President's Forum (PART) - May 19

PRESIDENT’S TOWN HALL PART REPORT & RECOMMENDATIONS             MAY 19, 2022

PRESIDENT VIVEK GOEL - Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining the forum today. Before we begin, Before we begin, it is important to reflect and acknowledge the University of Waterloo’s campuses in Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge are situated on the Haldimand Tract, land 6 miles on each side of the Grand River granted to the Haudenosaunee of Six Nations.  The land inside and surrounding the Haldimand Tract, including our Stratford campus, is the traditional territory of the Attawandaron, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee. I also acknowledge and recognize this area is now home to many diverse First Nation, Inuit and Métis groups Thank you all for tuning in virtually. Today's forum will highlight the work of the President's Anti-Racism Task Force. Part in 2020. The University formed part and made a public commitment to engage our community and address systemic racism. Across our campuses.

Under the leadership of Charmaine Dean, the task force consulted with groups across the University to prepare recommendations to advance this critical mission. Last month, I was pleased to receive parts comprehensive report with 18 eight recommendations to address racism at the university. Today I'm joined by Charmaine. Members apart and other university leaders to discuss the report. Some of our progress to date on the recommendations and other anti-racism initiatives and where we go from here.

I'm grateful to my predecessor, President Feridun Hamdullahpur, for beginning this work during his presidency. To Charmaine for her leadership on this important initiative and to all members of the university community involved in this work, advancing anti-racism and truth and reconciliation has always been critical work this past year and particularly recent events have reminded us of the urgency of this work.

Just this past weekend, we will have watched and read the news from Buffalo of another devastating mass murder, motivated by racial hatred and an ideology of white supremacy. Events like these forced us all to confront the horrible reality that racialized people, particularly black people, face every day It is easy to believe that these are problems that are specific to the United States.

However, here in Canada, hate motivated crime is also on the rise, and the pandemic has continued to expose inequality across our society. Additionally, the continued discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools across the country has underscored the need to confront Canada's history of colonialism and the urgent need to advance truth and reconciliation. We need our societies to change.

We need to dismantle the systems of oppression that continue to marginalize black indigenous and other racialized communities. For us, this starts at home. Racism exists here in Waterloo, and we must continue to take action. It is challenging, but incredibly important work. I am heartened by the progress already underway at the university, which I look forward to discussing today.

Our event today will include a presentation about the work of part, followed by a panel discussion with members of the task force after the panel, we will have time to take questions from the audience. We will address some of the questions that were submitted during registration You can also submit questions using the Q&A feature. On the right hand side of your screen, which will open during the Q&A period, I'd also like to note that you can turn on closed captioning of the live stream in Microsoft Teams.

I will now turn things over to Charmaine Dean for the presentation thank you very much.

CHARMAINE DEAN - Next slide, please. The efforts of so very many individuals on campus contributed to the president's anti-racism task force. And I would like to start as President Goel by acknowledging these contributions of our community and the outstanding efforts of everyone involved.

Next slide, please.

Just a reminder about the PART structure. We've shared this with the community on on various occasions. The the in discussions with community members who had volunteered to serve on the task force there were key items that needed consideration that were brought forward as needing consideration by the institution. And these topics understood here, a lot of discussion on health and mental health, the whole teaching and learning environment, professional academic development, a race based to strategy, increasing campus representation, having black studies, programing.

These were validated through individual consultations with the community and also a group discussions with the community as well as a broad reach out to all of campus over the July 2020 to December 2020 period. It was very clear that there was a need to move ahead on specific items immediately, whereas some of the items needed a fair bit more work in order to understand the context and what recommendations would suit the University of Waterloo.

So a different kind of structure was implemented, one that allowed the implementation of certain activities immediately and another that allowed for greater consultation and discourse. So we had implementation teams and working groups.

Next slide, please.

The approach followed an allowance of scholarly review. So looking at evidence based, the literature mostly peer reviewed journals, but also doing a scan on relevant trends, for example, from other U15 institutions or other institutions globally who were advancing this effort.

Having that information as background, it needed to be a really focused on the Waterloo context. So interviews, focus groups and surveys with students and employees. And then of course the working group members regularly met weekly, bi weekly to look at all of this data, the intelligence gathering, and then eventually to propose solutions. I'm going to start with the implementation teams and I'd like to call on the Provost Professor Jim Rash to highlight the work of three implementation teams and also to briefly discuss some of the foundational work that was under development by the institutions through the work of PART over 2020 and 2021

JIM RUSH - Thank you very much, Charmaine.

And to the whole team and all involved. Anita, could you go to the next slide please? It'll be my pleasure to share a few highlights in some context regarding other work. First, on the Black Studies programing, it's, I think important to note that a Black Studies implementation team was was formed in 2020 and got to work on some significant programing issues right away such that in the beginning in the fall coming fall 2022 that black studies and fundamentals of anti-racist communication will be offered as diplomas open to all our degree students from any faculty as well as non-degree and postgraduate students.

Both of those programs will be offered through the Faculty of Arts and they were developed by members of the Black Faculty Collective under the leadership of Professor Vershawn Young and with campus wide consultations. Importantly, the group has focused on making Black Studies at Waterloo, an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach. And that's evident in some of the course titles that are that are coming up, including Taking Back or Black History Introduction into anti-racist communication, black theater workshop and strategic management of Black Enterprises, to name some of that of that multidisciplinary approach.

Transitioning just a bit to the campus representation activities, the cluster hire initiative will see the addition of a minimum of ten indigenous and ten black faculty members across the institution and interviews and campus visits are actively underway on that program for Black Excellence in Indigenous Excellence in continuing through to the spring of 2020. So offers are in progress across several faculties and indeed we have secured some hires through through this initiative already with offers at various stages.

These are and this initiative of course is an important step in accelerating the progression of increased representation of Indigenous and black faculty. Across the University. Waterloo's committed to creating a wider scope of sustainable and supportable environment for the entire community, and I think these hiring initiatives will bring us closer to realizing that goal. But they're only one part of doing so.

Equitable recruitment and selection has been supported throughout this process by special advisors for each initiative. So I'm very thankful to professors Jessica Thompson, Trevor Charles and Logan Macdonald for their support of the process of committees and of the potential hires involved through their advice on on what I've just mentioned, but also on onboarding and mentorship initiatives as we as we move forward.

And I'm also very thankful to Jean Becker and Christopher Taylor through their competency and capacity building sessions and programs, including the development of six unique resources that were put to use in support of equitable selection in these programs, some additional activity across campus for interest on representation is that the Employment Equity Working Group has also been very active over these past many months, including working on hires through special program justifications in alignment with guidelines of the Ontario Human Rights Code as such that 28 additional staff and 11 additional faculty hires have been made in in one of the four federally federally designated groups during this period through this program.

So that is another avenue for making more rapid progress on representational hires.

Next slide, please.

The University of Waterloo's Equity Data Advisory Group, as Charmaine, noted in the chart, a couple of slides ago, while not specifically being an implementation team under part, is working hand-in-hand in supporting part and in in alignment with recommendations that are coming out and its contributor. This group has contributed significantly to providing the guidance and advice on the kinds of equity data that Waterloo should be collecting and the wording of the questions that staff and faculty and students should be seeing as well as many components of the process, including creating a comfortable and safe environment which self-identity people are comfortable with.

With self-identification, the key focus of that group has been providing advice on the equity data survey which was first launched in June of 2021, and 60,000 surveys have been distributed and the collection is ongoing. So the results from that survey are intended to help us better to understand the makeup of our community and the better servicing and support of our community.

So those are a few highlights. On the implementation teams themselves. Alongside the work apart, we know a number of initiatives are underway and in alignment with part we. Recently the institution has joined the Scarborough National Charter, for instance, and we were at the inaugural meeting of the institutions last week, which was a very inspiring process. We're working on an admissions project that is bringing in the FBI, our offices and the Indigenous relations offices and looking at the review process and in admissions we as you know, engaged in a review of the previous structure in which the air and the Indigenous Relations Office were housed.

We've done some restructuring, including the appointment up to AB piece, and I think it may be the most productive to turn over to Christopher Taylor at this point, who of course has taken on the role as EVP Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism to maybe share some of the capacity building and strategies that he is leading and undertaking that support both part and and other related recommendations and activities.

So thank you very much, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR - Thank you very much, Jim. I want to briefly say, first of all, thank you to everyone who's been involved in this process. I know it's been long. I know it's been difficult. I know we've all had professional and personal challenges moving forward, but we're here. And a big thing I want to state and highlight and as Jim mentioned, is that while we've had these recommendations at the same time, we have been moving to implement quite a number of initiatives.

A key part of that, as you mentioned, our program area leads coming from our office. And I know a lot of people on this call are familiar with that. So these program area leads or panels will be supporting and assisting in the implementation of all of the recommendations. So we're working together to make sure and ensure that we execute this work.

So this is a key understanding we need to move forward because we have that. As you mentioned, we also are building the capacity in our respective teams, Jean's team and my team as well to ensure that we can implement, not just organize and to have these working groups and have these particular recommendations, but to ensure that the hard work that this community has done is going to be executed.

And one thing I do want to highlight quickly, and Jim had mentioned about this garbage charter, I was pleasantly pleased and not surprised, I'll say pleasantly pleased. And I want to share with this group that we are one of the leaders nationally in supporting black excellence in black, thriving in our institutions. And that's not just because of myself for Charmaine or Jean or Vivek or Jim.

It's because of the work that everyone here at this institution has done. And that's something that I think we should really be proud of, but not to just rest on our laurels and say Hey, we did it, but to know that we had the momentum to move forward. So I want to thank everyone for that. And together, we're going to move forward on this project.

So I'm going to pass it back to Charmaine and we can discuss the working groups

CHARMAINE DEAN - Thanks very much, Jim and Christopher. And I just want to emphasize once more that all those specific implementation teams and various efforts across campus built a great foundation for the implementation work throughout 2020 and 2021 as key initiatives arose from the working groups.

They were immediately moved into implementation through initial discussions with Jean Becker, who between the discussions with Jean Becker and myself, and then passing it on through the support of various offices and leaders on campus. There are lots of details on those implementations that Jim and Christopher mentioned in the report itself. So in terms of the Working Group recommendations, the sniper bites us summary here and the five working groups code of Conduct and Safety, a lot of work done on policies, review of policies and development of an anti racism statement and a lot of discussion about anti-racism training for campus safety.

So although the if you look in the body of the report, you will see these itemized in broad terms. An appendix actually provides some very detailed course syllabi through consultations with other institutions and through discussions with our community as to what was needed here on the education and environment and development of learners. Decolonizing the curriculum. There was some work done on creating an inventory of courses with black and indigenous content.

A lot of discussion about teaching assessments, Indigenous and bringing Indigenous aid into the classroom, training for review and ethics and committees, admission practices and scholarships and transitional year programs. Health and mental health had a lot of activity on campus in the past few years and so built on that foundation to discuss anti-racism training for health providers and counselors.

You'll see some discussion in the report about the wellness collaborative and a lot of discussion about how the wellness collaboratives work could be broadened to emphasize anti-racism activities and professional and academic development, about how mentorship, how career tracking what will could be developed for our community as a whole. So this embodied staff as well as students in particular, research barriers and funding for faculty members was also considered and a development of resources to support all of those research on ethnicity awareness was both an implementation team.

You'll remember all the events that took place in 20, 20 and 20, 21 educating campus, but also there were discussions about strategic planning, mission and values and how these should occur as we move forward. And a lot of discussion about representation in governance committees, Senate Board of Governors and Senior Leadership. There were also some overarching themes that arose from all the committees and working groups, and I'll briefly mention them, although there was a specific working group that discussed policy development that each of the committees talked about policies that needed review.

And so we've put all these in an overall theme. A decolonizing approach was considered for specific aspects of our curriculum, but it also discussed in each of the committees that there needed to be equity and social justice considerations related to our services, our programs, as well as our communications. Safe Spaces was discussed at length by each of the committees, and these are not necessarily physical spaces.

For example, the book club was a safe space where individuals could come together and discuss specific items with like minded individuals or discuss controversial items, but with individuals who would be supportive of such discussions. The need for increased funding for programs and services and meaningful engagement of individuals making sure that representation was allowed for program development, for services and research.

Next slide, please. And the last five overarching themes we've mentioned briefly, a lot of discussion about training, not just training and for counselors but training for Senate training, for board, board committees, hiring committees, and some of this work, as you've heard from Christopher Taylor, has already been initiated in that office. Representation was still seen to be needing attention at this institution.

And effective communications for individuals so that they had clear signposts how to how to navigate systems There was also some discussion that not everything needed to be invented at the institution. There was great opportunity to partner with external organizations who were already doing this work and that ethical data governance needed to be a principal that would guide data collection and an analysis.

So consultation with our communities on what questions needed to be asked. And I'll note that an appendix summarizes the recommendations, the leaders accountable for these recommendations. I'll also take the opportunity to note that for the community, all of this work took place in a remote environment, engagement and very sensitive discussions, a relentless effort by the team members outstanding support by admin teams through consultations with them on their perspective on barriers.

So we could keep engagement broad and understand our systems needed to be navigated. It wasn't easy to handle sometimes challenging conversations in a remote environment and through it all, I would say that one key element is that a strong community has been built at the University of Waterloo, and this community has sparking disruption and a great deal of change.

You know, the Waterloo hallmark is to be disruptors and change makers, but mostly externally we support outside institutions and organizations being change makers, not so much internally. Yet this group that came together took the leap to drive it internally. For that, we are all extremely grateful. Vivek, thank you very much for the opportunity to provide a summary

VIVEK GOEL -Okay.

Well, thank you, Charmaine, Jim and Christopher, for that great overview of the work of PART as well as the implementation initiatives that have been started as the work of PART now will continue as our new portfolio should being built out. So I'm pleased to welcome our panelists, which will include Charmaine Dean.

Jean Becker, our associate vice president, indigenous relations and a member of PART. Lily Lu who's dean of the Faculty of Health and a PART working group co-chair Colleen Phillips Davis, an account manager in cooperative and experiential education and a PART working group co-chair. And Angelina Ram, a Ph.D. student and hard working group co-chair. So welcome to everyone. And just to get the panel discussion going, like the invite each of you to just say a few words about what your experience with PART has been, why you signed on to join the task force, and what this has meant for you.

And maybe I'll start with Angelica from a student perspective.

ANGELICA RAM -  Thank you very much. Initially, when they had the open call for PART, there was an opportunity to provide feedback. And so I met with Charmaine just to speak about organizational alignment and leadership. And I thought that was it. Thank you very much. I've shared my piece and I wasn't sure if I was actually going to stay as a student at the university because of challenges I was facing.

And it was at that time that Charmaine met with me again and provided a space where I actually felt supported. And so for me, when I initially came on board, it was about deliverables, producing results, getting the business management PART of of this task. And very quickly I realized that it was so much more it was uncharted. And it was about because of the fact that I was a student, I was now somebody were people that were other students felt safe speaking about their challenges.

And I could direct them to safe spaces because I had access to information. But for me personally, the work of PART is Charmaine very accurately described. It was a space where we created community. It was a for me, it was a place where I found support, mentorship, guidance, friendship, and it was an environment where I could thrive as a student.

But more importantly, not only was I thriving as a student, I could support other students and as a mature student who also has their foot in industry, I was simultaneously paying it forward by taking my learning and actually creating change in industry.

VIVEK GOEL -  Well, thank you for sharing that. Actually, we turn to Colleen next

COLLEEN PHILLIPS-DAVIS - Thank you so much, Vivek. And just to just be a part of this incredible community for myself, when I heard about us together, the president's anti-racism task force and then just meeting with Charmaine, I saw this as a phenomenal opportunity just to create a safe brave space for, you know, black, indigenous and other racialized community to just express their opinions and to and to do so without fear of Richard retribution, without that being negative impact on their education and their career path and just really have meaningful dialog and just create that psychological, expressive safety.

And I think you're going to see this as a as a theme and just the opportunity to collaborate with my colleague across the campus community and just see their vision and passion towards dismantling racism. Removing those barriers has been incredibly rewarding. And really for us, we are an innovative university, we're disruptors, and this is an opportunity to disrupt those barriers and to allow all staff, faculty and students to thrive.

VIVEK GOEL - Thanks, Colleen. I'll invite Jean next Thank you.

JEAN BECKER -Good morning, everybody. So I had really just started at the university when PART began. And, you know, I got involved because Charmaine was so persuasive and inviting. And I really. For me, the experience was so positive and so much more learning occurred there than I had anticipated. And I have to say, the way that the process was set up and managed, I feel that a community really was built.

And, you know, we were having meetings every Friday. Sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late in the evening, and they came to be a look forward to events. We all happy to see each other. And I think that this whole process was a model for how we can do consultation across an issue like this. And I have to say, I saw this as a an opportunity to address a really difficult issue that makes people so uncomfortable.

You know, a lot of people can't say the word racism. And we said it all the time. And we had the support of one another to really delve into what this meant and the impact it's having all across the institution. So I'm just looking forward to the work that comes now because this is now really where the rubber hits the road years from now on.

VIVEK GOEL - Thanks. Thanks, Lily.

LILI LIU  - Thanks, Vivek. Like some of the others, I actually didn't initially volunteer to serve on this committee, but was kindly and gently invited by Charmaine. And for the first time, that was when I. I know it sounds funny because of my appearance, but it was actually the first time that I acknowledge I was one of the only few racialized senior administrators on campus.

And immediately I became interested in this opportunity to examine my role and my responsibilities as it relates to representation on campus. Because of my the position I'm in that I now have the power to make a difference. In addition to learning, I wanted to contribute to this process of addressing racism and promoting anti-racism on campus and in higher education.

As Jean mentioned, racism was not because it hit. It really opened a can of worms in my life. Personally, it wasn't a word that I used freely. But throughout this process, I actually recognize that internalized racism has actually applied to me during my my upbringing here in Canada, but also during my career development. And I am so thankful for this opportunity to recognize that in for calling out racism now for what it is.

And so actually, on a personal level, it's been quite a transformative experience and I thank Charmaine for this opportunity.

VIVEK GOEL - So, Charmaine, you obviously didn't have yourself to strong arm yourself into this. What got you into it?

CHARMAINE DEAN - So, Vivek, I've always been an equity diversity inclusion, not to racism advocate. I say that to pieces that connect into my office One is clearly the international file and the importance of this work for all our students, but also for international students in particular.

And secondly, as you well know, because I was constantly reaching out to you for advice, the there's a lot of focus on equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism in the research portfolio. And this became clear throughout the time of 20, 20 and 2021 that we need to be able to guide the institution on those efforts. And I don't know if you remember but I was constantly reaching out to your office when you were a VP to understand how you were doing that work at Toronto and how I could still best practice there and bring it to Waterloo.

So basically a conviction, but also because there were strong ties to my duties at the institution I appreciate you all sharing that and thank you for all that work. And I think one of the important lessons is that you've all reflected on how Park itself provided a safe place for discussions and learning. And certainly we see that in the recommendations we need to continue to have these kinds of spaces available for everyone in our community.

VIVEK GOEL -  You have also all many of you reflected on the important role that the consultations with the community played in the development of PART. Many of you really got involved as part of those consultations. And so maybe I'll ask Colleen to say a little bit more about how that consultation with the community was so important in shaping PART and then its work.

COLLEEN PHILLIPS-DAVIS - So when we formed the various working groups and in particular, I co-chaired the Educational Environment Development of the learner. It was really, really important right from the start of the beginning to set the stage of an inclusive group. Where everyone's opinion was encouraged and was valued was welcomed. So even when we started, we were at the meetings, that was one the way myself and the co-chair would always say that at the beginning.

So almost like creating a sort a circle inviting everyone into that circle. And it was a virtual circle. We also realized the importance of the input and feedback from the various individuals across the community. And so we met with individuals from H.R. E.i. Raise the affiliated colleges, the Black Faculty Collective, the Graduate Student Association, the Waterloo Undergraduate Students Association, And in our group, we had representation at undergraduate student representation, graduate student representation, individuals from the indigenous community, more senior leadership.

And so that was important throughout the entire process and even ensuring that at the beginning you had everyone came to a consensus, but really understanding what was everyone's vision. And that was intentionally incorporated. And the feedback of each member was intentionally incorporated to ensure that there was an inclusive dialog. We ensured that was there was a code of conduct as well.

We really wanted each member to bring their authentic self and to be able to contribute freely to the discussions and to the dialog and really in respect in their thoughts, their experiences that they brought into the working group. And we relied on those expertize as well, as was said about just environmental scans, the lived experience and professional knowledge of various individuals within the community as well as externally to the community.

Yeah. And Charmaine, would you like to add to that

CHARMAINE DEAN - I'm happy to, Vivek. Sure. So, you know, we the initial consultations involved individual discussions with every member who had volunteered to serve, and there was a snowball effect on others. And that was really important. And I understand what were the key points that the institution where where did we need to take necessary action?

And that led to the structure of the working groups. But then after that, I think Colleen has spoken very clearly about the detailed consultations that would needed after that in order to do a deep dove by each of the working groups on why these were identified as being points. And there were also forums, I hope the community remembers this every month.

So we held forums in order to allow everybody to hear what was going on, but also to inspire fire. So we saw architecture. We saw a lot of other groups coming forward. The Faculty of Science created its own. I think every faculty created its own group. So those forums also allowed an opportunity for us to intersect with what was going on with campus.

And that consultation therefore allowed us to help build on the activities or understand where they were through the barriers

VIVEK GOEL - So it's so important that the community was so fully engaged in this work. And so the task force had 88 recommendations. We obviously don't have time to go through all of that, but I'll invite each of you to highlight one recommendation that you see as crucial, and maybe you can see why you see it as being so important.

And I'll start with Lilly for this one

LILI LIU  - Yeah, I would say that reviewing policy 33 on ethical behavior from the lens of anti-racism would be was not only timely given the fact that it was just about to be finalized after years of review, but it really, I think, completes now the suggested revisions, you know, we realized in that review that racism was not even identified as an unethical behavior in that policy.

So in the review from an anti-racism lens, we were able to not only define race and racism, but ensure that it is visible, the issue is visible and we clarify the application of the policy. The policy comes with that with an implementation document so that we clarify that in the policy in order to support individuals who experience racism.

So I was happy that our committee was able to to add that and enhanced the policy 33.

ANGELICA RAM - Maybe I'll turn to and doing next Sorry. Thank you very much. I still struggle with the muting and muting after several years. So I was a co-chair with Lilly. However, I'd like to speak to the health and Mental Health Group as a student, specifically to the recommendation of spaces to heal and interracial drama into generational trauma.

Sorry, Lily pointed out something very important, which was most of us went through this journey of self-identification and realization as we join PART. And for myself, as I started to come to understand that there were challenges that I was facing, I chose to go to campus wellness. And there I was matched with a racialized counselor who very quickly didn't require me to give the history of my background everything about my my ancestry.

I just simply needed to say, these are the challenges I'm facing. And I could speak openly about barriers, and I didn't know how to name them at the time. But during the four months that I was speaking with this counselor, I was given tools to help navigate the journey. But I was also very much empowered that this is very much my Ph.D. and that I can take control of it.

And I could also leverage the resources and people that I met through PART And so for me, about like looking at these safe spaces as a student, it's so very important because not only does it support the self efficacy and construction of my own knowledge, but it also allows me to do the same for my colleagues as well as my peers.

VIVEK GOEL - Thank you. Jean.

JEAN BECKER - Thank you. Engagement with indigenous communities is the area that I want to talk about. So engagement with Indigenous communities is a critical component of for universities as we go through this process of decolonizing and digitizing and reconciling and there is no one approach to engagement the physical, social, cultural, economic and political contexts in which engagement occurs will vary from community to community.

So this is a process that begins with identifying, understanding and responding to specific community needs and aspirations.

It will be participatory and developmental in nature. And as the relationships develop, they will guide and shape the university's actions, such as how we approach research and service delivery for factors that I think are important to consider are how do we redefine community engagement from indigenous viewpoints? How do we appropriately resource engagement activities? How do we learn from and build on each engagement that we do have?

And how do we move beyond rhetoric to action? So those are some of the sort of major points that I think are really important when we're looking at how to how to begin this engagement

VIVEK GOEL - Thanks, Colleen.

COLLEEN PHILLIPS-DAVIS - Looking for myself. So much of the recommendations, obviously all 80 are important, but the experience that students have, whether or not they're undergrad or graduate students, it's impacted at all levels from the curriculum to the research to their ability to transition from high school to post-secondary studies and to really thrive in that environment.

So it's really important that we reduce those barriers where they're not there are barriers, rigorous admissions, where then there's socioeconomic barriers and just improving that access and then and really empowering students to thrive and to create an inclusive learning environment is so important because that really allows them to optimize their academic and professional pursuits, not only at Waterloo but beyond the university community.

And so we have to set up our staff, our faculty, the TAs, and train them in creating that inclusive learning environment. And so to have that environment that they do feel that sense of safety and empowerment.

VIVEK GOEL – Charmaine.

CHARMAINE DEAN - So all of them are important. So I I find it hard to pick one because I'm looking at all the working group, the work from all the working groups, and I value the work from all of the working groups. But if I were to drive home one of them, that would help all the working groups be successful with their recommendations.

It's the representation. So the one even though we've got a great initiatives already in place at the institution, there is a recommendation about ensuring inclusive and intentional recruitment, hiring and retention of more black, indigenous and other racialized individuals into faculty, staff and leadership positions. So not just faculty, but also on governance tables in senior admin roles. We heard Lili speak about this a few minutes ago.

And in staff positions, you know, it's really important that representation reflect the community we serve and to better serve its members, especially our students, we are in the business of serving students through our education and our programs. So to be able to provide diverse but very valuable, equally valuable perspectives on programs and services for our students would be very helpful to have representation on that would reflect the student body.

And also will reflect the cultural aspects of the institution. So just creating an environment that is supportive of students beyond academics, including mentorship, mentorship, opportunities for students. We heard about that from Angelina when she went to counseling services is that that experience was so important. So I'll emphasize that all the work of the working groups, all the recommendations are really important.

I want to pick this one because it's a foundation to support all the others. Thanks.

VIVEK GOEL - And I realize this is an unfair question. It's like asking a parent to pick their favorite child right So maybe I'll ask Lillian Dean, since you're in leadership roles. You know, there's so many leaders at the university that are going to be responsible, accountable for implementation of these recommendations.

What are the important factors that they need to consider to ensure they're successful? Lily.

LILI LIU - Yeah, thanks, Vivek. I think because most members of administrative leadership are are not racialized by our or have been listed as being accountable for the recommendations My suggestion would be that these individuals who are accountable in administrative leadership positions really reach out to get the lived experience.

It is so critical to have that because we need to engage. We need to engage those with lived experience in a prime example would be the recent recruitment of an indigenous knowledge keeper for the Faculty of Health. What a difference it's made. I'm hearing from our students, our faculty and staff comments like, What did we ever do without this knowledge keeper who has just joined us?

So it's just made a world of difference. So I would encourage reaching out to those with experience. Yeah, Jean, you like that on that

JEAN BECKER - That was really great. Lily, thank you. I think that as leaders, we need to engage our entire units and in the planning and the exact mission of the recommendations, we need to make sure that we understand the issues and we understand our own biases.

I think that has come out really clearly throughout this process. The importance of knowing your own biases and then being aware of them at the very least we need to have clear targets and clear outcomes. And I think maybe one of the most important points is not to be distracted by resistance. There will be resistance

VIVEK GOEL - So I'd like to ask follow up on because both of you point to the important role that staff and so many different parts of the university play and will continue playing.

We've obviously made my apologies there to fire alarm testing in the background here, but hopefully it's not interfered too much. The we have made steps towards adding roles in in different areas like counseling services, student success, office, the registrar's office. But we have to do so much more and then we have to support those employees in their career progression.

So no we've talked about their representation on the academic side with the cluster hires. How are we going to be supporting staff as they progress and preparing them for the leadership role? So as Lilly said, right now, so many of the campus leaders are not racialized that we get better representation at those levels as well. Any of the panel members want to address that any…

JEAN BECKER - I would say for the indigenous, the new indigenous staff as we're hiring them or including them and a an Indigenous staff working group or maybe working groups not the right term, but we we meet regularly and we do things together so we participate in activities and events, but we also spend.

time sharing our triumphs and our struggles and our experience as we're, you know, going through our work and we found that that is really helpful. So similar to the organization of PART, we're organizing a community. And I think that this is going to be critical for not only the indigenous groups, but also is working on this with with all of the campus so the think.

VIVEK GOEL - Christopher, you've come on, would you like to add on this?

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR - Yeah. So thank you, Vivek. And Jean, just quickly, similar to what Jean is doing with Indigenous staff, same thing on our end. We have the Black Faculty Collective, which was mentioned previously. So now we're actually expanding it to the Black Faculty and staff collective to ensure that anyone who's new within the and these are the excellence cluster hires is a part of this group. So it's similar to what Jean mentioned, peer support trials and tribulations, just having that ability to what we say, kick it in, have fun and I'll just add to both of your comments because I think Charmaine referred to this earlier as well. This is these types of groups will also help prepare people to have the confidence to seek out the opportunities to develop themselves. So they are ready for those leadership roles when the opportunities come out. Then they have a network of mentors who they can go to to help prepare for an interview, to help prepare for being successful in those sorts of processes. And then once they get into their roles, Charmaine and Christopher, don't go off screen. So, Christopher, you and I have also talked about some opportunities for training individuals as they aspire into leadership roles.

Would you like to say a little bit about that? Yes, we and we mentioned this in The Daily Bulletin a little while ago, and Charmaine and I have been speaking about this. We're still working on the acronym right now. It's called Air, and it's probably not a very good acronym, but advancing into Waterloo Leadership. So really looking at and identifying, as we mentioned, as Vivek mentioned as well, identifying racialized folks, racialized, marginalized and excluded folks, black and indigenous folks, and giving them that ability for the training, the competence capacity so they will be able to create a pool when we have openings on board or Senate and senior management positions in senior executive positions that they will be ready to advance. And a key part of that is we do not want to put people in positions that they will fail or that they are set up to fail. So to be able to build the competence and capacity with a group of folks who are eager to advance and we want more lilies. We want more of these acts, we want more Charmaine Deans.

But we need to be able to give people the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the system, because this academic administrative system is unknown to many folks. Unless you're in it, it is unknown to me and now that I'm in it. So having that space and so many are working on that and we'll be moving forward.

VIVEK GOEL - So thank So at this point, we are starting to actually get into some of the questions that the audience is posing. And so please use the Q&A function to provide us with questions. And obviously we'll try to get to as many of them as we can and will also continue the conversation with our panelists. And as we saw Christopher, come on, we have a number of the other accountable leaders are also available.

And so depending on the question we might add, but others but at this point to elevate you, Christopher, to just stay on because I think some of the questions I see coming, you'll be well placed to help address. And the first one I want to pose from the audience is relates to the item that you just made the importance.

And Charmaine said this is the importance of increasing representation as foundational and so while we're working towards increasing representation, we've also heard from the process that you've described how important is to have diverse voices involved at all levels of decision making. And so, of course, what that means is that the underrepresented groups that we have right now, so we keep calling on the same people to be involved in different committees, different activities, cluster hires, promotions committees or board and Senate.

So how do we, first of all, ensure that those voices are there and they have the time to be heard, but we also ensure that they're successful in their own careers and they're prepared to move on to leadership roles in the future. Because we have spent all their time doing these things. Now, then they may not be ready.

They may not have the experiences that they need to be ready to be promoted to be a dean or associate vice president in the future. And also how we recognize them for that work. So who would like to tackle that one first? Charmaine.

CHARMAINE DEAN - So, I mean, I appreciate Lilly's comments and all the comments that this is we need to make sure that we listen to voices. I mean, that was fundamental through the work of the task force. But I would like to emphasize that this work is a shared responsibility of the whole community. That, you know, you've said it you just said it, Vivek, that the work often falls on the shoulders of a few, mostly racialized individuals.

And we've been very mindful to make sure that we create space. We've created space for these individuals by talking to their supervisors by providing resources so that they have the opportunity to engage in this work and not off the side of their desk and incorporating it into performance reviews. But as we move forward, the it's it's needs to be really clear that all of us have to contribute here, that although we want to make sure we consult that the accountability and responsibility doesn't lie on any particular piece, it doesn't mean Jean Becker and Christopher Taylor are the added responsibilities cannot be carried out by those offices.

It lies on the university as a whole. There are accountable leaders all throughout campus on whose shoulders these responsive realities lie. And so it is it's an all off campus effort. I say it's an all of campus effort to be  

VIVEL GOEL - Would anyone else like that on this one? Christopher

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR - I'll just say quickly, I think it's very important that we represent the the student population that we serve.

And then when we have the equity data information out now and a key part of that is understanding that the vast majority of our population is quote unquote, non-white. And so it's very important and not just non-white with different dimensions of diversity. The indigenous population across Canada is the fastest growing population in Canada. If we're looking, for example, when we talk about the Scarborough Charter, only 0.8% of senior leadership in Canada and universities are black or identify as black.

That does not represent the population that we serve broadly, which we pushing about 5% of the Canadian population is black. So key for us is to understand if we're serving this population and lived expertize and lived experience is important. We have to have those people in the senior leadership position because we know how important that is in order to change the structures and challenges, structures that are not allowing them to succeed.

That's critically important that we are going to do evidence based decision making, which we are. We have the data and the data shows that we do not have representation of particular groups, again, not just on race, but on the intersections of one's identities at senior levels in our institution.

VIVEK GOEL - Angelica,

ANGELICA RAM - thank you very much. And I think another point to add to what everybody else has said is one of the key points is when we're bringing racialized individuals into certain roles. The big question is, are we are we grooming them and positioning them to be the way the industry, not the industry. Sorry, wrong conversation, academia, has always been?

Or are we actually allowing them to be the leaders based on who they are, based on all aspects of their identity? And that's going to require a lot of critical reflection with, you know, among the individuals that are recruiting and wanting to retain these individuals, because without that you'll just simply have, you know, another racialized person who's trying to do things the way it's always been without actually imparting that change.

COLLEEN PHILLIPS-DAVIS - I think I'll add to that. It's really ensuring that it's one thing to recruit, it's another to retain creating that sense of belonging when you're bringing in racialized groups, allow them to truly express themselves, to excel in every way and not be intimidated by it and just welcome and embrace it. We everyone is in their own journey and in their own self-reflection.

And together we truly can move the needle forward and really embed anti-racism into every fabric of the university and at the end, the community at large, because we are representative of the community. And it's truly important that we do that for the staff, the faculty, for our students, whether or not they're our international students, our domestic students, and so that's truly important for myself.

I've navigated these spaces as a black woman throughout my education, and it's where Thrive is, where I've had leaders that have allowed me to truly be myself and to really explore and to be advanced further. Yeah,

VIVEK GOEL - maybe just to build on the data point and how are we going to measure success? I know some things have been identified and I think there's both quantitative and qualitative metrics that we need to think about.

Christopher, as you're setting up your offices in portfolios, how are you thinking about that?

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR - Quickly through the work with what Daniella's Office and IEP. We do have, for example, what I call them KPIs. We do have, for example, what I call them KPIs. We do have our milestones in our outcomes, particularly when it comes to representation, how we're going to move forward. So when we had a very long discussion about this over the weekend about this garbage charter, the importance of quantitative measurement, however, we also need to understand the qualitative data, the inclusion index, and if folks were paying attention during this week, the stats can has produced their inclusion index, this aggregated race based data, understanding the importance of asking people how they feel and having that consult and as Jean mentioned earlier, that we need to reframe and rethink how we get data and what data means for folks who do not necessarily fit in the quote unquote traditional ways of data collection. So we're balancing having that key balance of always having these touchpoints, these feedback loops to say, okay, well, we have the measurable data. We have those particular metrics. How many more students will be in this particular program or professors or senior leaders, but at the same time, having those conversations to really have that inclusion index to see how people feel Do they feel like they belong you like that on that

JEAN BECKER - Yes. You know, a number of years ago, I had the opportunity to spend a few years working in an indigenous program. So this was a program designed for indigenous students. It was it was based on indigenous scholarship. We had indigenous people doing all of the teaching. We had mostly all or indigenous. We had indigenous epistemology jazz methodologies, pedagogies and one of the students said, and one of our sessions that it was the first time she had been in a classroom where she didn't have to and these are her words, leave herself outside the door.

So this is kind of going back to what Colleen was saying earlier. You know, we need to we need to create environ moments where all of the students feel they can bring their whole selves. For me, that will be success when we have students of all races, genders, whatever, all people can come into our classrooms and feel like they can bring themselves and their experience, their knowledge, and be respected.

The lesson to be included for me, that would be you know, the real measure of heavily succeeded.

VIVEK GOEL -  So I think that really gets at us creating our own inclusion index that we would be able to assess. One of the questions that came in, and I think this relates to this delicate exercise of, you know, when we're in the hiring process and so on, we can the hiring committee can actually ask questions about identity, but gender and race and so how do we move forward when people feel that they're not actually able to collect the information?

And I know in part of the work of the of the group that's been driving the equity surveys to do it in a way that it is done in a respectful manner, provides confidentiality and maintain the indigenous data is being worked on with the community and so we ensure ownership. But what's the advice you have for those people on the front line, so to speak, who feel that they don't actually have access to the information that they should have, that they believe they should have in order to be able to move forward Christopher, you look like you're ready to…

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR -

All right. I've always going to apply that. I want to monopolize the conversation. So we're actually working currently right now with H.R. and the Employment Equity Working Group to really look at benchmarks and just to give people the tangible hands on information, because we don't ask folks to have a piece the in understanding different dimensions, diversity and identities or understand the code and all the protected grounds, all the ins and outs.

So we're working with the implementing and working group. So I know folks are on the call with the working group and we will be working hard on that gene as well in this space to really give folks that, you know, that one page and say, hey, this is what you can and should do. And really for us is to have a an open mind to say, you know what, we're not just here doing hiring quote unquote, black and white is to really.

And as Jean mentioned, to really understand that everyone comes in with different lived experiences, the different lived expertise. And we need all of those bodies literally in this space. But again, we are working with tangible work on this with the employment equity working group

JEAN BECKER - We're also addressing this through a a group that we're in the process of organizing.

This group is going to be looking at specifically indigenous identity verification, which has become a big flashpoint across the country. So we will be consulting with legal the Secretariat, etc. on how do we ask these questions? What can we ask? What can't we ask for going to create guidelines for everybody so that it's clear, at least in the area of Indian business applicants, what we can ask them and how we can ask them because you know, this is one of the areas where we're being told you can't ask somebody where they're from and who their family is. But for us, this is what we say to each other when we meet each other. We we nobody you know, so far we haven't been jailed for that. Could come, of course, but we'll see we where you know, this is how when one meets other indigenous people, the first thing you say is, oh, where are you from? Where? Who are your mom? Who's your father? Who are your grandparents? Got any cousins? You know? And pretty soon we find out where we interconnect. So it's yeah, this is an important question, Lily. You wanted out on this yeah.

LILI LIU - I wanted to comment on hiring and the, you know, it's evolving as we speak. Things have been changing so quickly, particularly, you know, we're learning lots of lessons through the black and indigenous excellence hires.

And I think that once we normalize the collection of equity data, starting from the application process and applicants feel safe to actually complete this, that's the beginning of how it's going to we're going to start to see things changing very quickly and it not being a strange question and that people will have to self-examine and decide when the survey comes up again, what are they going to check off on the list as it relates to, as Kristopher mentioned, the intersections and then I'll use an example of recently of how challenging the system systemically is and in terms of structure and how our faculty you know, we cook we committed in our strategic plan, one of our

four signature commitment is to indigent to indigenous our our faculty. And how are we going to do that? We decided that trying to find a knowledge keeper to join us would be the best way. There is no job description, there's no guideline, there's no position up. There's no law. If you want to use the traditional term, no line in the university structure that that guided us in this.

This is something totally new. But because it's our commitment we put it in our Strat plan, we we had to do it and we found a way to make it happen. But so it's been it's been very interesting we were happy to share our experience with others who wish to do this. But but I have to say, the current structure does not allow this to happen.

We have to challenge the system. Yeah, sure. All right. Sorry about that.

CHARMAINE DEAN - So, Vivek, taking a step back from the question, this is about processes for hiring once there is a commitment. I just wanted to go a step back from that to identify that there are so many barriers here, you know, so many barriers from processes, although the government, you know, claims that there's a strong interest in this, there are still the systems are built so that there are serious barriers for hiring processes.

And of course, we have to train individuals, etc. But what is really fundamentally needed is a commitment is that this is important when you're hiring, when you're in, you've now got a position and you're moving forward to facilitate that. There's a thoughtful discussion. What do we need in this office? Who are we representing? What students do we have, and how can we make sure that we've got the right sorts of people in front of them?

So that commitment, that first step to even thinking about I want to have a diverse pool of individuals in this sort of position. If it's a grad officer or undergrad officer, that first starting point really needs a lot of commitment from our leaders. So I do understand that your question was about, you know, if we are going down this path, how how do we address all the barriers?

But just going one step back means that we all have to reflect. The change isn't going to happen unless we reflect on each and every position that becomes open and and whether there are opportunities that we can better serve our communities by a different kind of higher

VIVEK GOEL - and as we're having this discussion, I'm reminded back in the spring of 20, 20, which is when I think the consultations are in PART started as well.

And you know, we have quite visible in front of us in society what the implications of COVID were for different communities and I was part of a number of working groups around collection of race based data health. And we had exactly the same question why frontline providers are told you shouldn't ask about race, you shouldn't make your assessments of who's eligible for care and so on based on race.

At the same time, and as a result that we didn't have necessarily the race based data being shared, but we quickly realized that we didn't have this data. We wouldn't know which communities were being impacted most, which communities needed services, which communities we needed to focus the vaccine campaign on. And so these are always challenging discussion points. And I think our equity data collection working group has done a really good job of getting the balance right We do have a number of questions around staff and HR progression, and Michelle Hollis from HR available.

Maybe I'll ask her to come on on camera and maybe just say a few words about what we're going are doing and will be doing in terms of supporting staff and their managers as we look to bring more people in and ensure their success

MICHELLE HOLLIS - certainly they become, as Christopher spoke to, we have been working with the Equity Working Group across campus and working with departments and leaders to look and see to do that questioning at the beginning of the hires that Charmaine was talking about.

We're also using the data that we started to get in as well to assist us with that program. We're trying to streamline things. You know, it took us a while to get everything up to scratch and get the material together, but we're trying to streamline, streamline things as quickly as possible so that we can make sure that people have the information that they need and that we can assist them through the process.

And we have lots of people on that team from different areas across campus and certainly working with the Equity Office and with Jim's office to ensure that we can do that.

VIVEK GOEL - Thanks, Michelle. Anyone like to add on that point?

Okay. So we have a question regarding some people in the community are not taking part or leaving discussions around equity, diversity and inclusion because they feel their views are not being given weight or that they're being treated with hostility. And the questioner suggests that the initiative is being driven by an undercurrent of leftist ideological thought. And so the question is how do we depoliticize our initiative and make sure everyone is welcome?

Because this questioners saying that not everyone is feeling welcome. Christopher, do you want to take a form of that?

CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR - I'm going to try to be as brief as humanly possible, but this is a very good question, very complex question. And the reason why I want to address this is we need to go back 200 years, 200 plus years.

Say, for example, if we're using the Haitian revolution, a revolution that as our you know, our beginning point when it comes to confronting anti-black racism and confronting racism in the Western Hemisphere, we need to understand that not everybody was on the side with Toussaint Louverture. We need if we're looking, for example, in terms of slave rebellions or billions of enslaved people in the Caribbean, let's say for example, the 1816 bus rebellion, not everyone was on the same side Say for example, if we flash fast forward to Dubois and Booker T Washington in the early 20th century the Dubois had to tell it the 10th ideology that the way forward for the black quote unquote race was

to focus on the talented 10th the intellectuals. But Booker T Washington said like no we need to have the industrialization look at decolonization movements in the African continent in the Caribbean same thing. You have folks going on one side, folks going to another side, the Caribbean, the same thing, the failure of the West Indies Federation to make a train out. Barbados going in a different direction. So I bring this up to say that in these equity, quote unquote movements, there's never been straight cohesion. However, and this is key. However, we were all trying to get to the same place. We have very different viewpoints. But ultimately, whether it was to Toussaint Louverture or Dessalines whether it was Manley or Barrow or Kwame Nkrumah or Stokely, Stokely Carmichael, whoever these folks were, ultimately it was about uplifting the human race.

You always hear, for example, about Malcolm X, quote unquote, versus Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. However, they all had the exact same focus and goal at the end. They may seem to be politicized, quote unquote. One on the left, one on the right, one for violence. One against violence. But ultimately, it was about the human race and uplifting people as quote unquote equals.

So I think what we need to do is to take a step back to say, look, this isn't about competing. This isn't about who's right or wrong. Yes, we need to all come to the table. But we have 200 years of evidence, historical evidence, say that not everyone agreed, but we all had the same outcome. I think this is key for us to be able to take a step back to actually understand what we're trying to do and where we're trying to go and remove the political, quote unquote, ideology that some might perceive but ultimately, I don't care what you identify as black, white, purple, indigenous, I don't care.

As Jean mentioned, I want you to be able to come to a classroom and feel welcomed. University of Waterloo. That's what we're trying to do. It's not about politics. It's not about leftist ideology. No. This is about people making people feel welcome as human beings in this space.

VIVEK GOEL - Thanks, Christopher. And I think it's also really significant that we as an academic institution have a space for these kinds of conversations, these kinds of discussions, because that's what our academic culture or academic freedom, academic response they all relate to is if we can't have these kinds of discussions, there's no place in society that will be safe for those kinds of discussions.

And that all points of view have to be welcome. All points of view have to be respected. But the discussions also have to be civil. They have to be informed by scholarship. They have to be informed by evidence, by research of whatever type that we bring into this. And, you know, this may be takes us into another question.

Where the question really reflecting, I think, on the opening comments from the members of the group about who reflected on their own experiences and their own lived experiences as well. And so the question is, what was the level of expertise and understanding about anti-racism work research in the work of the task force? And maybe, Charmaine, I'll ask you to start that because I know the task force had a broad approach to collecting research.

CHARMAINE DEAN - Yes. And so the the construction of the task force members I omitted from the slide deck, but I had presented that, I think at a Senate and other occasions. So we started with individuals who had volunteered to serve, of course, because they have the lived experience. But we also included individuals who had scholarship on anti-racism. And we hired experts as well, or we seconded them into the office to support understanding scholarship.

So we also had individuals who would support being able to do analytic work. So doing environmental scans and assimilating that material. And we also included individuals who would know how to navigate pathways at the institution. So our our leadership, as you can see from the second slide that I provided, we had people like Jessica Salo, who would reach out to all of the aid grads and David David who would reach out to all the undergraduates so there was a feeder in to the academic side of the institution and also a feeder into the scholarship side of the institution.

As well as the lived experience and the development of the task force components. Initially, we had these individuals and we call them resources Because we wanted to make sure that the lived experience had a strong footing and a strong voice there's a power imbalance in certain sets in how individuals will concert and Tebas might have been seen as a power imbalance, but eventually I would say about halfway through, everybody worked together and it seemed useful then to bring everybody as members of each of those working groups Thank you.

VIVEK GOEL - So we're coming up close to the end of our time. Something that we've touched on a few times is the fact that implementation of the recommendations is quite broadly distributed, and we could say it's the responsibility of everyone in the university community. Because, you know, as several of you have said, we want every student to feel welcome regardless of their background.

And that sense of feeling welcome is based on every interaction that they have, whether it's with a member of the staff, faculty member or their peers. There other students. So can we speak to a little bit about how do we work on that shared sense of responsibility and what would we say to members of the community that are asking, well, what do I need to do next?

What should I get involved with? How do I learn what my responsibility is Or Christopher, do you want to say or was Colleen I think you were going to go.

COLLEEN PHILLIPS-DAVIS - Well, I mean, first and foremost, I would just say that people read the report, and it's one of those things you probably glance at the first time. You have to go back and read it at second and third time, really educate yourself on difference on the training.

There's so many resources that are out there that are offered from the from Jean's office or Christopher's office. You know, there's a lot of online resources that you don't even have to pay up for that will really help you to, you know, enhance your knowledge, really sit back and do that self-reflection. It really it starts at the head and then it moves to the heart.

You know, call out racism when you when you see it. And then that takes sometimes that takes that bravery and sometimes the initial self-reflection get involved with the works the committees sign up for the anti-racism book club and any other type of activities that are on campus so that would be my my input and feedback.

VIVEK GOEL- Lily, Yeah. Thanks, Colleen.

LILI LIU - I would absolutely. 100% agree with you. I might just add one thing, and that is that, you know, at the beginning in 20, 20 at the time when PART was coming together, there was a real sense of anger on campus and social media. There were I felt really, really scared, actually. I felt that the reputation of the university and various units were at risk.

I don't feel that way anymore. And I think now is the time. And I've been people have been so generous. We, you know, everyone has lived experience. But as Christopher mentioned, we don't have each other's lived experience. And it's our own experience. Just because we're similar in many aspects, that doesn't mean and just it doesn't mean that we're the same.

And so I would say that for those that do have that experience to be kind and to be generous in your feedback and not to be, I have been the recipient of non-judgmental gentle guidance in correction on so many fronts to the point where I'm not afraid anymore to ask questions. The other day, just yesterday I was at a smudging ceremony and I really wanted to.

For those of you that know me, know that I love taking photos, as is my photo journaling and so I took a photo in this. Other elders, Sunny next to me, said to me, You know, we don't do that. Certainly I don't in my community, but others may So she put it in a way that was non-judgmental. I quickly stopped and then I realized that in other it's not the same in every community, but I, I didn't feel I had offended her.

I just thanked her for that feedback. And I, and I encounter that every day and I just don't want to want to let people know that if they feel safe to not be afraid to ask questions, even if they feel that, that, you know, they may be judged. So it's worth taking the risk because we're learning so much from each other

VIVEK GOEL - Thank you.

So we're at time. So I will wrap up and just start by thanking everyone for taking the time today. And also thank all of the members of Hart and all the working groups, the community collaboratives, all the organizations that supported that called for this work and have been part of it. This as several people noted, this is challenging work, and it requires people to look at themselves and their own experiences and open up.

And it was done in the midst of a global pandemic. It was done over tools such as teams. And so to see the progress being made is just wonderful. And I would do want to pick up on Christopher's point about what he picked up at the Scarborough Charter Workshop. I heard this from some of my colleague presidents the other day who were there.

They were they were pleasantly surprised to hear that Waterloo was making progress in this area beyond their own institutions. And I think sometimes when we're inside, we're like the frog in the boiling pot. We don't notice what's actually happening around us. But there is great progress being made. But as we concluded, it is going to require the entire community to come together.

I do want to say a word about many of the items that many of the questions are around. Will the resources be invested and as was noted by the provost and by Christopher and by Gene, we are doing a considerable amount of work. We now have to have responsible. They are developing the plans and the initiatives, and there is a commitment around the resources required but as we've noted repeatedly, this is everyone's work.

It's not just about the investments in specific offices. It's not about investments in research funds or new positions. It's about reallocation of our most important resource, which is our time And that's why it's everyone's task. And we all have to be focused on this. We will have a video recording available for people that miss the event, and we will get answers to the questions that have been posed that we didn't get to available online in the coming days.

And I just want to thank also all of the participants in the session today. We were at one point up over 500 participants, so that's wonderful to see. I just want to close by noting that we did launch in the last few weeks our new visioning exercise for the institution. What will Waterloo look like? At 100, our 100th anniversary.

In 2057, 35 years away. And this quest set of questions that we've been addressing today are a very important part of the Waterloo at 100. Because if we really want to imagine an institution that is decolonized, that is digitized, that is sustainable and we can go on. These are the kinds of items that we want you to bring forward into the discussions that are now starting and will continue through the fall.

And so it's going to be an opportunity for us to think further about what that will truly mean and what it's going to take us to get there together. So thank you very much. And I look forward to continuing this work with all of you.

Have a good day.