(Feel free to borrow as you see fit)

Biol 345 students: Citizen of the World Assignment

Dear students,

As you may be aware, AMS has announced support of a 2 day student strike for Palestine. This will happen on Monday and Tuesday, March 24 & 25. In support of students, I will not be holding class on these days. Instead, I am assigning you a Citizen of the World assignment.

For this assignment, you may choose to protest with other striking students if you are compelled to do so. If you are not compelled to do so, please choose another activity that pushes you out of your comfort zone and engages you with something you feel passionate about. This could be serving food at a soup kitchen, walking an elderly neighbours dog, or reading to kids at your local library. It could also be engaging online, for example you could write your MP a letter demanding action on climate change. I’m assigning this now so that you have time to plan. You may do this in teams.

For this short assignment, I’d like you to submit the following:

1. A short positionality statement (approximately 1 paragraph). This type of statement verbalizes who you are in context of what you are doing and includes why you may care. For example, are you Palestinian? If not, why might you care to support this strike?

An example of a positionality statement can be found at the start of this interview of Dr. Will Valley (Assistant Dean, Forestry, UBC): https://www.landfood.ubc.ca/a-white-cis-gender-heterosexual-man-as-associate-dean-edi-in-lfs/

For more on positionality statements, Queen’s University has a good resource: https://www.queensu.ca/ctl/resources/equity-diversity-inclusivity/positionality-statement

2. Documentation of your activity. This can be as simple as a photograph of you occupying the space you’re choosing to engage with.

3. A short reflection statement on what you are taking away from this experience. (Approximately 1 paragraph)

I am proud of our UBC students. Go change the world!

Celeste