Dr. Wendy Fletcher, Ph.D., is a distinguished academic leader, scholar, and artist whose career spans more than three decades in higher education, intercultural dialogue, and community-based leadership. She has served as President and Vice-Chancellor of Renison University College, affiliated with the University of Waterloo (2014–2024), and as Principal and Dean of the Vancouver School of Theology at the University of British Columbia (2005–2012). In these roles, she guided institutions through periods of transformation, building resilient governance structures, strengthening international partnerships, and advancing equity and reconciliation as foundational to institutional life. Currently Director of the Centre for Interreligious Spirituality and Wisdom Practices (CISWP), she continues to shape innovative approaches to healing, reconciliation, and intercultural engagement.
Dr. Fletcher’s scholarship explores the intersections of race, religion, and reconciliation, with a sustained focus on the history and legacy of colonization, residential schools, and the transformative role of women in social and religious change. She has authored and co-authored numerous books and chapters, including *A Space for Race: Decoding Racism, Multiculturalism and Post-Colonialism in Canada and Beyond* (Oxford University Press), and contributed to critical works on reconciliation, collective trauma, and intercultural spirituality. Her voice is recognized internationally, having delivered more than 800 presentations across 30 countries, engaging with audiences on themes of leadership, intercultural healing, and global peacebuilding.
Her leadership of the Centre for Spirituality and Wisdom Practices (CSWP) and CISWP represents a natural extension of this lifelong vocation. Both centres address the pressing crises of meaning, identity, and belonging in a rapidly shifting global landscape. In a time marked by disconnection, polarization, and systemic injustices, these centres create spaces for the exploration of spiritual wisdom, ethical discernment, and pathways to healing. Their mission is to integrate the wisdom traditions of the world’s religions, humanist and secular thought, contemporary science, and the arts in order to nurture both personal resilience and systemic transformation.
The centres’ programs emphasize interdisciplinary and interreligious research and practice, structured around three interrelated dimensions of healing: systemic and communal healing, personal healing, and body healing. Through conversation and research circles, retreats, lectures, and global partnerships, they foster exploration of diverse traditions—from Christian, Hindu, and Indigenous wisdoms to contemporary botanical medicine—seeking to recover integrated understandings of body, mind, and spirit. This work positions the centres at the intersection of academic research, NGO practice, and community empowerment.
Dr. Fletcher’s vision for these centres is rooted in her conviction that healthy societies are built by nurturing whole persons and inclusive communities. Under her leadership, the centres aim to equip emerging leaders, particularly young adults, with the spiritual literacy, intercultural competence, and adaptive skills necessary to shape just and equitable communities. Partnerships with global institutions—including the King Hamad Centre for Peaceful Co-Existence, Des Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya University, and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre—demonstrate the international scope and collaborative potential of this work.
Bringing together decades of scholarship, global engagement, and executive leadership, Dr. Fletcher’s current focus reflects her enduring commitment: to foster resilience, justice, and reconciliation through education, spirituality, and intercultural dialogue. Her work, situated at the nexus of academia and NGO leadership, is animated by the vision of “one sky over all”—a world where healing, meaning-making, and community renewal are accessible to all.