Walking in the Footsteps of My Foremothers

Pvska Oti Ibalhto with squash and pinto beans

In this piece, Misty Underwood, Program Coordinator, Indigenous Pathways at Queen’s University, reflects on the transformative power of remembering; remembering her foremothers, homelands, ancestral seeds and foodways.

I walk in the footsteps of my foremothers;  

I carry their stories and seeds. 

I walk in their path, with ceremony growing corn and beans; 

I am given life. 

I walk as they have walked praying, singing, dreaming; 

I walk along my journey, 

Ever spiraling

     I know that my path is never lonely. 

Each step I walk in my foremothers’ footsteps is a step upon the sacred path, Continue Reading »

Rumpelstiltskin: Spinning Gold from Pandemic Straw

In this blog piece, Dr. Klodiana Kolomitro, Associate Vice-Principal (Teaching and Learning), reflects on the necessary shifts to improve the higher education landscape in the post-pandemic reality

Can you feel it, too? It’s the residue of one of the largest disruptions to education combined with a call to action in the higher education landscape. How do we move from hopelessness, despair, and fatigue to hope, joy, and flourishment? How can we heal as a community? I see the following necessary shifts in teaching and learning to help us get there.

1.Maslow before Bloom

The physical isolation of the pandemic accentuated the need to create a space and place for students as whole human beings at a time when academics and personal life were constantly colliding. A post-pandemic landscape needs to welcome and encourage the whole student through physiological, safety, love, Continue Reading »

White wall with a mask grafitti with the words Covid-19. Photo by Adam Nieścioruk on Unsplash

Imagining a post-pandemic world with equitable public service treatment

In this blog piece, Ayden Adeyanju-Jackson, a third-year Queen’s student, reflects on the importance of understanding and addressing systemic disadvantages for BIPoC communities in order to achieve lasting post-pandemic change

Over the past 3 decades, the world has watched all levels of society (i.e., supranational, regional, national, and local governments; multinational and national businesses; and international non-governmental organizations and grassroot movements) embrace social justice values and practices at the forefront of their policy agendas. This pervasive, unequivocal aspirational rhetoric for social justice reform is most-likely attributed to the rise of globalization, where cross-regional relationship building and information exchange has increased the voice, organizational capacity, and agency of BIPoC communities around the world. With this greater structural agency (i.e., greater individual and collective capacity for actors to change the structures they are bounded by), the intrinsic and practical value of BIPoC communities to the global value chain can no longer be ignored. Continue Reading »

“There’s a crack, a crack in everything – it’s how the light gets in”

*(Lyric from Leonard Cohen “Anthem”, The Future, Columbia, 1992.) 

Or why I’m still hopeful despite the trucker convoy.

In this blog piece, Susan Belyea, Ban Righ Director, reflects on the ideas and changes needed to build a more inclusive and equitable society

In March 2020 the World Health Organization declared Covid 19 a global pandemic.  Here we are in 2022, having weathered two full years of uncertainty, anxiety, and loss.

Early in the pandemic some said, “We’re all in the same boat”. It quickly became apparent that while we may all be weathering the same storm, we are by no means in the same boat. Globally Covid 19 has had wildly different impacts, and global vaccine equity continues to be grossly unresolved. 

In Canada the pandemic hit some harder than others too.  To extend the “same storm; Continue Reading »

Roots&Wings art work

Belonging, Responsibility, Collaboration and Radical Imaginaries

In this blog post, Yasmine Djerbal, educational developer at the Centre for Teaching and Learning, narrates her experience working with Roots&Wings youth and shares her perspective on how community organization can offer a fresh vision of a different type of future

The pandemic has been challenging for everyone, and we know that children have been affected in unique ways. It might take us years to truly unravel and understand the impact isolation and online learning has had on their development, socialization, and more. In my work with Roots & Wings—a community organization that offers space for girls, trans, Two-Spirit, and gender non-conforming youth of colour between the ages of 8 and 14 to learn about social justice—we have seen in small and big ways how strong and tenacious the youth have been in the face of frequent changes, loss of time with friends and family, Continue Reading »

Image of hands working together building a foundation

Pandemic & Impact on EDII

Photo by Rodolfo Quirós from Pexels

In this piece, Tahmena Bokhari, EDI Director for the Smith School of Business, imagines a future where forever changed communities are filled with more compassion, empathy and humility

This winter break, as Omicron was taking hold over Kingston, Ontario, I reflected back to the early days prior to the pandemic being officially declared and all that has happened since then. Back in January of 2020, when we were first learning of this virus, I was in Toronto just beginning to learn about the impact of the virus on staff and working with leaders to formulate some messaging. A staff was planning a trip to China and worried she may be getting backlash from colleagues. As weeks went on, local GTA Chinese business owners were discussing the impact to their local customers and communities. As the pandemic was officially declared and as lockdowns were being implemented, Continue Reading »