Lethbridge College is bringing a more diverse voice to its campus with the implementation of an equity, diversity and inclusion team.
In 2019, the college was chosen to participate in the Dimensions pilot program as one of only 17 post-secondary institutions. The Dimensions program is a two-year project where the college set up an internal self-assessment committee to look at what the college already has in place for promoting equity, diversity and inclusion and what areas may need improvement.
After participating in the Dimensions program, the college was awarded the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Institutional Capacity-Building Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Michelle ní Dochartaigh-Derbich, the college’s EDI strategist and lead researcher, says the grant was great to receive as it allows for the EDI team to grow and work on new projects.
“The EDI committee feeds forward to me and gives me their ideas and perspectives and I feed into the committee to let them know what promotional activities we’ve got going on, training opportunities and how the research is going.”
Lethbridge College also has initiatives in place on campus for students outside of research projects to promote EDI. The inclusive spaces on campus are the international lounge for international students, the Niitsitapi gathering place, individual drop-in multi faith rooms, the pride lounge for members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community and five gender neutral bathrooms across campus.
The EDI team at the college also takes into consideration the thoughts and opinions of the students by having student ambassadors on the team. Sarah Harland is one of the student ambassadors and says the college has great plans and events to promote inclusion like the college’s pronoun day which is what got Harland interested in getting involved with EDI.
“I try to get involved and see where we can go to make everything more inclusive and find out where diversity can be brought in more and try to make sure everyone feels welcome.”
EDI plans are taking off in many other Canadian post-secondary institutions as well. According to a publication by Leo Charbonneau about University Canada’s EDI survey published in 2019 on universityaffairs.ca “more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of Canada’s universities explicitly reference equity, diversity and inclusion in their strategic plans or long-term planning documents, and 70 per cent of institutions either already have or are in the process of developing an EDI action plan.”
In Feb. 2019, Universities Canada launched its first comprehensive national survey so EDI data could be available. The survey results show that post-secondaries are putting priority on EDI action plans, recruitment, and reconciliation and Indigenization. Despite so many post-secondary institutions having EDI as part of their plans, there are still challenges and roadblocks in the way. Lacking resources, retaining leadership, lack of data and lack of information about EDI best practises are some challenges that can slow progress of EDI plans.
Dochartaigh-Derbich says the future plans for Lethbridge College’s EDI team are hopefully going to help with some of those challenges.
“We have a project going on that we believe will be the first of its kind in Canada in post-secondary.”
The EDI team is still working on more details for new projects before releasing the details publicly.
Lethbridge College supports EDI year round and has events surrounding internationally recognized dates including February as Black History Month, International Women’s Day on March 8, Equality Day on April 17 and many others that can be found on the college’s EDI calendar at lethbridgecollege.ca.