is an accomplished author whose brilliant works of Gothic fiction capture the experiences of the Haisla Nation on Canada鈥檚 West Coast. Her first novel, Monkey Beach, won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Governor General鈥檚 Award. Son of a Trickster, the first novel of her Trickster trilogy, was a Canada Reads finalist in 2020. Recently Eden Robinson visited Ottawa on her book tour for her latest novel, The Sorceress of Sky Serpents. I had the incredible opportunity to listen to her speak on a panel at the , as well as in my 4th-year workshop class. In the intimate setting of the workshop, myself and my classmates were able to ask Robinson our questions about crafting stories, the publishing industry, and the responsibilities of story-tellers. Robinson鈥檚 insights into her writing process were illuminating for me, as an aspiring author and an English major in 杏吧原创鈥檚 creative writing concentration.

Every writer knows the struggle of writer鈥檚 block, and has heard plenty of cliched advice on how to overcome it. Robinson鈥檚 advice, however, was fresh, humourful, and deeply helpful. One of my biggest take-aways from her visit was that the writing process doesn鈥檛 have to be linear and straightforward. Robinson doesn鈥檛 write each scene in the order that they will appear in the final novel. Instead, she flags emotionally difficult scenes to circle back to later, on a day when she feels strong enough to write them. Acknowledging her fear of writing certain challenging scenes helps her to overcome writer鈥檚 block.

Robinson also explained that sometimes the opening scene that she writes of a first draft is not necessarily where the final novel ends up starting. For example, she had originally intended for Karaoke, from her short story 鈥淨ueen of the North鈥�, to be the narrator of Monkey Beach. Once she started writing, however, she realized that she couldn鈥檛 maintain an entire novel with such an aggressive narrator. When a novel has stalled, a change of narrator can help.

Even if a certain character does not end up narrating your novel, writing from their perspective is still a useful exercise. When reading Robinson鈥檚 work, I was struck by how multi-dimensional and fully realized her characters were. In particular, when I read Monkey Beach the character Mick really came to life. Even though he鈥檚 flawed as a person 鈥� he鈥檚 a bit of a womanizer and an alcoholic 鈥� I couldn鈥檛 help but love him and root for him to get his happy ending. I asked Robinson for her advice on how to walk that fine line of writing a character who is flawed but also likeable. She responded that the key is to have empathy for all your characters, and even for your antagonists. Writing from the point of view of your antagonists can help develop a deeper understanding of them.

Furthermore, Robinson emphasized the importance of editing in the writing process. She writes drafts as long as 800 pages, then whittles them down. She edits her work by taking a novel apart and putting it back together again. For example, she described how she had printed out a draft, chopped it up into scenes, and pinned it to the walls and ceiling in concentric circles. This helped her to visually access the pacing of the novel. Her description of her editing process helped me to realize that cutting material from my own drafts is not a failure, because time spent writing is never wasted.

Robinson also touched on several important ethical topics related to writing. For instance, Robinson stressed the need for Indigenous data sovereignty, especially in the age of AI. Her books have been scraped by AI, against her will. Details about Haisla culture were combined with aspects of other cultures, and incorporated into the AI鈥檚 hallucinations. This is a horrifying appropriation of Indigenous knowledge, and yet another addition to the myriad reasons why writers must refuse the temptation to use AI in their work.

Additionally, I asked Robinson how she finds balance between writing for people from the Haisla Nation but also for a broader audience. She responded that she had had conversations within her community about what information should be shared with outsiders, as well as who gets to share this information. In these conversations, one community member asked her to reflect on the distinction between performing culture versus living it. As Robinson explains it, someone who performs their culture might show up to the feasts, but not help clean up after. If someone is going to speak for a community, then they should also be doing this work within the community. They should be committed to engaging with and learning about their culture, in order to strive for accuracy in their literary representations. Also, their writing should have a purpose which benefits the community. For example, the Sixties Scoop and residential schools are the underlying subtexts of Robinson鈥檚 writing. Therefore, her work has helped advocate for recognition of the trauma that colonialism has inflicted on Indigenous Peoples.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Ottawa Writer鈥檚 Festival, 杏吧原创 University, and my professor, David Stymeist, for providing me with the chance to learn from such a remarkable author. I was inspired by Robinson鈥檚 passion for her craft, or, as she calls it, her 鈥渞andom obsessiveness鈥� about certain ideas. She shifted my perspective on my own writing, both in terms of its construction and its utility. As a young writer, it鈥檚 easy to succumb to the urge to be overly critical of your work 鈥� to expect it to be perfect on the first or second draft and to become discouraged when inevitably it is not. Robinson鈥檚 advice highlighted the necessity of creative flexibility throughout the writing process. Robinson also prompted me to contemplate my ethical duties as a writer, regarding my representations of other communities as well as my own. She expanded my conception of what it means to be a conscientious writer; a writer鈥檚 responsibilities extend beyond the words on the page.

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Welcome to a new academic year!

Just a few days into the fall term, I鈥檓 already heartened by the constant bustle on campus and the enthusiasm of the students I鈥檝e crossed paths with so far.

On September 8, we held our Arts and Social Sciences in the Quad, and I was so impressed by the turnout and my conversations with many of you. You seem determined and excited as you pursue degrees in the subjects that interest you. By choosing the arts and social sciences, I think you have made a very smart decision for your future, though I may be a little biased!

As a developmental psychologist, a long-time professor and now entering my fourth year as Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, I have spent much of my career thinking about how young people learn and grow. What I have learned, often from students themselves, is that real growth does not usually occur all at once. It comes through an accumulation of experiences, relationships, questions and challenges, as well as small, everyday acts of courage and kindness.

My hope is that you give yourself every opportunity to experience that growth this year.

Your department is a good place to begin building those relationships. Introduce yourself to a professor after class or visit them during office hours. Get to know your fellow students and the staff, administrators and advisors who support your program. Become part of the department鈥檚 culture and consider what you might contribute to it. Remember that your program is more than just a collection of courses. It is an intellectual community filled with people who can change the way you understand the world and help you find your place in it.

I hope you will also explore all that this beautiful campus and the city around it have to offer. While the weather still allows it, stroll down to the river and settle at a picnic table with one of your course readings, or better yet, a book or article you have chosen to read purely for yourself. Visit Ottawa鈥檚 many museums and art galleries. Look into co-op and experiential learning opportunities that take you out of the classroom and into the community. Sign up for Coffee with a Prof, come to a trivia night or our Halloween movie night, attend an event in our Healthy Cities lecture series at the 杏吧原创 Dominion-Chalmers Centre or hear a guest speaker in your department.

Put plainly, say yes to a university experience you had not planned on having. Experiences like these can enrich your education, so I hope you will take advantage of the many opportunities available to you as an Arts and Social Sciences student.

Because, truly, a new conversation or thought-provoking lecture really can alter the direction of your studies. A museum visit can change how you see the world. Community engagement can help you discover what you are good at, what you care most about and how those strengths might be useful to others. Learning what matters to you and how you might build a meaningful future is a central part of your education.

I also want to acknowledge that you are learning at a moment when generative artificial intelligence can produce an answer, an argument or a polished paragraph almost instantly. Whatever our individual views on AI, it is hard to deny its growing influence across society. Please pay close attention to the AI-use policies for each course and any additional guidance from your professors. Their goal is to help you get the most from your education, and following that guidance will help you do so.

A rich education asks more of you than simply arriving at an answer. As a university dean, I feel a deep personal responsibility to ensure that our Faculty helps every student become more knowledgeable and discerning, and feel confident in their own thinking. I believe in my bones that this kind of growth comes from doing the difficult thinking for yourself 鈥� wrestling with complicated ideas, sitting with uncertainty, questioning your assumptions, and developing ideas and insights of your own.

Learning this way can be challenging and, at times, frustrating. There will be deadlines, setbacks and moments when you doubt yourself or fall short of your own expectations. Moving through those moments is how you become a more capable, independent thinker and learn to trust your own judgment. Please do not give away that opportunity for the sake of convenience, no matter how tempting it may be. At a time of rapid technological change, society needs people with a strong foundation in critical thinking who can examine history and culture, communicate across differences, understand complex systems and approach serious ethical questions with nuance and care.

Finally, and very importantly, please be kind to yourself as you undertake this work. Learning requires rigour, not perfection. Ask for help when you need it and extend that same generosity to the people around you, who may be navigating unseen difficulties and uncertainties in their own lives.

Kindness belongs in our academic and professional lives. It is a value we put into practice when we listen carefully, interrogate ideas without diminishing others and create supportive environments where everyone can do their best work. I believe it is one of the most valuable qualities you can carry with you through university and into the rest of your life.

Whether you are beginning your first term at 杏吧原创, returning to a familiar department or pursuing graduate research, I hope you will make this year fully your own. Take your education seriously, but do not experience it only from behind a screen or inside a classroom. Participate in the life around you. Find your people. Know that you belong here and help others feel that they do too.

I look forward to meeting many more of you throughout the year. Once again, welcome to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at 杏吧原创!

Dr. Anne Bowker
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

What’s the best way to get to know your professors? Go to their office hours! Check out the in our “Office Hours” series on Instagram (), featuring FASS Dean Anne Bowker.

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Congratulations to the following Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences researchers who were awarded Insight Grants by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in the October 2025 competition!听

• Gabriele Contessa (Department of Philosophy) will explore the profound epistemic malaise that liberal democracies are experiencing. Contessa proposes the post-trust diagnosis as an explanation, which maintains that this malaise results from collective epistemic failings, not individual ones. Our 鈥榚pistemic infrastructure鈥� 鈥� the system of institutions, norms, and procedures that promotes the production, transmission, recession, and uptake of information 鈥� is increasingly dysfunctional and, as a result, many communities have developed a mistrust of its institutions (e.g., government, the press, science). Through a deeper understanding of collective failings, rather than blaming individual citizens for their alleged failures, the project aims to improve democratic discourse and repair social bonds.听

• S茅bastien C么t茅 (Department of French) seeks to create an edited edition of the 鈥淟ettres canadienne,鈥� an 18^th century French manuscript virtually unknown to literary researchers and historians. Written by an anonymous author who claimed to live in New France between 1692 and 1699, the manuscript is composed 259 letters with 26 people, sharing the news of Europe and the Ottoman Empire with their Canadian contacts and relating their experiences in New France with their European contacts. Through the edited edition, C么t茅 will redefine our knowledge of the literature of New France, in particular the role transatlantic networks played in the circulation of knowledge and the colonial imagination.听听

• Shawn Graham (Department of History) will employ technologies such as multimodal neural networks and natural language processing to enhance how digital archeology can be done in inaccessible places. Building on his work conducing the first archeological analysis of the International Space Station, Graham will use the same methods to focus on the human impact on Chomolungma, also known as Mt. Everest. Using digital tools, the project will map human impacts on the mountain by training neural network models on photography from climbing routes and base camps from the earliest expeditions to the present. Integrating visual data with environmental and historical data, the project will address gaps in our understanding of climbing culture鈥檚 material signatures and will pioneer new digital archeology practices.听听

• Katie Gunnell (Department of Psychology), with co-applicant Andrea Howard (Psychology), will examine how adolescents experience social media in real time and whether those experiences support or undermine their well-being. Concerns social media鈥檚 negative impacts are widespread with social media bans for youth increasingly being considered as a policy solution. However, adolescents themselves do not rank social media as a top concern and scientific evidence is inconclusive. This project will analyze in-moment experiences over three studies, examining how adolescents craft their social media experiences, how mindfulness functions as an inner regulatory resource, and how attentional patterns serve as the behavioural manifestation of this process. Results could offer support for alternative solutions that focus on social media skills rather than solely on restrictions.听听

• Paul Nelles (Department of History) will chart the mobility of a defined cluster of religious materials (wax Agnus Dei disks, rosary beads blessed by the pope, copies of the icon of the Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore, and relics) that originated in Rome and were transported by Jesuit missionaries across the globe, focussing on Rome, Lisbon, Mexico City, and Puebla. By studying the material and social pathways of religious materials, objects, and images in transnational and cross-cultural exchange, the project will contribute to our understanding of how the alternately privileged and contested status of materiality functioned to destabilize and reconfigure religion as a distinct sphere of social activity in the early modern world.听

• Vida Panitch (Department of Philosophy) will examine the hotly debated question of restricting the choices of consenting adults in a market economy. Panitch aims to show that none of the leading positions are consistent with or succeed in reconciling the liberal democratic commitment to market autonomy while at the same time protecting civic (e.g., votes), necessary (e.g., health care), and physical (e.g., body parts) goods from market valuation and exchange. She will propose and apply an anti-commodification argument grounded in a political conception of justice to help policy analysts, lawmakers, and the general public develop a better understanding of how these areas of public concern interact, how they reflect a shared concern with contested commodification, and how to best reconcile our dual commitments as Canadians to market autonomy and market regulation.听

• Peter Pulsifer (Department of Geography and Environmental Science) will develop interactive story maps and geovisualizations of chapters written by Assiniboia Residential School survivors in Did You See Us? Reunion, Remembrance, and Reclamation at an Urban Indian Residential School. Aiming to further develop critical approaches to mapping Indigenous perspectives and knowledge in collaboration with members of the Assiniboia Residential School Legacy Group, the project will explore ways to map the sociocultural and political economic context of the residential school narratives.听听

• Dipto Sarkar (Department of Geography and Environmental Science) will continue his research on OpenStreetMap (OSM), a volunteer mapping project that has become a critical global geospatial data infrastructure. While providing essential information for humanitarian organizations, technology corporations, and governments, its sustainability is threatened by contributor attrition and contribution inequity, resulting in compromised data quality with significant gaps and systemic biases that disproportionately affect the Global South and underrepresented communities. This project will diagnose and address the root causes of contributor engagement to develop and test a targeted intervention to solve the challenges OSM faces. It will also offer a model for understanding and improving volunteer engagement across other large-scale citizen science and digital crowd-sourcing platforms.听听

• Sheryl-Ann Simpson (Department of Geography and Environmental Science) will analyze environmental narratives in Caribbean theatre from the 1930s to the 1960s. The Caribbean has both been a site of environmental disruption and decolonization and independence movements in which theatre played a key role as a mixed-media and portable art form that reached a broad public. She will use abolition ecology and performance frameworks to analyze published and unpublished material to help build understandings of root causes of environmental harms, and provide ideas for practices of repair, environmental justice, and freedom-making.听听

• 脡尘颈濒颈别 Urbain (Department of French), with collaborator Rachelle Vessey (School of Linguistics and Language Studies), will study the evolution of discourse and attitudes on Indigenous languages beginning in the 1960s in the Maritimes and Quebec. The project will analyze the role of social and linguistic differentiation of Indigenous peoples and their languages in francophone public discourse, specifically the ways in which Indigenous languages are rendered invisible and the processes at work in creating linguistic hierarchies. The project will combine sociolinguistic approaches and discourse analysis to produce a qualitative analysis of these discourses and their rhetorical construction.听听

• Ellen Waterman (School for Studies in Art and Culture), with co-applicants Barbara Leckie (Department of English Language and Literature) and Jesse Stewart (School for Studies in Art and Culture), will mobilize the expressive power of participatory sonic arts in considering how society can effectively respond to the climate crisis. Disability, neurodiversity and d/Deaf communities are some of the most impacted by climate disruption, and they have expertise 鈥� too often ignored 鈥� in adaptation and resilience that can make a valuable contribution to our ability to imagine liveable futures. She will collaborate with disabled, neurodivergent, and d/Deaf artists in four research-creation sub-projects to focus attention on the capacity of the creative arts to reach audiences and translate knowledge in experiential and deeply affective ways while simultaneously building capacity for equitable participation in the arts.听听

support research excellence in the social sciences and humanities, enabling scholars to address complex issues about individuals and societies, and to further our collective understanding.听

Congratulations to the following Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences researchers who were awarded Insight Development Grants by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in the February 2026 competition!听

• Emilie Cameron (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies) received funding to examine environmental impact assessment and regulatory systems in Yukon. Since the 1980s, co-managed impact assessment institutions established through land claim agreements have been framed as mechanisms for responsible, participatory, and sustainable decision-making that respect Indigenous rights. But, how does it operate in practice? To answer this question, Cameron will work collaboratively with two Yukon First Nations to conduct a detailed empirical analysis of Yukon鈥檚 assessment and regulatory system since 2006. It aims to better understand the role of impact assessment in securing continued access to Indigenous lands for extractive capital and support Indigenous-led, consent-based governance alternatives while contributing to broader debates about colonialism, land claims and extractivism in the contemporary North.听听

• Katie Gunnell (Department of Psychology) will examine whether athletes perceive GenAI as supportive or undermining social agents and whether those perceptions align with, or extend, models developed for human coaches. Athletes are increasingly using GenAI to support training plan development, goal setting, performance reflection and motivational guidance, yet little is known about how they experience these tools, and whether they support or undermine athletes鈥� motivation and well-being. The project uses a mixed-methods design in two studies: Study 1 uses qualitative interviews to explore how athletes use GenAI tools and how they experience it and study 2 uses experience-sampling to explore whether their perceptions are associated with day-to-day changes in motivation and well-being across one week. This project will provide the first empirical evidence on how GenAI functions as a motivational influence and support coaches, athletes, and policy makers as GenAI is more commonly used. 听

• Robin Norris (Department of English Language and Literature) will conduct a research-creation project to visualize what the Old English Rune Poem (OERP) looked like on the manuscript page and explore the linguistic and intellectual work it performed in its multilingual, multicultural world. Runes are characters in a set of ancient alphabets used before and during the Middle Ages. A thousand years ago, a scribe wrote down the OERP, which largely depicts plants, animals and weather, providing a field guide to the medieval environment. Later readers updated it and it was bound in a book about saints鈥� lives. It eventually appeared in print but was destroyed by fire. Recent editions have been based on transcripts disconnected from the form, contexts, and materiality of the manuscript. This project will publish a digital scholarly edition, translation, and contextualization of the OERP online to answer two questions: what did the OERP look like when an early medieval scribe wrote it down and what did later readers add to the text? By uncovering new perspectives on the work of Old English scribes and Early Modern antiquarians, the project demonstrates how our access to early texts is always mediated by the editors who preserved and transmitted them.听

• Brian Strong (School of Linguistics and Language Studies) received funding to explore the efficacy of 鈥榞uess-first鈥� instructional design in second language learning. Current materials force students to learn through trial and error, but there is little empirical research on its impact on second language vocabulary acquisition. Cognitive psychology findings suggest making and correcting errors promotes retention, but largely in relation to semantically related concepts. This project tests the Recursive Reminding Model, which suggests that semantic overlap is not necessary and that learning occurs when the learner integrates the episode of making the error with the correct feedback to create a contrastive link that prevents future confusion. The results will offer empirical insights to inform potential refinements in language technology programs (e.g. Duolingo) and textbooks to improve the efficacy of second language acquisition.听听

The supports research excellence in the social sciences and humanities by providing funding for researchers to pursue new research directions for up to two years.听听

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The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences extends its congratulations to ACME: An International Journal of Critical Geographies and the on receiving Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Aid to Scholarly Journals support in the .

Managed by a large editorial collective, including Geography and Environmental Sciences professor David Hugill (one of two editors-in-chief), ACME provides a multilingual forum for critical, interdisciplinary analyses of social, spatial, ecological and political spaces. It publishes work that advances critical frameworks aligned with anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperials, anti-speciesist, anti-authoritarian, Black, Indigenous, feminist, crip, trans, queer, and multi-species perspectives. The journal is notable for blending theoretical and methodological boldness with political relevance and embraces multiple formats to increase accessibility to diverse audiences.

The Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics (CJAL)/Revue canadienne de linguistique appliqu茅e (RCLA) is the official journal of the Canadian association of Applied Linguistics. A bilingual journal, it publishes on a wide range of topics in applied linguistics, including first and second language acquisition, first and second language teaching, bilingual education, sociolinguistics, language planning, sociology of language, psycholinguistics, literacy, and applied phonetics. School of Linguistics and Language Studies professors Michael Rodgers and Eva Kartchava are the journal鈥檚 editors-in-chief.

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Summer Artist and Curator Office Hours Residency

The inaugural Office Hours artist residency at the (CUAG) was a fabulous success! The six weeks have flown by, and we’ve enjoyed sharing workspace with artists Rachel Kalpana James and Golrokh Salehi. Read on to learn more about what they worked on during the residency. Special thanks to Julie Hodgson, Founder of the Ottawa Art Society for generous support in enabling us to fund the Office Hours Curator contract position and hire FASS Sociology graduate Felicity Hauwert.听We extend our sincere thanks to Felicity for their thoughtful stewardship of the program.

Preparing for autumn exhibitions

In August, CUAG will host artist Joi T. Arcand who will transform the main floor of the gallery into an 鈥渋mmersive urban Cree utopia鈥� for her exhibition 釕翅悆釗搱釕酷惁釕� 釔冡憳釔忈搰 k膩-isin膩kwahki itw膿wina: The Shape of Words. Arcand reclaims n膿hiyaw膿win (the Plains Cree language), which she has been learning her whole life, and asserts its intellectual, aesthetic and cultural sovereignty and manifests its power to shape worlds.听

Upstairs, we will present Faisa Omer: Threading Roots, an exhibition inspired by the lived experiences of Omer, a Somali Canadian photographer whose practice is shaped by her work in the mental health field and her personal journey as a racialized individual. Through photography, sound, and material elements, the exhibition explores how mental health is experienced, visualized and navigated within Somali Canadian communities. In addition to being a professional artist, Omer works as a mental health counsellor for racialized students living in residence at 杏吧原创. The exhibition is curated by Reyhab Mohmed Patel, a PhD candidate in Sociology at 杏吧原创. 

The exhibitions open on Tuesday, Sept. 22 and run until Sunday, Dec. 13. The launch party will be held on Sunday, Oct. 4, featuring a conversational walk-through tour with the artists and curators at 1:30 pm. More details to come! To book a class visit, please reach out to Cara Tierney. 

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Photos by Brenna Mackay

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Good morning, everyone. It is such a pleasure to be here with you today.

For those who don’t know me, my name is Dr. Anne Bowker, and I have the privilege of serving as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and as a professor of Developmental Psychology.

To the family members, friends, faculty, staff, mentors, and supporters who have helped our graduates reach this milestone, thank you. Today is a celebration of individual achievement, but it is also a celebration of community. None of us arrives at a moment like this entirely on our own.

And to the Class of 2026: Congratulations! You have worked incredibly hard to get here, and you should be so proud of what you’ve accomplished.

As I look out at you today, I find myself thinking not only about where you’re going next, but about how much you’ve changed since you first arrived at 杏吧原创.

Four years ago, many of you arrived on campus carrying a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, ambition, and perhaps a few assumptions about how the world worked. Since then, you’ve encountered new ideas, complicated questions, unfamiliar perspectives, and people whose experiences challenged and contrasted your own.

You have each learned a great deal in classrooms and lecture halls, libraries, studios, labs, work and field placements, community groups, and late-night conversations with friends. But education is never just about acquiring information. It is also about comprehensive personal evolution.

One of the great joys of working in a university is having the opportunity to watch students grow over time. I’ve had the honour of seeing that growth in many of you, and what strikes me most today is not simply the expertise you’ve developed through your disciplines. It’s who you’ve become.

Through your classes, experiences, and relationships at 杏吧原创, you have become people who are better equipped to understand the world around you. And I don’t use the word understand lightly.

In my view, understanding is one of the most powerful skills a person can possess. It helps us make sense of a complicated world, build meaningful friendships, contribute to our communities, and become the kind of leaders people trust and want to follow. It is a skill that enriches every part of our lives, personally and professionally.

Throughout your Arts and Social Sciences education, you’ve developed that skill in ways both big and small. You’ve examined multifaceted questions from multiple perspectives, challenged your own assumptions, and learned to look beneath the surface. You’ve discovered that understanding the world around us requires curiosity and a willingness to engage with complexity.

Those habits of mind may not always provide quick answers, but they often lead to better ones.

The world you are graduating into is fast-moving and often overwhelming. Information is abundant. Opinions are everywhere. Artificial intelligence can generate answers in seconds.

Yet understanding remains as important, and as difficult, as ever. Because true understanding requires something more than information. It requires inquisitiveness, good judgment, and the willingness to see beyond our own experiences.

Whether you studied psychology, English, history, music, sociology, cognitive science, or any of the many disciplines represented here today, you have spent your time exploring the human experience and developing the capacity to understand it more deeply.

As all of you now understand, the most important challenges facing our communities are not simply technical problems waiting for technical solutions. They are human challenges. And human challenges require people who can build connections, navigate nuance, and bring people together.

In other words, they require leadership. And while leadership is often associated with authority, expertise, or visibility, the most effective leaders I have known possess something much more human. They understand people. They pay attention to context. And they recognize that meaningful progress depends on trust, and that listening is often more valuable than speaking.

And that brings me to my core point I hope you’ll remember from my remarks today.

Understanding matters. But what matters even more is what we do with that understanding.

We often talk about kindness as though it were simply a personality trait. A virtue. Something you’re either born with or not. Something admirable, perhaps, but not especially useful in a competitive world.

I see it differently. To me, kindness is a skill. It is the practical application of empathy and understanding. It is how we build trust, strengthen communities, and help others feel valued. And despite what we sometimes hear, these qualities are not obstacles to success. They are often the foundation of it.

The people who build strong organizations, meaningful connections, and healthy communities are rarely those who move through the world thinking only about themselves. More often, they are people who understand others, who earn trust, and who recognize that connecting and belonging matter.

Maya Angelou once observed that it takes courage to be kind. I think she was right. Kindness requires courage. It takes courage to remain curious when certainty would be easier. It takes courage to reconsider our assumptions. And it takes courage to genuinely try to understand people whose experiences differ from our own. But I believe kindness is one of the most valuable skills you can carry into the future.

Whether in your career, your relationships, or your community, kindness will help you build trust and bring people together in a world that often feels divided and uncertain, and frankly requires mending.

One of the great privileges of my career has been spending more than three decades teaching, mentoring, and learning alongside students like you.

People sometimes assume that learning flows in only one direction. That professors teach and students learn. My experience has been quite different.

What I can tell you is that year after year, students continue to challenge my assumptions, expand my perspective, and remind me that every generation brings new ideas, new energy, and new possibilities. They also remind me that kindness is far more common, and far more powerful, than we often give it credit for.

And that is one of the reasons I remain so hopeful. I have spent my career meeting the people who will shape the future. I see them sitting in front of me today.

So, as you leave 杏吧原创, I hope you carry forward the habits of mind you’ve developed here. Continue asking thoughtful questions. Continue seeking understanding before rushing toward simple answers.

But most importantly, please continue practicing your acquired and highly dynamic and refined skill of kindness. Not because it is easy, and not because it is expected, but because it is powerful if practiced consistently and with intention.

Thank you for choosing 杏吧原创 and for enriching our Faculty with your intelligence, creativity, generosity, and of course, your skill of kindness.

Congratulations, Class of 2026. We are so proud of you and cannot wait to see where your talents take you next.

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Congratulations to fourth鈥憏ear Philosophy honours student Jack Ragan on receiving a 2026 Provost Scholar Award! Funded by the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) and administered by Teaching and Learning Services, the Provost Scholar Award is valued at $500 and is given to undergraduate students who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in research, community engagement, immersive learning and/or international activities.

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By Kirsten Maramba

杏吧原创 University鈥檚 inaugural Black Faculty and Students Meet and Greet, held on March 30, 2026, at the Institute of African Studies, brought together students, faculty, and alumni for an inspiring evening of connection, mentorship, and celebration. The event created a vibrant space where Black members of the 杏吧原创 community could see themselves reflected across academic and professional roles鈥攁n experience many described as both empowering and long overdue.

Speakers shared candid reflections on navigating university life, confronting systemic barriers, and finding strength through community. Their stories highlighted the importance of representation, mentorship, and visibility in fostering Black student success.

Student speakers Dylan Ntemgwa and Dupe Adesoji encouraged peers to pursue excellence beyond grades by engaging in research, volunteering, and leadership opportunities. 

Faculty members also highlighted the value of informal settings for building authentic relationships and breaking down barriers that persist in traditional academic environments. Journalism professor Adrian Harewood spoke about overcoming academic challenges through meaningful relationships. Alumna Petra Michael offered a powerful account of her experience transitioning to Canada as an international student, describing how the support of Black faculty mentors, including Professor Daniel Tetteh Osabu鈥慘le helped her adjust and succeed despite challenges related to accent-based bias and cultural adaptation.

Students responded enthusiastically to the event and expressed how deeply the event resonated. Many shared that hearing from Black faculty and alumni made academic pathways feel more accessible and helped them feel seen and supported. 

One international student noted that attending helped him break out of isolation and make new connections. Another said Petra鈥檚 story mirrored his own experience of feeling academically strong yet judged for his accent, underscoring the need for spaces that validate Black students鈥� experiences. One student noted, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 even know we had these Black professors at 杏吧原创. Seeing us represented at all levels is incredibly important.鈥�

The Meet and Greet reflects 杏吧原创鈥檚 ongoing commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion, aligning with initiatives such as the Scarborough Charter. Faculty emphasized that informal gatherings like this help break down barriers and create space for authentic, community鈥慴uilding conversations.

The event was supported by the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) and the Black Inclusion Working Group, with coordination by Professor Nduka Otiono, Faculty Advisor on Anti鈥態lack Racism and Black Inclusion and Director of the Institute of African Studies. Kirsten Maramba, Computer Science Honours and Co鈥憃p student, served as a research assistant.

For upcoming events and initiatives, visit the 杏吧原创 University Anti鈥態lack Racism and Black Inclusion website.

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