Julia Denholm (Simon Fraser University) on Unlearning, Relearning, and Rebuilding in Higher Education

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, podcast host Shauna Cox was joined by Julia Denholm to discuss the shift from stated commitments to embodied practice and the importance of learning spaces that embrace discomfort as part of growth 

Transcript

Shauna Cox (00:02):

Julia, welcome to the elimination podcast. Thank you. Happy to be here. I'm so excited to dive into our conversation around the CE space. So let's just kick it off and ask how can continuing education divisions move from statements of equity and inclusion to systems that actively embed the values into those daily operations and kind of the curricula?

Julia Denholm (00:25):

So I'm very fortunate to work at Simon Fraser University where the commitments to equity and inclusion and diversity and decolonization and indigenization were all part of our president Joy Johnson's mandate as she came to her position as president. And we've been, I think, in lifelong learning at the forefront of engaging in the activities that are designed to support those guiding principles. So in the first academic plan that I worked on when I started here, we were challenged to try and figure out how to reflect in the plan, our commitments to equity, diversity, inclusion, and indigenization and decolonization. And what we realized was we didn't want to make that a goal, that those values and the things that we want to embody in all of our work really are commitments. They're things that we're committed to, so we set them aside or really even above all of the work that we do. So we had our goals, but all of our goals are being achieved within the overarching commitments to, and they're really separate things, equity, diversity, inclusion, and then decolonization and indigenization. So having that kind of a thought framework has really helped us to see that everything that we do is within the boundary of those commitments.

Shauna Cox (01:55):

Absolutely. And I want to expand on that thought framework and kind of look at the tactical side of it and ask, what does it actually look like for institutions to make indigenization and decolonization part of that fabric of lifelong learning, rather than just making it an initiative and add on just kind of off to the side.

Julia Denholm (02:16):

Well, the first part of that is I think to reassure people, especially people like me who are colonizers, my background is Swedish and Scottish. Just to be really reassured that it doesn't mean that every single thing that you do has to be beautifully decolonizing. We as settlers can't indigenize ourselves. So it means working with indigenous people and the mantra, I suppose, or the commitment to nothing about us without us becomes very, very important. So the first thing I think is not to be afraid that doing the learning and the unlearning and then the learning is a process. But I have a really great example of a course that we teach in our public relations program where the curriculum developer and the subject matter expert worked very closely together, and both of them are, well, the subject matter expert is indigenous, and the curriculum developer has Palestinian heritage.

(03:31):

And so these women are coming from these very particular and not necessarily easy backgrounds, and they just pulled together this course on storytelling that really drew on their strengths. But the embeddedness of the fact that the subject matter expert happens to also be an indigenous woman, really added to the overall depth of that content. And so what we're really trying to do is think about how do we bring the expertise of indigenous people to the work that we do in a way that makes it not a frightening or not challenging, if you like. I mean, it's going to be challenging in the sense that the content can be challenging or thinking in a different way might be challenging, but actually doing, it's not very hard. You just work with the people who are the experts.

Shauna Cox (04:29):

And I want to expand on that point now a little bit more because you gave this really colorful example of people working together for the content specifically. So how can educators design programs that are going to reflect both that truth and reconciliation, ensuring that their learning spaces are fostering that belonging for all types of communities no matter where you came from?

Julia Denholm (04:54):

Well, this is another one. That's a tricky one. Partly because it's not comfortable.

Shauna Cox (05:01):

Exactly.

Julia Denholm (05:01):

It's not comfortable for learners sometimes to be in spaces where the things that they have learned in what was a very, I want to say, denying kind of curriculum. I mean, especially I'm Gen X and we really grew up with a curriculum in elementary and high school that just completely ignored the racist history of Canada. And we still see this in politics and politicians who are deniers of so many things that happened at residential schools, for example. So how can these spaces foster belonging? I think it's by taking time and really recognizing that learning something new is always challenging regardless of what that thing is, and learning something new that challenges, perhaps beliefs that one has held that may be incorrect. And this is why we keep going back to this notion of learning and unlearning. So the learning space can foster belonging without necessarily that space being comfortable, that it's learning how to sit in that discomfort and work through it and creating a space where dialogue and asking those questions and support, and also being able to step out, providing people with the opportunity not only to explore the questions that they might have, but to take a break and to sort of recenter and let that learning settle a bit and then enter back in again.

Shauna Cox (06:41):

Absolutely. And I think the whole uncomfortability, if you're not feeling uncomfortable, then I don't think there's that change or momentum to go forward. I think sometimes just sitting in the comfort zone might not get you where you need to be. So I think it's important to step outside of that comfort zone every now and then to get where we're supposed to be.

Julia Denholm (07:03):

Well, absolutely. But also it's really important to note that not every program or course really has these values or these commitments at their center, right?

Shauna Cox (07:16):

Yeah.

Julia Denholm (07:16):

Financial management for non-financial managers, we're not going to do a whole lot there. That's going to be particularly uncomfortable except for people like me who aren't really great at math.

Shauna Cox (07:31):

Yeah, it's the finance itself that is the uncomfortable part of it. I totally sit in the same bucket with you. We would both stress in that program. And so I want to look back to the higher ed model, the continuing ed unit itself, and the way that it can kind function when tackling this. So in what ways can the flexibility of CE serve as that model for an institution to live their values through the idea of adaptability and more of a community driven design?

Julia Denholm (08:05):

SFU has had this lovely tagline, I don't know what you would call it. The marketing people will not be happy that I said tagline because that's not what it is. But anyway, that where Canada's engaged university. And so when I think about engagement and I come from an access background, I really think about how continuing education provides opportunities for learners who might not otherwise be able to access post-secondary to take post-secondary courses and get a post-secondary education. And so what I really think about is not only how people take programming and continuing education to get into the workplace because it tends to be workplace oriented education. So I talk about getting in and moving up, and so really thinking about how do we ensure that to the best of our ability, our programs are accessible, that we don't have. We are just doing next week a review of admission recommendations and requirements.

(09:05):

So are those admission recommendations or requirements that we have, are they useful? Are they valid? Are they doing what they're meant to be doing? Or are we just creating unnecessary barriers for learners and work for ourselves? Biggest barrier, of course, is always cost. And so we've been thrilled in British Columbia to have had the future skills grant to support learners in non-credit skills-based programming, hoping that there's going to be a continuation of that project. Not sure that there will be, but really it's about extending the university's range of access. And I always believe it's not where learners come in, it's where they are when they leave that matters.

Shauna Cox (09:50):

Absolutely. And I love the idea of where they leave that matters. I think that's really important. And I think the flip side of it is you have the learner learning what they learn, but what about the people who are creating the programs and teaching the programs and all of these messages that we want to share. So how can higher ed leaders ensure that the living what we teach becomes the defining measure of an institutional integrity and the trust?

Julia Denholm (10:20):

For us, the way that we do that to the best of our ability is by ensuring that the subject matter experts that we have as instructors for our courses and programs themselves live what they teach. So we have practicing experts in the various subject areas that we teach. So if we are teaching something that has to do, for example, I mentioned the public relations and storytelling. So the person who teaches that course, Elizabeth Bunny is a public relations practitioner and she's indigenous and she was involved in the creation of the course and she's teaching the course. So she's just got that layer upon layer. So for our instructors, it's really about them bringing their lived experience, whatever that means, but it includes not only their expertise in their instruction area, but also their lived experience as humans with whatever complexities come along with that.

(11:21):

For our staff, what we do as a team, we've just come last week, a week ago today actually, we were on a walking tour in Stanley Park, which is enormous park that was for many, many years the home of the Amish people. And so it's unseated stolen land, as is the stolen land on which I'm sitting right now. And we had this beautiful walking tour for several hours in the morning last Thursday just to remind us of where we are and open opportunities for the members of our team to start exploring and thinking a little bit more about some of those positions of maybe discomfort that we all need to work through as we try and approach our work in a more thoughtful way.

Shauna Cox (12:17):

Amazing. Well, Julia, those are all the questions I have for you, but is there anything that you would like to add around this topic? Anything that I may have missed that you want to speak about?

Julia Denholm (12:29):

I would add that doing this work is challenging in the context of CE because we are expected to be able to pay for our costs of doing business and ideally to make money, and especially in the political climate where we are living right now, where some of this work, especially in the United States, is being challenged quite explicitly. It can be difficult to balance our commitments to what we truly believe about equity, diversity, inclusion, about decolonization and indigenization, balancing those commitments against that need to be able to attract the largest number of students possible. And so we do get, occasionally we get pushback from learners who say, Hey, this isn't what I expected. And so we have to be realistic that we are doing all that we can. I say, until we can't and we just keep trying to push the depth and the extent of our commitment to this work, while at the same time recognizing that we are offering education so that people can get into work and move up in their work.

Shauna Cox (13:46):

Absolutely. Well, again, not an easy task to tackle, not an easy topic to talk about. I appreciate you sharing your insights, being honest and everything like that. It was really great chatting with you.

Julia Denholm (13:58):

Great to talk to you, Shauna. Thanks so much. I.