VIU Hosts EDI Symposium

VIU hosted 13 post-secondary institutions from across Canada in March 2021 for a two-day symposium to exchange ideas and best practices for equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) action planning. VIU’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Symposium was a venue for post-secondary institutions to collaborate and share research-based best practices, learn how to build capacity, gain understanding of the legal and human rights aspects of EDI and more. The symposium featured keynote speaker Dr. Denise O’Neil Green who highlighted how EDI principles have historically been at the margins of Canada’s post-secondary education sector.

Dr. Amanda Wager, VIU’s Canada Research Chair in Community-Engaged Research, is Project Director for the $23,594 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Institutional Connection Grant, which funded the symposium.

The event laid the foundation for an EDI community of practice among the participating universities so that relationships and conversations could continue after the symposium.

“To continue the relationships and conversations which began at the symposium, we created an online space using Microsoft Teams where institutions can share resources such as training materials and scholarly literature. Participating universities developing their action plans will be able to upload their drafts to this collaboration site to get feedback from the community of practice,” says Dr. Tehmina Khwaja, VIU’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Post-Doctoral Fellow. 