he almost earned a bachelor’s degree years later at the University of Calgary, majoring in economics and East Asian studies). He is not a UFV alumnus, nor is his wife or adult son. He rarely reads books, but spends several hours per day reading news reports and articles. Attending events, lectures, and public forums at UFV is where Aird quenches his thirst for knowledge. “I like the options of having a university in town,” says Aird. “It’s an opportunity
“just an old guy.” He serves on several boards and is involved with the local Rotary club of Abbotsford-Matsqui and the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. But he’s more than a successful businessman. And he’s not detached from the issues that concern millennial or Gen-Z UFV students. He’s not anything you think he might be. Renaissance man If you read some biographies on Aird or talked to him in person, you would swear he was Forrest Gump, in terms of diverse life experiences. Aird has served in the Australian army. He is a commercial pilot. He is a third-degree blackbelt and is a past instructor in jiu-jitsu. He has studied Mandarin, Japanese and Punjabi (fun fact: he met his wife Sheila, pictured below, in an Arabic language class while both were living in Calgary). He is a volunteer dancer for Abbotsford’s Business in Black dance troupe. And he has been known to wear a kilt and tie featuring the City of
Abbotsford tartan to events. “I tell people that Grade 9 was the best three years of my life,” he says with a laugh. “I never made it through high school by a long shot. And I’m not very good at classroom-type stuff. Some people suggest I bounce off the walls a lot. So I go do other things.” Aird has been a prolific community volunteer with organizations focused on hospice care, restorative justice, nature, art, local history, and gardening. He has served on the City of Abbotsford’s environmental advisory committee and he chaired Abbotsford’s sister city committee. He is an avid council-watcher and since 2007 has a near perfect attendance record for Abbotsford City Council meetings. “I also go to the police board meetings,” he says. “And all of the City’s citizen advisory committee meetings.” With this kind of energy and infectious personality, an outsider might think Aird is more suited for a fast-paced, highly populated city. But he is quick to correct that notion.
to go out of your house and get a broader viewpoint on different world issues.” Learning is what may have brought Aird initially to UFV’s doorstep over 20 years ago, but it was community that made him stay. Between his gregarious personality and multiple visits on campus over the years, it was just a matter of time before he became integrated into the UFV family. His relationship with the institution runs deep, from alumni to faculty members to the president. As a successful Fraser Valley IT entrepreneur — he founded MSA Computer Ltd in 1992, which later morphed into Red Rhino Networks — Aird and his wife Sheila have become valued donors to UFV. What started as an annual bursary to support the computer science program has evolved
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Zooming through that pandemic life We may be living in a global pandemic, but that has not grounded the Flavelles. Before the mid-afternoon call for this story, Aird had already attended a remote Green Party council meeting, done renovations around the house, attended a lunch-and-learn with his company Red Rhino and the Chamber of Commerce, and even found time to bring Sheila breakfast in bed. The pandemic has also not cut off Aird’s source of information — although the trips to the B101 lecture theatre have had to temporarily pause. “Zoom has been magical for us,” says Aird. “In the past year, we’ve logged on to so many cool lectures at UFV and learned so many cool things. Because we were locked up in our house, we found ourselves going to things that we wouldn’t have gone to before. It just opened the doors even wider to a broader learning experience.” It’s partly because UFV has brought the Flavelles so much joy and community
that they pay it forward with the Flavelle Endowment Leadership Award. A legacy that will outlive them. “It’s fun to be recognized, but in 20 years’ time, nobody will remember me and that’s okay,” Aird says. “But the fund will still be there, hopefully making a difference in somebody’s career journey.” A career journey is something that Aird knows plenty about. He’s accomplished many things in many different areas with many different people. It is that incomparable passion for life and learning that connected him to UFV, and vice versa. “UFV has done so much for me and so much for improving the overall community, making it a better place, a safer place, a more interesting place, a more dynamic and economically viable place,” he says, pausing and flashing a quick smile on the Zoom screen. “There are not enough wonderful things you can say about having a special university in your town.”
UFV RIPPLE MAKERS MAKE RIPPLES. MAKE WAVES.
COMMUNITY GIVING DAYS GENERATE MORE THAN $60,000 IN 72 HOURS
Donors to UFV are having a profound impact on education, innovation, and prosperity in the Fraser Valley. When you donate to UFV your gift has a ripple effect, enabling students to pursue their dreams and become vital members of our community. UFV Ripple Makers was launched in 2020 as UFV’s donor recognition society and celebrates the ripples supporters are making at UFV and beyond. Ripple Makers enjoy a range of benefits outlined on our website. For more information, please visit giving.ufv.ca or contact Deanna McIntyre (BIS ‘21), Manager, Donor Relations, at deanna. mcintyre@ufv.ca or 604-847-5447.
FIVE WAYS TO SUPPORT STUDENTS: 1. Donate to the Student Emergency Fund or UFV-SUS Food Bank 2. Establish a named scholarship or bursary 3. Donate equipment and materials for hands-on experiential learning 4. Support a student program, activity, faculty, or research centre important to you 5. Include UFV in your estate plans with a bequest or gift of life insurance.
Photo: Rick Collins
“Abbotsford is just as high energy as New York City,” says Aird, who moved to the Fraser Valley in the early 1990s to escape the Alberta winters. “There’s a pile of stuff here and we can draw crowds here too. Very early on after my wife and I moved here 31 years ago, we immediately heard about the Abbotsford Air Show, and I knew this area was special and we’d be happy here.” “There are things to do in a community if you get involved in them,” adds Sheila, who also serves on several boards around town. “It’s just a matter of actually joining and volunteering. That’s where the change and the growth starts.” The Flavelles’ visibility and participation in the community led to involvement in politics, even though it was by chance. As members of the Abbotsford-Matsqui Rotary Club, Aird and Sheila met other members who were politicians like George Peary (former Mayor of Abbotsford) and Michael de Jong (current Liberal MLA for Abbotsford West and former cabinet minister). Aird observed first-hand how individuals could influence change. “All of a sudden, I realized that I could have an impact,” Aird says. “And one day in 2007, I heard that there was going to be an election for mayor and council. And I said, ‘I could do so much more if I had a seat on council. And so, I’ve been running for council ever since.” Aird was an executive in the provincial council of the BC Green Party in 2014 as a regional representative for the Fraser Valley, and became the treasurer in 2016. He’s an avid ally for LGBTQ2 rights (he and Sheila enjoy attending drag shows), equality, and diversity, a supporter of the Abbotsford police, and an advocate for sustainability and the environment. “It’s been a great learning experience for our whole family understanding the ins and outs of provincial and civic government,” says Sheila. “Supporting the Green Party and what they believe in, we try to live those ideas and ideals because they align with our values.”
For more information on ways to support UFV, please contact Natalina MacLeod, Associate Director, Principal and Planned Gifts at natalina.macleod@ufv.ca or 604557-7618, or visit us online at giving.ufv.ca.
To mark its 47th birthday, UFV hosted its first annual Community Giving Days from April 5–7 to raise funds for two distinct programs — the UFV Cascades (athletics) and student refugees. Countless students have struggled financially over the past 18 months as a result of COVID-19, and our student-athletes are no exception. Many cannot afford to attend post-secondary without the help of financial aid, and the funds raised for our UFV Cascades will enable several students to pursue an education and the sport they love.
In January of 2020, in partnership with the World University Service Committee, UFV sponsored its first student refugee, providing financial support for tuition, technology, food, transportation, clothing, and housing. The funds raised through our Community Giving Days will enable one more student refugee to attend UFV in the coming year. We extend a heartfelt thank you to all who supported UFV’s Community Giving Days. Stay tuned for 2022 when we will feature additional programs across UFV!
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GIVING GENERATING LEARNING
Photo: Rick Collins
ALUMNI SIBLINGS HONOUR PARENTS WITH COMMEMORATIVE PAVERS
UFV’s Heavy Mechanical trades students now have a Multiquip generator to assist with their hands-on learning thanks to a generous donation from Jim Dent Construction Ltd. (also known as DENT). The Heavy Mechanical Trades Foundation program prepares students to diagnose, service, and repair heavy mobile equipment at a business location or in the field. Harvinder (above with father) and Sukhvinder (below with mother) Mangat honoured their parents with commemorative paving stones.
Harvinder Mangat (Dip Crim ’05) and Sukhvinder Mangat (BA Crim ’15) are both very grateful for the support their parents have provided them with throughout their lives. The brothers wanted to give back to UFV for the excellent education they received and to honour their parents at the same time. They decided to “pave it forward” and ordered two custom-engraved commemorative paving stones to pay tribute to their parents, and support student bursaries at UFV. Commemorative pavers are a unique new feature of the revitalized garden and entrance at UFV’s Abbotsford campus. Both brothers are UFV alumni from the Criminal Justice program. Harvinder is a constable with the Abbotsford Police Department and Sukhvinder is a Border Services Officer with the Canada Border
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Services Agency. They attribute their chosen professions in protection and community service to their parents’ values and to their upbringing. “As a graduate, I think it’s a good thing to donate whatever you can once your career is flourishing, to help current students pursue their education,” says Sukhvinder. Harvinder and Sukhvinder chose to honour their parents with two commemorative pavers — one for each parent — to express their gratitude in a tangible way, and to thank UFV for providing a high-quality education, close to home. “There are a lot of people in this community that, like us, came from a humble background and going away to university is not really an option. So having an institution in our own backyard and that is of the same caliber as other universities is amazing.”
“The Multiquip generator will be used for Heavy Mechanical trades training — initially to rebuild the high-hour engine then for fuel system training. It will also be used for training in testing high-voltage AC electrical connections in conjunction with high-voltage safety gloves and PPE,” said UFV Heavy Mechanical instructor Jamie Ubell. The donation was a result of a connection between the Heavy Mechanical program and local industry, thanks to an alert apprenticeship student. Sandy Dent, DENT President, explained how it happened. “One of our heavy-duty mechanic apprentices, David Putz, was going to UFV, and the instructor asked if anyone knew of generator availabilities, and he said that DENT has several.” Sandy has another connection to this UFV: in the early 1990s he was enrolled as a Carpentry Apprenticeship student. Our sincere thanks to DENT for your generous donation.
A LASTING LEGACY Consider making UFV a part of your estate plan through a bequest or gift of life insurance, and create a legacy that lasts forever. Jake Friesen did, before passing away in 2019. Jake was the owner of Clearbrook Grain & Milling, a division of the Friesen Group of Companies and a long-time friend of UFV. In his will, he left instructions to fund an endowed scholarship for UFV agriculture students. Endowed funds support education in perpetuity, by disbursing the earned interest on an annual basis as scholarships or bursaries. “Education was very important to my dad. He grew up in a large family and did not have the
chance to go to school past Grade 8. He always wanted more for his kids, and was happy with my choice to attend UFV. Our company benefits from having local agriculture graduates, and we believe in supporting education,” says Melinda Friesen (BBA ’06), Director of Communications and Marketing, Friesen Group of Companies UFV is appreciative of Jake’s thoughtful and heartfelt gift, which will support students in perpetuity.
MY PERSONAL OPINION IS THAT THIS INSTITUTION IS WELL RUN, HAS GOOD STANDARDS, AND TO HAVE IT IN OUR COMMUNITY IS A REAL PLUS.” JAKE FRIESEN (HON DTECH ’07)
Learn how you can leave a legacy: giving@ufv.ca | 604-557-7618
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KEEPING IN TOUCH College officials were asked to prepare for a ceremony on July 5, 1991, on the Abbotsford campus. At that ceremony Peter Dueck announced university-college status for Fraser Valley College. “We were so relieved,” recalls Sue Gadsby. Although many people were involved in the campaign for university-college status, the two coalition leaders were recognized for kickstarting the campaign. “I remember college board chair Brian Minter coming up to us with tears in his eyes, saying, ‘if it wasn’t for you two this would never have happened.’” The front page of the Vancouver Sun the next day featured the two friends hugging and celebrating the victory. Where are they now? Sue Gadsby has enjoyed a lengthy career with the Canadian Police College. She married UFV English professor Tim Haner, who was one of our first BA students, and their youngest child is a student enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts degree program, which their mother lobbied to create. Dr. Jaclyn Rea went on to earn her PhD and is a lecturer at the University of British Columbia. Wilfried Vicktor served several terms as Mayor of Hope. Pat McQueen passed away after battling cancer. John Jansen remained a strong supporter of UFV in his post-politics life, and received an honorary degree from UFV in 2019. Brian Minter went on to be UFV’s first Chancellor. You can still find him in the aisles at Minter Country Garden and on the airwaves giving gardening advice. He received an honorary degree in 2001. The UCFV legacy Once Fraser Valley College received university-college status and became UFV, planning began in earnest for third- and fourth-year programming and bachelor’s degrees in several disciplines.
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The first degrees were offered in partnership with other BC universities for several years before UCFV was permitted to offer them independently. Arts, Business Administration, and Criminal Justice degrees launched in 1992. Degrees in Science, Computer Information Systems, Child and Youth Care, Adult Education, Social Work, Nursing, and Kinesiology followed within the next few years. The addition of third- and fourth-year programming led to one of the biggest hiring sprees in UFV history in the two to three years after the 1991 announcement. Hiring continued at rapid pace through 1996. Current and recently retired faculty and staff who joined UFV in that era of rapid growth include: Tom Baumann (retired 2021), Tim Cooper (retired 2021), Eric Davis, Tim Herron, Greg Schlitt (retired 2021), Robin Anderson, Cherie Enns, Kevin Dunn, Anne Russell, Leslie Olsen, Kasey Merritt, Maple Melder Crozier, Doug Rasmussen, Terry Starr, Heidi Cain, Martha Dow, Wendy Gracey, Aileen Ablog, Leah Carr, Zoe Dennison, Shawna Dyck, Norm Taylor (retired 2021), Jane Webb, Joseph Yu, Paul Gumprich (retired 2021), Regina Yorga, David Chu, David Harper, Bruce Kirkley, Peter Mulhern, Sylvie Murray, Noham Weinberg, Ron Dart, Carol Konkle, Tami White, Elizabeth Hughes, Eddie Campbell, Julie Jabbal (retired 2021), Joan Johannessen, Fiona McQuarrie (retired 2021), Stephen Piper, Grace Tsurumuru, Deborah Block, Isabel Hay, Greg St. Hilaire, Patti Wilson, Rhonda Styles, Cyrus Chaichian, Gayle Ramsden, Anthony Stea, Alyson Seale, Daphne Cockerill, Gloria Borrows, Colleen Heron (retired 2021), Bryan Daniel, Mark Ryan, Randy Kelley, Gordon Jang, and Maria Bos-Chan (retired 2021).
creating a localized product for Canada’s multiple curricula, Natalie is proud to have reached the milestone of 1 in every 50 Canadian teachers subscribing to a Twinkl membership. Today, Natalie feels grateful for the education she received at UFV, and the diverse curriculum covered by the GDD program, which equipped her for the fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment in which she now thrives. “I am so proud that using my Graphic and Digital Design diploma, the right opportunities and a lot of hard work, I can help teachers and countless Canadian children every day.”
There’s a lot to be said for the inspirational influence of quality instructors. For Shannon McConnell (BA ’12), the infectious enthusiasm and passion within her faculty certainly rubbed off, opening her eyes to the world of creative writing and setting her on the path to extensive post graduate studies. Shannon is currently pursuing her PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, having completed first an MFA Writing (’17) then MA History (’20) both at the University of Saskatchewan.
“My time at UFV really helped me to see what was possible, that my education did not have to end with a bachelor’s degree. The skills and knowledge I gained while at UFV directly prepared me for graduate work and has continued to inspire me throughout my research and studies now.” Today, with a recently published debut poetry collection, The Burden of Gravity, through B.C.’s Caitlin Press, Shannon credits her undergraduate studies at UFV with solidifying her love for creative writing. “I was able to test out multiple genres that I had never considered before, which only helped to further ignite my passion for writing. UFV really
provided the base for all my other academic and writing endeavours to grow from.” Her words of advice to current students? Take the time to reach out and build relationships with your fellow students and faculty. They are a wealth of knowledge and are so crucial to the academic experience. “Being part of a community is so valuable, especially in undergrad when everything seems overwhelming. Have study groups or just go for drinks after class. Those connections and friendships are what you will take with you into your career and hold close to your through your life.”
Julie Bishop (Cert Architectural Drafting ’09) understands the pressures of entering the workforce during a global crisis. When she graduated with her Architectural Drafting certificate in 2009, the global recession was taking hold. It took her 18 months, but Julie secured a mechanical drafting position with Valley Countertops in Abbotsford, and 10 years on, she is still very happily employed there. The company manufactures countertops for Home Depot from Vancouver Island to Manitoba and has been featured on the TV shows Love It or List It and Worst to First. Julie reviews and programs work orders using AutoCAD and several software programs
for the CNC machines to read. Julie appreciated the mechanical, surveying and electrical components of the Architectural Drafting program, in addition to the architectural focus. Her learning has continued, and she now holds a Red Seal in automotive parts and warehousing. “I ended up in the job that was suited to my natural abilities. It has been 10 years with this company and I am very happy and content in my role as product technician in the engineering department.”
Help protect what matters most. Members could save on TD Term Life Insurance plans. Discover how affordable TD Term Life Insurance can be! Go to tdinsurance.com/products-services/life-insurance TD Term Life Insurance is an individual life insurance plan underwritten by TD Life Insurance Company. Not available to residents of the province of Quebec. Residents of New Brunswick who wish to apply in French must call to speak to an advisor. Some restrictions may apply. Application subject to approval. See Insurance Policy for coverage details, including limitations and exclusions. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ® The TD logo and other trademarks are the property of The Toronto-Dominion Bank or its subsidiaries.
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Photo: Darren McDonald
Skookum is published for the University of the Fraser Valley by the University Relations team UNIVERSITY RELATIONS LEADERSHIP TEAM
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Craig Toews, Vice-President, External Anita Nielsen, Executive Director, Advancement & Alumni Relations Dave Pinton, Director, Communications Laura Authier, Director, Marketing ALUMNI RELATIONS OFFICE Diane St. Denis, Manager, Alumni Relations (interim) SKOOKUM PRODUCTION TEAM Editor: Anne Russell Art Direction: Camilla Coates Design & Production: Camilla Coates, Marie Tary Writing: Gerald Narciso, Anne Russell, Dan Kinvig, Leona Oakman Photography: Darren McDonald, Dan Kinvig, Laura Kaur, Mitch Huttema, Britney Berrner, Anne Russell, Rick Collins, Sandy Tait, Tajinder Kaur, Andrew Balfour and Bob Warick Production Liaison: Breanna Willock, Bahara Ahmadi Have comments or ideas? Send them to: skookum@ufv.ca See Skookum online at ufv.ca/skookum Want to communicate with your Alumni Association? Contact: alumni@ufv.ca or call 604-557-4008 UFV Alumni Relations Office: 33844 King Road, Abbotsford, BC