Dialogue Day: International Day for the Elimination of Racism

Hosted by the Faculties of Applied Science and Land and Food Systems

This event has passed. 

Watch the recording

This Dialogue was a response to our community’s desire to develop our collective toolboxes for having critical and challenging conversations around race and anti-oppression, as well as building caring and equitable spaces within our Faculties as it relates to anti-oppression in leadership, research, teaching, and the workplace. 

Three-Part Schedule

1. Dialogue on Race, Allyship, and Reconciliation, including talks on: 

   • Worldviews and Two-Eyed Seeing

   • The Experiences of Racialized People In Canada

   • The Principles that Guide Allyship

2. Community-Building Lunch

3. Building Our Anti-Racist Toolkits Workshop: Engaging In Challenging Conversations Through An Anti-Oppressive Lens, which will include:

   • Practical Tools For Engaging In Challenging Conversations

   • Why Allyship Is Critical to Anti-Oppression Work

   • Scenarios, Case Studies, and Group Dialogue 

Learning Objectives

• Engaging in critical conversations concerning the frameworks of allyship and anti-oppression work. 

• Cultivating community practices that support a respectful and inclusive environment for everyone. 

• Growing our collective toolboxes for how we can engage in challenging conversations and anti-oppression work. 

• Identifying tools for creating caring and equitable spaces within our Faculties, and specifically in leadership, research, teaching, and the workplace. 

The workshop drew on Module 6 of Weaving Relations. Participants were invited but not required to complete the Building Our Anti-Racist Toolbox Module prior to the event for a deeper experience. In preparation for the day, participants read Decolonization Is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang or listened to The Diversity Gap Podcast, exploring the gap between our good intentions for diversity and the impact of those intentions. 

Faciliators

Dana-Lyn Mackenzie, Senior Manager of EDI.I, Faculty of Applied Science and Faculty of Land and Food Systems

Dana-Lyn (born Wilson) is a member of the Hwlitsum First Nation, based in Canoe Pass, BC and a lawyer. Dana-Lyn is an elected councilor of her Coast Salish nation, serving since 2021. She has practiced criminal law and continues to practice administrative and employment law as an Associate at Acumen Law. She is a double alumna of UBC, having obtained her Bachelors of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees here. 

As Senior Manager, EDI & Indigeneity, Dana-Lyn is currently leading the decolonization and Indigenization efforts in the Faculties of Applied Science and Land and Food Systems. In this role, Dana-Lyn supports EDI.I  education, engagement and support for the two Faculties. Leading the impactful UBC Orange Shirt Day Intergenerational March for the past two years has been an honour. Recently, Dana-Lyn and Erin Keely visualized and created the Weaving Relations course, an educational opportunity meeting Goal 2 of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan.

Dana-Lyn has worked as a university administrator since 2012 in Indigenous awareness, programming and student affairs capacities. Dana-Lyn led Indigenous focussed programming during her tenure at the Peter A. Allard School of Law with UBC, where she was recognized in 2016 for the UBC President’s Staff Award on Advancing Diversity and Inclusion. Lastly, Dana-Lyn has been a Board member of RESEAU-CMI, Networks of Centres of Excellence – Knowledge Mobilization since December 2021. 

Dana-Lyn spends her spare time with her family, and being a mother of two young adults is her proudest achievement.

Bashir Mohamed, EDI.I Coordinator, Faculty of Applied Science

Bashir Mohamed is the EDI.I Coordinator in the Faculty of Applied Science. In his free time, he is a researcher and writer focused on Black Canadian history in Western Canada. His primary interest is researching the legacy of Black Civil Rights movement in Western Canada in the early to mid 1900s. He has written for the Canadian Encyclopedia, CBC, and The Globe and Mail. He is a current Naval Officer in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve.

Erin Keely, Indigenous Engagement Coordinator, Faculty of Applied Science

Erin Keely is the Indigenous Engagement Coordinator in the Faculty of Applied Science. Erin holds a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science, where her research focused on Indigenous politics and the meaning of reconciliation in Canada, and she is currently completing her M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology here at UBC. Since 2014, Erin has worked within the post-secondary sector in roles primarily related to policy and advocacy. 

As an uninvited settler, Erin is deeply grateful to live, work, and learn on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Stó:lō nations.