Meeting Facilitators: Dr. Ryuko Kubota and Ashley Moore
In this meeting, we will discuss a draft of the new “About Us” statement for the department that is currently being developed by the faculty. The primary goal of our discussions will be to brainstorm how the positions and commitments described in the current draft might be concretely implemented. Please read the “Recent Background” section below (p. 1) before our meeting on April 19. Zoom links and discussion questions to be used on April 19 can be found on pp. 2–3.
Please note that we do intend to return to the notion of “excellence in service”, the final focus in our three-part series attempting to deconstruct and reimagine the notion of excellence in scholarship, teaching and service. We have just pressed pause on this series in order to facilitate a timely discussion of the “About Us” text at this crucial stage in its development.
Recent Background
On November 9th, 2020, the LLED Antiracist Caucus met to discuss how various departments, including LLED, are constructed through the job advertisements they produce. Based on this discussion, the Caucus’s recommendations included the following:
We need stronger, more actively anti-oppressive, and more specific language and descriptions in job ads and other texts. “We” should be the active subject in sentences stating our commitments to social justice; We should avoid passive voice and language that discursively marginalizes social justice concerns.
Subsequently, a faculty Working Group was established to put this recommendation into practice. The discussion of the Working Group led to a brainstorming session as a faculty retreat on February 3rd, 2021. Based on the ideas generated during the retreat, the Working Group has developed the following draft “About Us” description of the department to replace the current one found at https://lled.educ.ubc.ca/about/:
We are a collective of educators committed to social justice in our work with students, colleagues, partners, and community members. We are privileged to learn, teach, and conduct our research on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓-speaking xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. As leaders of language and literacy education, we aim to build antiracist, decolonial, and sustainable communities that affirm human, linguistic, and epistemological diversity and equity. In order to attain our aim, we acknowledge our privilege and strive to overcome effects of power that adversely influence the lives of people who are marginalized and oppressed due to their Indigeneity, race, gender, class, sexuality, language, culture, or ability. In our scholarship, teaching, service, and leadership, we are committed to fostering relational and respectful environments, legitimizing Indigenous and underprivileged ways of knowing, and building a system that enables us to advance social justice.
Discussion Focus & Question
Building on this, we should consider one of the Caucus’s other recommendations to the department from November last year:
We need to be critically reflective about whether the reality of the department truly supports the ways in which we might construct it through texts. Where it cannot not yet do so, we should prioritize those areas for transformation.
Discussion question: Concretely, how can we implement our commitments to social justice, including antiracism, decolonization, and sustainability, as they are described in this visionary new “About Us” statement?