Welcome to the second episode of Governance Hack. In this episode I, Handel Kashope Wright, Senior Advisor to the President on Anti-racism and Inclusive Excellence, Director of the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education, Professor of Education at the University of British Columbia and member of Unsettling Governance, speak about Black representation in the Canadian academy with Malinda Smith, Vice Provost of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Associate Vice President, Research at the University of Calgary and Wisdom Tettey, Vice President of the University of Toronto and Principal of University of Toronto, Scarborough. Who are Black academics in all our sociocultural diversity and our decided underrepresentation in the academy? What should we make of long-term Black agency and activism, including initiating (often precarious) Black Studies, being endorsed recently by institutional attempts at Black flourishing at Canadian institutions (efforts undermined by “anti-Black racism fatigue,” an aspect of a general “anti-racism fatigue”)? How and why is the almost paradoxical role of “Black senior administrator” undertaken and how is it perceived? (160)Resources:Ibrahim, A. Kitossa, T., Smith, M. & Wright, H.K. (2022). Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian academy: Teaching, learning, and researching while Black. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. The Scarborough Charter on anti-Black racism and Black inclusion in Canadian higher education: Principles, actions and accountabilities https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/scarborough-charter/
Welcome to the inaugural episode of Governance Hack. Governance Hack is a podcast series published by the Unsettling University Governance project. This project takes on the wicked problem of systemic inequalities in universities generally, and leadership in particular. Despite widespread institutional commitments to equity in higher education, leadership is not representative. Merely augmenting numbers in under-represented groups will only compound current limitations both to academic freedom and to opportunities to shape university governance for minority faculty members. In this episode of Governance Hack I am joined by two Unsettling University Governance project team members, Dr. Genevieve Fuji Johnson and Dr. Amy Scott Metcalfe. We look at what we know about distortions in representation in university leadership, and at what might be useful concepts for thinking through this wicked problem.
