Facilitators

Chrissie Arnold
Graduate student in the Department of Educational Studies, UBC
Research Assistant at the Liu Institute for Global Issues

My research is concerned with the ethics of witnessing the suffering of others; I engage with questions of who looks and who is looked at in these interactions, and what the implications of this are. I am particularly interested in how we can move beyond representation in practices of witnessing to foster existential connections with others that may open us to new political possibilities. I am currently a graduate student in the Department of Educational Studies at UBC, and a research assistant at the Liu Institute for Global Issues. I also work as the Education Manager at West Coast LEAF, a feminist legal non-profit organization in Vancouver that works to address systemic discrimination and advance women’s equality through the law.


Vanessa Oliveira Andreotti, PhD

Associate Professor, UBC

Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change

My research examines historical and systemic patterns of reproduction of inequalities and how these limit or enable possibilities for collective existence and global change.  My publications in this field include analyses of political economies of knowledge production, discussions of the ethics of international development, and critical comparisons of ideals of globalism and internationalization in education and in global activism, with an emphasis on representations of and relationships with marginalized communities. My work in teacher education conceptualizes education as an expansion of frames of reference and of fields of signification with a view to expanding possibilities for ethical solidarities. My academic work is committed to protecting the public role of the university as critic and conscience of society and as a space of independent, multi-voiced, critically informed and socially accountable debates about alternative futures.  I am also a research fellow at the University of Oulu, where I was chair of global education from 2010 to 2013. I am also a research fellow at the Centre for Global Citizenship Education at the University of Alberta.

Adi Burton

Student, UBC

UBC Chapter STAND Canada, President 

STAND Canada is a national, student-led organization striving to make the prevention and elimination of genocide a cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy. In recent years, the UBC chapter of STAND has had the privilege to participate in the ethical dialogue on campus, resulting in a dramatic shift in our understanding of our work and responsibilities as advocates. In order to continue this discussion, we designed and implemented a program aimed at providing high school students with the tools to be thoughtful advocates engaged in ethical dialogue. Currently, the program has been run in four classrooms across the Lower Mainland and is growing quickly based on very positive results and interest from both teachers, students, and volunteers. Following my involvement as president of STAND UBC and my upcoming role as Chapter Director at STAND Canada, I will begin my MA program at UBC through the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program under the supervision of Dr. Barbara Weber and Dr. Shafik Dharamsi in September. My research will focus on the current dialogue of ethics in advocacy work in order to identify common and effective strategies used by a range organization to address ethical challenges. 

Dr. Su-Ming Khoo

Lecturer, National University of Ireland, Galway

Vice-Dean (Internationalization) College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic Studies

Project Leader, Development Education and Research Network

My research and teaching interests stem from an interest in different meanings of globalization and development and the contestation of those meanings along North/South lines and the challenge of development after 'post-development'. Most of my research and course material engages with development theory and political economy of development, with an emphasis on alternative approaches including human development, human rights and sustainable development. I have particular interest in issues of citizenship, culture, decolonization, ecology, democratization and knowledge advocacy within the political economy of development. I convene a PhD research group on human rights and development. Recent research also includes contesting globalization in, and through, higher education. Current collaborative research projects include ’Health reform, governance and rights in complex developmental transitions’ and ’Ethics in Higher Education’.

Jolanta (Jola) Lekich
Program Director, Global Campus Initiatives, UBC

Jolanta (Jola) Lekich is the Program Director, Global Campus Initiatives at the University of British Columbia.  She has an MA in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning from Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.  Jola provides strategic leadership and direction for the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program as well as the Simon K.Y. Lee Global Lounge and Resource Centre, a hub for globally-focused student organizations on campus. Jola works with students in the areas of facilitation, ethical engagement, conflict resolution, volunteer retention and grant writing. With over ten years of experience in international education, Jola has coached and advised hundreds of international students as an International Student Advisor, both at UBC and at Langara College. Jola has also worked as a Teacher Trainer and has taught a variety of levels of ESL and EAP. She has also developed curriculums for 'Survival English' courses and is a co-author of a handbook aimed to provide help for immigrant parents and their children's teachers.

Dr. Colleen McGloin
Senior Lecturer, University of Wollongong

Colleen is a senior lecturer in Indigenous Studies. She comes from a multi-disciplinary background in English Studies and Cultural Studies and is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning. Colleen’s key research interests are in critical pedagogy as a body of knowledge that is politically and socially motivated towards social justice and the production of democratic citizens. She teaches into the Indigenous Studies major and sees Indigenous Studies as a discipline that invites students to think critically about the intersections between race, culture, class, ability, gender and sexuality, and to engage with social justice principles and activism. Colleen’s work is informed by feminist values. Her interest in critical pedagogy extends to all facets of teaching and learning, including policy, teaching and learning practice, and how to form effective critical alliances with Indigenous people.

Dr. Lisa Taylor
Full Professor, Bishop’s University

Dr. Lisa Taylor is Assistant Professor in the School of Education since July 2004. She received her Honours BA, MA and PhD from the University of Toronto. Since coming to Bishop’s, Dr. Taylor has been involved in three SSHRC-funded research projects: one bringing together researchers from five Canadian universities and private and public sector organizations, focusing on multiliteracies and the design of learning environments for knowledge generation within the new economy; the others, in collaboration with Dr. Michael Hoechsmann, McGill University, a national survey of the impact of multicultural curriculum reform on Canadian youth’s ‘multicultural literacy’. Lisa Taylor’s range of research projects explore theoretical, ethical and practical directions in inclusive models of education which build on cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource for pluralist, globally engaged societies. Grounded in feminist, antiracist, postcolonial and cultural studies, in psychoanalytic and post-reconceptualization curriculum theorizing, her more recent research explores the psychic, ethical and pedagogical dynamics of pedagogies that seek to learn from historical memory, representations of violence, genocide and injustice, and that mobilize affective and aesthetic engagement in learning for social change.