| Overall Rating | Silver |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 63.24 |
| Liaison | Victoria Ho |
| Submission Date | Feb. 8, 2024 |
OCAD University
PRE-2: Points of Distinction
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
N/A |
Victoria
Ho Advisor, Strategic Sustainability Office of Diversity, Equity & Sustainability Initiatives |
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indicates that no data was submitted for this field
Name of the institution’s featured sustainability program, initiative, or accomplishment:
Global Centre for Climate Action
A brief description of the institution’s featured program, initiative, or accomplishment:
Climate Justice through Creative Practice
The Global Centre for Climate Action (GCCA) is a research centre at OCAD University that draws on creative vision, sustainable design, and artistic practice to imagine new approaches to sustainability, climate justice, and decolonization.
We are a vibrant community of artists, designers, and scholars building cultural communities, creating arts projects, curating exhibitions, supporting creative action and research, and cultivating a global network for creative climate justice.
Our work is committed to fostering regenerative relationships between people and land and to Indigenous knowledge on sustainability. We are committed to a decolonial, social justice framework that highlights both the origins of ecological crisis and the disproportionate impacts on Indigenous and marginalized communities.
WHAT WE DO
We urgently need interventions that are not simply technical but that are also cultural, social and creative. We are working to create:
A global network for research and creative practice
Research, exhibition and programming projects
A virtual resource for creative climate action
A community gathering and education space
This ecosystem of physical and virtual spaces, programs, and activities will cultivate the profound cultural shifts, resilience, and creative design solutions that we urgently need to respond to the climate crisis and to amplify calls for cultural transformation.
OUR SITES
The primary sites for the Centre are the main OCAD U campus and the Bathurst Quay Silos, originally the Canada Malting Silos.
Precipitated by a partnership with the City of Toronto – which owns the site and is leading its on-going renovation – the Silos will eventually form a symbolic hub and physical site for the Global Centre for Climate Action. The plan is for the Centre to animate the North Silo with interior exhibitions and exterior access for public art programming and projections.
As our first major creative project, we will be activating the Silos with a series of three exhibitions in spring, summer and fall 2024. Each series will celebrate intergenerational and interdisciplinary practices that highlight climate action through art, design and research in a way that invites public engagement.
The Global Centre for Climate Action (GCCA) is a research centre at OCAD University that draws on creative vision, sustainable design, and artistic practice to imagine new approaches to sustainability, climate justice, and decolonization.
We are a vibrant community of artists, designers, and scholars building cultural communities, creating arts projects, curating exhibitions, supporting creative action and research, and cultivating a global network for creative climate justice.
Our work is committed to fostering regenerative relationships between people and land and to Indigenous knowledge on sustainability. We are committed to a decolonial, social justice framework that highlights both the origins of ecological crisis and the disproportionate impacts on Indigenous and marginalized communities.
WHAT WE DO
We urgently need interventions that are not simply technical but that are also cultural, social and creative. We are working to create:
A global network for research and creative practice
Research, exhibition and programming projects
A virtual resource for creative climate action
A community gathering and education space
This ecosystem of physical and virtual spaces, programs, and activities will cultivate the profound cultural shifts, resilience, and creative design solutions that we urgently need to respond to the climate crisis and to amplify calls for cultural transformation.
OUR SITES
The primary sites for the Centre are the main OCAD U campus and the Bathurst Quay Silos, originally the Canada Malting Silos.
Precipitated by a partnership with the City of Toronto – which owns the site and is leading its on-going renovation – the Silos will eventually form a symbolic hub and physical site for the Global Centre for Climate Action. The plan is for the Centre to animate the North Silo with interior exhibitions and exterior access for public art programming and projections.
As our first major creative project, we will be activating the Silos with a series of three exhibitions in spring, summer and fall 2024. Each series will celebrate intergenerational and interdisciplinary practices that highlight climate action through art, design and research in a way that invites public engagement.
Which of the following impact areas does the featured program, initiative, or accomplishment most closely relate to?:
Research
Optional Fields
STARS credit in which the featured program, initiative, or accomplishment is reported (if applicable):
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A photograph or document associated with the featured program, initiative, or accomplishment:
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Second Point of Distinction
OCAD University's Indigenous Learning Outcomes
A brief description of the second program/initiative/accomplishment:
What are Indigenous Learning Outcomes?
Elder, residential school survivor and recipient of the Order of Canada, Garnet Angeconeb reminds us that the meaning of the word respect, when broken down into its two parts, “re-” and “-spect” means “to look again” – as in, to look at something or someone again while also being aware of the lenses through which we view, understand and experience the world.
OCAD University’s Indigenous Learning Outcomes require us to do just that as we come to know Turtle Island’s diverse First Nations, Métis and Inuit knowledges, compelling each of us to build a relationship with that knowledge by also knowing our selves, our positions and our ways of being.
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes will guide the learning that we all, as a community of students, staff and faculty, will undertake to make space for First Nations, Métis and Inuit ways of knowing, histories, cultures and art and design practices.
Recognizing the importance of art and design to all aspects of Indigenous life, and the historical role of legislation and educational institutions in particular in systematically suppressing the languages, traditions, practices and cultures of Indigenous peoples, the Indigenous Learning Outcomes will help the university to meet its responsibilities to reconciliation and engage through art and design in the healing process.
How the Indigenous Learning Outcomes came to be
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes were developed through a process that began in a circle with Elder and Medicine Man, James Carpenter in December 2018. Participants from across the University community were asked to share in this visioning session facilitated by Nadia McLaren, Educational Developer, Indigenous Learning which set the spirit of the learning outcomes into motion. The work of the visioning session then was put into the hearts, spirits and hands of an Indigenous faculty working group (Melanie Hope, Gerald McMaster, Peter Morin and Ryan Rice) who in turn put the learning journey into words.
The four organizing principles—respect, relationship, reciprocity, responsibility—emerged from the knowledge of the working group, knowledge they bring that is grounded in culture, tradition and communities. The value of these principles is also widely recognized in Indigenous education and Indigenous research (see, for example, the work of Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt, La Donna Harris and Jacqueline Wasilewski, and Shawn Wilson).
Elders Shirley Williams and Liz Ozawamick as well as other Indigenous community leaders provided guidance in the development of these learning outcomes.
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes were presented to the OCAD University Senate in April 2019 as part of the Wholistic Approach to Curriculum, which is intended to guide the development of Indigenous curriculum.
In February 2020, at a symposium on Indigenous Students Pathways held at OCAD U, Elder Ralph Johnson from Sioux Lookout, Ontario, blessed and shared his vision for the learning outcomes, and the OCAD U community was invited to share together in a feast to celebrate them.
How to use the Indigenous Learning Outcomes respectfully and responsibly
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes are organized as a journey guided by the four directions of an Anishnaabe medicine wheel to facilitate a process of movement and an understanding that speaks about relationships to and with everything. This wholistic approach allows us to reconsider learning outcomes in terms of the importance of process and relationship rather than just a prescribed end result or outcome—that is, the medicine wheel allows us to locate learning as a journey that doesn’t end as it comes full circle and begins again.
As we move through our journey with the Indigenous Learning Outcomes, each of us is encouraged to come to know them through our varying roles and the different lenses through which we understand and experience the world. More than just knowing them, we should strive to put the ILOs into practice in all of our interactions with students and colleagues.
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes are Indigenous knowledge. We have been given the responsibility as a community to care for that knowledge and to use it respectfully when we share it with our students and colleagues.
If you would like to know more about the Indigenous Learning Outcomes, read the full document and the related learning outcomes, please find the document linked here. If you require additional guidance in understanding how to use the ILOs and thoughtfully incorporate in your teaching and practices, please contact the Office of the Vice-President, Academic and Provost (vpap@ocadu.ca).
Elder, residential school survivor and recipient of the Order of Canada, Garnet Angeconeb reminds us that the meaning of the word respect, when broken down into its two parts, “re-” and “-spect” means “to look again” – as in, to look at something or someone again while also being aware of the lenses through which we view, understand and experience the world.
OCAD University’s Indigenous Learning Outcomes require us to do just that as we come to know Turtle Island’s diverse First Nations, Métis and Inuit knowledges, compelling each of us to build a relationship with that knowledge by also knowing our selves, our positions and our ways of being.
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes will guide the learning that we all, as a community of students, staff and faculty, will undertake to make space for First Nations, Métis and Inuit ways of knowing, histories, cultures and art and design practices.
Recognizing the importance of art and design to all aspects of Indigenous life, and the historical role of legislation and educational institutions in particular in systematically suppressing the languages, traditions, practices and cultures of Indigenous peoples, the Indigenous Learning Outcomes will help the university to meet its responsibilities to reconciliation and engage through art and design in the healing process.
How the Indigenous Learning Outcomes came to be
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes were developed through a process that began in a circle with Elder and Medicine Man, James Carpenter in December 2018. Participants from across the University community were asked to share in this visioning session facilitated by Nadia McLaren, Educational Developer, Indigenous Learning which set the spirit of the learning outcomes into motion. The work of the visioning session then was put into the hearts, spirits and hands of an Indigenous faculty working group (Melanie Hope, Gerald McMaster, Peter Morin and Ryan Rice) who in turn put the learning journey into words.
The four organizing principles—respect, relationship, reciprocity, responsibility—emerged from the knowledge of the working group, knowledge they bring that is grounded in culture, tradition and communities. The value of these principles is also widely recognized in Indigenous education and Indigenous research (see, for example, the work of Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt, La Donna Harris and Jacqueline Wasilewski, and Shawn Wilson).
Elders Shirley Williams and Liz Ozawamick as well as other Indigenous community leaders provided guidance in the development of these learning outcomes.
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes were presented to the OCAD University Senate in April 2019 as part of the Wholistic Approach to Curriculum, which is intended to guide the development of Indigenous curriculum.
In February 2020, at a symposium on Indigenous Students Pathways held at OCAD U, Elder Ralph Johnson from Sioux Lookout, Ontario, blessed and shared his vision for the learning outcomes, and the OCAD U community was invited to share together in a feast to celebrate them.
How to use the Indigenous Learning Outcomes respectfully and responsibly
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes are organized as a journey guided by the four directions of an Anishnaabe medicine wheel to facilitate a process of movement and an understanding that speaks about relationships to and with everything. This wholistic approach allows us to reconsider learning outcomes in terms of the importance of process and relationship rather than just a prescribed end result or outcome—that is, the medicine wheel allows us to locate learning as a journey that doesn’t end as it comes full circle and begins again.
As we move through our journey with the Indigenous Learning Outcomes, each of us is encouraged to come to know them through our varying roles and the different lenses through which we understand and experience the world. More than just knowing them, we should strive to put the ILOs into practice in all of our interactions with students and colleagues.
The Indigenous Learning Outcomes are Indigenous knowledge. We have been given the responsibility as a community to care for that knowledge and to use it respectfully when we share it with our students and colleagues.
If you would like to know more about the Indigenous Learning Outcomes, read the full document and the related learning outcomes, please find the document linked here. If you require additional guidance in understanding how to use the ILOs and thoughtfully incorporate in your teaching and practices, please contact the Office of the Vice-President, Academic and Provost (vpap@ocadu.ca).
Which impact areas does the second program/initiative/accomplishment most closely relate to?:
Curriculum
Website URL where more information about the second program/initiative/accomplishment may be found:
STARS credit in which the second program/initiative/accomplishment is reported (if applicable):
PA-7 Support for Underrepresented Groups
A photograph or document associated with the second program/initiative/accomplishment:
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Third Point of Distinction
Cluster hire of permanent Indigenous faculty members
A brief description of the third program/initiative/accomplishment:
August 2021.
This is the second Indigenous cluster hire, undertaken by the University in three years, as part of its ongoing commitment to Indigenous Learning: Nothing About Us Without Us, the first priority identified in its Academic Plan 2017-2022: Transforming Student Experience.
“We are thrilled to welcome five new Indigenous members to the OCAD U community. These remarkable and inspiring scholars, artists, designers and educators will strengthen our efforts to reshape our University, making it a more inclusive environment for our Indigenous students. They will also contribute to the important work of indigenizing our institution, creating a community that recognizes and respects Indigenous histories, culture, knowledge and ways of knowing,” said Ana Serrano, OCAD U President and Vice-Chancellor.
In addition to their teaching roles, research activities and service to the governance of the University, the new faculty members will be key contributors to the ongoing development and decolonization of OCAD U’s undergraduate and graduate program curriculum, policies and initiatives. The hiring initiative is a special program under the Ontario Human Rights Code.
“It was really important to have this second Indigenous cluster hire in the Faculty of Design so we can have Indigenous representation in each of our six undergraduate programs and meet our commitments to the flourishing Indigenous Visual Culture program,” said Dr. Dori Tunstall, OCAD U’s Dean of the Faculty of Design.
“As we welcome our new Indigenous colleagues, it’s important to acknowledge the collective efforts of those who have contributed to this new moment in OCAD U’s story and as we build IndigenousOCAD U,” said Associate Professor Peter Morin, Special Advisor to the Provost, Indigenous Knowledge, Practices and Production.
“We are able to celebrate today’s announcement because of the contributions of exceptional people like Bonnie Devine, Ryan Rice and Dr. Duke Redbird. These Indigenous artists, scholars and curators have made significant offerings to the collective energy that is building IndigenousOCAD U,” said Morin.
This is the second Indigenous cluster hire, undertaken by the University in three years, as part of its ongoing commitment to Indigenous Learning: Nothing About Us Without Us, the first priority identified in its Academic Plan 2017-2022: Transforming Student Experience.
“We are thrilled to welcome five new Indigenous members to the OCAD U community. These remarkable and inspiring scholars, artists, designers and educators will strengthen our efforts to reshape our University, making it a more inclusive environment for our Indigenous students. They will also contribute to the important work of indigenizing our institution, creating a community that recognizes and respects Indigenous histories, culture, knowledge and ways of knowing,” said Ana Serrano, OCAD U President and Vice-Chancellor.
In addition to their teaching roles, research activities and service to the governance of the University, the new faculty members will be key contributors to the ongoing development and decolonization of OCAD U’s undergraduate and graduate program curriculum, policies and initiatives. The hiring initiative is a special program under the Ontario Human Rights Code.
“It was really important to have this second Indigenous cluster hire in the Faculty of Design so we can have Indigenous representation in each of our six undergraduate programs and meet our commitments to the flourishing Indigenous Visual Culture program,” said Dr. Dori Tunstall, OCAD U’s Dean of the Faculty of Design.
“As we welcome our new Indigenous colleagues, it’s important to acknowledge the collective efforts of those who have contributed to this new moment in OCAD U’s story and as we build IndigenousOCAD U,” said Associate Professor Peter Morin, Special Advisor to the Provost, Indigenous Knowledge, Practices and Production.
“We are able to celebrate today’s announcement because of the contributions of exceptional people like Bonnie Devine, Ryan Rice and Dr. Duke Redbird. These Indigenous artists, scholars and curators have made significant offerings to the collective energy that is building IndigenousOCAD U,” said Morin.
Which impact areas does the third program/initiative/accomplishment most closely relate to?:
Curriculum
Research
Research
Website URL where more information about the third program/initiative/accomplishment may be found:
STARS credit in which the third program/initiative/accomplishment is reported (if applicable):
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A photograph or document associated with the third program/initiative/accomplishment:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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