Kindness in the classroom, research lab, and beyond.

Things we are working on:

1. A Conflict Theatre event on microaggressions
2. Interuniversity funding for institutions to create conversations and engage in kindness
3. A working group that meets weekly
4.  A 2020 article about the Kindness Project here (September Bulletin, pages 28-29): Super, L., Billings, L. , Martinusson, N., Singh, S., and von Aderkas, P. (2020). Navigating research and teaching in a time of COVID-19: How might we genuinely add kindness? CBA/ABC Bulletin 53(2): 28-29.  https://www.cba-abc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Bulletin_53_2.pdf
5. Conference and workshop presentations: “Kindness Matters” (UBC Graduate Students in Teaching Mini Conference 2021, CTLT: https://gsit.sites.olt.ubc.ca/), “Kindness Workshop” (“Bryophytes, lichens, and northern ecosystems in a changing world”, BL2021 Conference:http://bl2021.org/), and “Inclusive Pedagogy” video on the Kindness Project (2.5 minutes) and Phytobiome Research Mentoring (2.5 minutes) for the NSF-funded Ecological Forecasting Initiative’s (EFI) Research Coordination Network (EFI-RCN) Inclusive Pedagogy workshop: https://ecoforecast.org/ecological-forecasting-initiative-2021-inclusive-pedagogy/
6. Working groups are growing (likely six now – stay tuned!): *1. Kindness environmental sustainability working group (connecting kindness to things like SDGs, addressing things like climate change, etc.) *2. Kindness mental health and wellbeing resources working group (mental health and resources to promote positive wellbeing) *3. Kindness culture and inclusion advocacy working group (kindness pedagogy; microaggressions; navigating how to have kind equity, diversity, inclusion; conflict management, and build a kind academic culture for all etc.) *4. Kindness communications, planning and funding working group (to include website; asks; promotion of project; strategic plans alignment; and asking for funding for things like workshops, pilot testing, etc.) *5. Kindness weekly working group (flexible who attends, but weekly [mostly] in person and/or email; synthesizes across groups, publications; checking in on human being and human knowing; support for groups and also support for anyone who wants to join in; hub) 6. Kindness in ? working group (What do you want to see? Join us!),
7. Kindness Conversation Series (2022): February, April, May, and hopefully more! See here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/kindnessproject/kind-materials-videos/
8. Other offshoots – stay tuned! For example, kindness embedded TLEF application: principal PI Kshamta Hunter UBC: https://tlef.ubc.ca/funded-proposals/entry/901/ “Embedding Climate Education in Teacher Education Courses through a Novel Framework of Climate Kind Pedagogy”
9. Other offshoots – stay tuned! A 2022 article: von Aderkas, P. (2022) How to make kindness pedagogy work in large botany classes using multimodal teaching. CBA/ABC Bulletin 55(1): 17-19. https://www.cba-abc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Bulletin_55_1.pdf
10. Other offshoots – stay tuned! For example another kindness-related project (launched in spring 2022): Nicole Fenton and colleagues, Academic Benevolence and Good Action project at UQAT/Bienveillance Académique et Bonne Action de l’UQAT:

    The BA2 team,

    Nicole Fenton, Hsan Youssef Mehdaoui, Simon Dor, Vincent Poirier, Anne Beaulieu, Martha Roussel, Isabelle Rivest, Mohamed Meite, Benoît Plante, Élodie Bouchard, Miguel Montoro Girona, Lucie Coudert, Claude Boucher, Jean-François Ouellette

11. Other offshoots – stay tuned! Emotional Resilience monthly group
12. More coming…What do you want to see?