Psychology EDIA Committee

More Than Words... EDIA Achievements and Calls to Action for Social Justice in Teaching, Research, and Leadership in Higher Education 

Conference Hosted by the Department of Psychology, Saint Mary’s University 

March 8, 2024 (Hybrid Format) 

The Call:  

How do you operationalize social justice in higher education in Canada?    

We invite knowledge-based submissions from university students, instructors, researchers, staff, administrators, Indigenous Elders, advocacy groups, and student and worker associations (including unions) to share your research, lived experiences, achievements, and calls to action for safer and more inclusive, accessible, and thriving campus spaces and activities for members of systemically minoritized groups.   

Social justice and EDIA success stories and calls to action in the university context can be broadly defined, large or small in scope, and can include research, lived experiences, practice experiences, and Indigenous traditional perspectives on learning outcomes, teaching tools, methods and techniques, assessment, curriculum considerations, content challenges, mentoring, advising, and/or campus organizing as they relate to the following themes:  

• Leading from the margins: leading initiatives separate outside the traditional hierarchy 

• Successful frameworks for benchmarking and creating accountability for equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, accommodation, and justice 

• Decolonizing and Indigenizing teaching and research 

• EDIA rhetoric and EDIA action and inaction 

• Strategies for challenging and changing oppressive, and creating anti-oppressive, campus policies and practices 

• Integrating First Voices (i.e., the perspectives of people with lived experience) in campus governance and decision-making 

• Politics and tensions in being the minoritized group and individual 

• Centring First Voice in topics across the curriculum 

• Inclusive and accessible approaches to learning assessments and lab demonstrations  

• Methods of incorporating universal design for learning and other accessibility strategies into teaching and research 

• Trauma-informed advising and healing in the context of teaching, learning, working, and living on university campuses    

• Strategies for inclusive and accessible recruitment, selection, and retention of faculty, students, and staff who are members of minoritized groups  

• Accommodations that work 

   

Submission Details:  

Please submit the following by Feb 23rd , 2024 to ediapsychology@smu.ca 

• Title 

• List of authors/presenters including names and roles in education (e.g., instructor, advisor, developer, student, etc.) 

• 250 word (max) abstract 

• Preferred format: Presentation (15 minutes including time for questions) or Workshop (45 minutes) 

• Preferred format: Virtual (Zoom) or In-Person (SMU Campus) 

Submissions will be reviewed by the Psychology Department EDIA Committee and you will be notified by February 26^th, 2024 as to the acceptance status of your submission. If you have any questions about your submission, please contact ediapsychology@smu.ca