a message to UBC students

We believe:

• Public universities are places of learning, service, and research that play an instrumental role in shaping collective futures through service to society, preparing the next generation of global leaders, and generating knowledge to respond to the world’s most pressing issues;

• Universities are social ecosystems where different people, in different roles and with different spheres of influence, hold distinct and differentiated accountabilities—to our students, to our disciplines, to the university community, and to society at large;

• Universities, and particularly faculty who enjoy the privilege of academic freedom, hold an obligation to publicly side with humanity, by honouring our obligations to formal commitments to equity, inclusion and justice, truth and reconciliation, Human Rights, and the UN Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples;

• In responding to global crises, it is important for us to be clear about our differential responsibilities so that requests are aligned with those in positions to act. This moment challenges all of us to better understand our responsibilities, unpacking them with curiosity and humility, rather than defensiveness;

• Faculty who are also regulated professionals and belong to professional associations have secondary obligations to uphold our codes of ethics and conduct, which govern us to act in the best interest of the public and people we serve, with responsibilities in training the workforce of tomorrow to do the same, through our examples;

• Our job as academics is to hold complex, contentious paradoxes in a space of nuance and informed dialogue, and our (in)attention can amplify or redress inequities. We are expected to mobilize our distinct areas of expertise in service to the public good, with responsibilities to not overstep those areas while holding this influence. For example, as a faculty that trains global health professionals, it is exceedingly reasonable that we might decry attacks on health professionals, hospitals, universities and/or humanitarian aid workers in war zones. Similarly, it is reasonable that universities might engage in transparent and critical reflection on the alignment between investments of public funds and our international and formal commitments.

We commit to four areas of action to respond to students, individually and in our classrooms, and to embrace our influence within our institutions and society, guided by the Ripple Effect: Public Universities Framework, with two initial actions:

1. We will follow due process to gather signatures (~97 faculty) to submit a motion to our Faculty Association by June 6, to be voted on at our June 27th AGM. The motion will be to adopt a transparent process to continuously monitor, and divest as appropriate, from entities that are deemed antithetical to honouring our obligations to our communities, human rights, and other international covenants to which we are signatories.

2. We will invite a dialogue event at the end of May with our leadership and administration regarding this action framework, inviting careful consideration of the roles we can all play to uphold, protect, and leverage the right to academic freedom, freedom of expression, and freedom from discrimination and harm.

We, the undersigned, join colleagues across the globe to assert our support for the free speech and assembly rights of students, faculty and staff.

We are passionate about supporting and protecting the rights of our students and call upon our colleagues and leaders to avoid escalation by not inviting police-led responses to peaceful assembly. Rather, we hold hope that we can all recommit to solidarity through engagement and learning to build a path forward together. We are warmly inviting our peers, colleagues and leadership to join us in considering possibilities and opportunities to extend and complement what is offered here, both in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Territory of Palestine, and to other crises of relevance to our campus communities.

Dr. Sana Shahram, PhD MPH

Dr. Katrina Plamondon, PhD RN

Assistant Professors Faculty of Health & Social Development School of Nursing

written by ES Lab co-directors:

signatories

(updated on a rolling basis)

Dr. Joan L. Bottorff, PhD RN 
Professor Faculty of Health & Social Development School of Nursing