250+
stories from across the U of A community shaped this report
The University of Alberta’s long standing tradition of leadership and community impact continues through these stories.
Lasting change rarely comes from a single sweeping initiative.
More often, it emerges from intention, steady effort and practical improvements in the places where we work, learn, and lead each day. As part of the Office of Access, Community and Belongings' commitment to strengthening the story, we present but some of the contributions to actions that were shared with us and the narratives that emerge from the sum of the work.
We asked the university community to share their contributions as intentions, commitments and points of origin. Together, narratives are emerging that reveal our changing stories. What follows is not a progress report; it is a declaration made with humility and intent to embark upon this work.
Changing the Story: An Integrated Action Plan for transforming our vibrant and interconnected university community
Mobilizing a plurality of practices, paradigms and approaches to action that enable all members of the University of Alberta to come together across many kinds of difference in order to co-create a different story — a story that acknowledges and builds on our past, reflects our present and transforms our futures.
Read the full plan Lire Le PlanFour Trajectories
The actions of Changing the Story are plotted along four trajectories sparked by our values, whose arc is uplifted by contributions and commitments and whose terminus is scoped by our bold vision for an interconnected and vibrant university community.
Supporting Uncomfortable Encounters
With unwavering curiosity, we connect across differences. Getting out of our comfort zone opens us up to transformational learning.
Enhancing Expansive Excellence
Instead of delimiting excellence, we boldly expand its edges. An expansive approach ensures our pursuit of impact serves communities and uplifts the whole people.
Ensuring Access to Academic and Community Life
Removing recurring systemic barriers ensures everyone has the opportunity to succeed. A spirit of community empowers us to modernize infrastructure and develop world-class teaching, learning, research and campus life.
Nurturing Transformative Collaborations
Innovation and transformation are a shared accountability. We purposefully seek relational partnerships and diverse ways of knowing to promote the flourishing of students, staff, and faculty within a vibrant university culture.
Changing the Story: The Narratives
Our goal is to build systems and practices that are thoughtful, practical, and attentive to the real experiences of students, faculty, and staff. This requires shared accountability across the university ecosystem. Change starts where we are; decision makers, offices, committees and individual contributors who advocate every day are advancing the 42 actions of Changing the Story.
From this unified disunity emerge narratives.
These narratives can be a shared understanding informed by lived, disciplinary or professional experience. They can be common but uncoordinated responses to a particular need or barrier. They can be individual strengths that become lab or team capacities that could go on to be recognized as expertise within the network of our relations. These narratives are critical to capture early in the work of Changing the Story and within the broader arc of pursuing equitable social and community transformations within the framework of Access, Community and Belonging - they help us make sense of an increasingly complex terrain and they provide roots from which high-impact relationships can grow. These are points of departure. Progress on these contributions will be collected as Changing the Story advances.
The next report for Changing the Story will be released in the Spring of 2027. At that point, we’ll revisit these narratives and see how they have woven together, where they’ve tied up, and where they propagated tender shoots for growth within the next iteration of an integrated action plan that ensures access, builds community and fosters belonging.
Spring 2027 will also serve as our ‘point of connection;’ we will prepare for the next phase of Access, Community and Belonging transformations by making sense of the progress and narratives thus far, in addition to reviewing metrics related to the indicators of success found within the action plan. These metrics can be found in Changing the Story.
Values-based Practices
Changing the story is an invitation to embrace a kind of unified disunity — to create a university community that challenges the politics of sameness by ensuring everyone has the freedom to be different while remaining connected.
These practices are an invitation for us to change the story by learning from ideas that draw on research-driven disciplines, innovative paradigms, applied excellence and cultural traditions. They are practical. They’re available to anyone. We need to retell our story because the values-based practices in the list below are no longer things we aspire to, but are foundational to how we collectively operate.
For each trajectory, you will be able to review select contributions to Changing the Story organized under relevant practices. How will your values drive you to contribute?
Learn more about these values-based practices.
Supporting Uncomfortable Encounters builds the skills and stamina for unwavering curiosity to connect across differences. By transforming conflict into sites of transformational learning, it deepens the university's collective sense of institutional belonging.
Improving Structures that Guide Us
The university is focusing on institutionalizing fairness through supporting equitable decision-making and governance. By developing trauma-informed toolkits, reporting systems, and clear conduct expectations, units aim to reduce uncertainty during conflict. These initiatives, including holistic admissions and advocacy frameworks, create a shared baseline for handling uncomfortable encounters. Ultimately, these structures foster accountability and provide predictable pathways for addressing power inequities and systemic harm.
Improving Cultures that Sustain Us
Attention is being dedicated to institutionalizing psychological safety through peer support and coordinated advising. Initiatives like "Communities of Care" build capacity to navigate discomfort and harm. By prioritizing transparency and student-driven consultation, these efforts normalize trauma-informed responses. This shift from reactive crisis management toward proactive well-being fosters environments where marginalized members find affirming spaces and validated resources to sustain their collective work.
Improving the Ways we Share Knowledge
Many systems are exploring relational dialogue and collective sense-making to navigate difficult topics. Through film series, panels, and arts-based engagement, the community explores lived experiences and historical injustices. These gatherings build capacity for "uncomfortable encounters" by normalizing storytelling and diverse perspectives. Ultimately, these actions foster critical consciousness and well-being, providing low-barrier spaces for reflection on complex issues like "Pretendian" anxiety and institutional accountability.
Points of Possibility
How might our stories about our capacity for discomfort be changing?
Our capacity for discomfort is changing from a stance of conflict avoidance to one that views tension as a site for deep transformational learning and non-disciplinary accountability. By building the collective stamina to engage with difference through a trauma-informed lens, we prioritize human dignity and curiosity over fear. This narrative directly supports the SHAPE vision of creating a university where "everyone feels included and valued.”
Values in Action
Click on the values-based practices below to view but a few of the actions that were submitted:
- The Alberta School of Business leads a leadership development program focused on bias awareness and conflict capacity for second-year students. Participants engage in workshops on unconscious bias and conflict management, strengthening their ability to navigate difficult conversations and community-building.
- The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences updated professionalism expectations to provide a shared baseline for instructors and students. This initiative ensures sensitive topics and disagreements are handled respectfully across learning environments, fostering a culture of clinical and ethical inquiry.
- Human Resources, Health, Safety and Environment developed and disseminated information regarding the rights of Management and Professional Staff employees who may want to participate in protests. This initiative provides essential guidance for supervisors on handling these matters within the workplace to ensure respectful engagement.
- Student Success and Experience launched the Displaced Palestinian Student Bursary Program, awarding support to 90 students for the 2025-26 year. This initiative directly addresses global crises by providing financial aid and ensuring academic continuity for displaced learners
- The Faculty of Education provides specialized mentorship through the CRTED to help students navigate intersectional barriers like racism and Islamophobia in field placements. This pilot program enhances safety and equity, ensuring teacher candidates are supported during practical training
- The Department of Music hosted "Raising Community through Matriarchal Song," featuring an Indigenous women-led collective. Through relational, arts-based engagement, the event shared stories of resilience and healing, foregrounding Indigenous voices and matriarchal leadership while fostering collective university learning.
- HRHSE implemented a peer support program to bolster the mental well-being of frontline workers, initially launching with University of Alberta Protective Services. This initiative aligns with the Culture of Care and Workplace Mental Health and Well-being Action Plans
- The Alberta School of Business hosted the inaugural "Entre to EDI" event, bringing together student associations and entrepreneurial leaders. This initiative fostered relationships and critical dialogue regarding the vital role of equity, diversity, and inclusion within the business sector
- The Department of Biological Sciences developed a Student-Supervisor Relations and Expectations Worksheet to support graduate student onboarding. This practical tool helps align research goals and program expectations while proactively addressing power inequities and fostering clear communication within research groups.
- The Department of Psychology, spanning the Faculties of Arts and Science, hosts the "Reel Change Film Series". This monthly series uses cinema to explore themes like equity and neurodiversity, fostering reflective dialogue and collective community sense-making
- The Faculty of Education’s “Hip Hop as Liberatory Pedagogy” initiative explores hip hop as a site for critical learning and anti-oppressive practice. By centering marginalized voices and global justice movements, this program fosters cultural expression and transformative education.
- The College of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Arts’ Gordon Hirabayashi Lecture and documentary film "Principles of Resistance" support public memory by exploring historical injustices and civil liberties. These collaborations foster dialogue on institutional accountability and the ongoing struggle for rights through collective remembering.
- The Faculties of Arts and Kinesiology, Sport & Recreation collaborated to host Chief Wilton Littlechild for dialogues with leadership on the "Truth about Residential Schools". This shared learning experience fosters institutional accountability and reconciliation by engaging the community in reflection on difficult histories. KSR builds Indigenous knowledges into its annual retreats.
- The Faculty of Nursing GNO History Project conducted extensive archival research to document the Faculty of Nursing’s internationalization efforts. By synthesizing historical context into reports, this initiative ensures accountability and transparency in institutional memory while informing future strategic planning.
- The Faculty of Education is piloting a research project to understand teacher candidates' experiences with intersectional racism during practicum placements. By investigating systemic barriers, this initiative uses collective learning to improve student safety and equity for future cohorts.
Enhancing Expansive Excellence acknowledges the relationship among intellectual pluralism, diverse experiences, and quality. Committing to excellence as community impact attracts the wide-ranging perspectives required for building a vibrant and innovative university community culture.
Improving Structures that Guide Us
Trajectory 2 utilizes "Structures that Guide Us" to redefine excellence through formal mentorship and equitable recruitment. Actions include implementing bias training in hiring and developing research security competencies to attract diverse innovators. Evaluations and awards are being restructured to recognize community engagement and pluralistic knowledge. These institutional mechanisms work to remove systemic barriers, fostering a culture of mutual flourishing and sustained growth.
Improving Cultures that Sustain Us
Trajectory 2’s "Cultures that Support Us" narrative centers on grounding institutional change in lived experience and decolonial learning. Units utilize censuses, surveys, and focus groups to identify systemic barriers and guide interventions. Simultaneously, coordinated workshops on Indigenous knowledge and anti-oppressive pedagogies move beyond compliance toward authentic cultural transformation. By integrating these worldviews into curriculum and staff development, the university fosters a reflective culture where diversity is not just measured but deeply understood.
Improving the Ways we Share Knowledge
Work centers on enhancing institutional clarity through strategic communication of employee supports. The university is developing targeted strategies to articulate how existing benefits and policies can be leveraged to affirm diverse personal needs. By highlighting specific resources for caregiving, fertility, and secondary trauma, these efforts transform administrative data into tools for individual flourishing. This approach ensures institutional support systems are transparent and accessible to all.
Points of Possibility
How might our stories about how we delimit excellence be changing?
We are redefining excellence by shifting away from narrow, traditional metrics toward an expansive model that directly links intellectual pluralism and diverse lived experiences to quality and innovation. Outstanding achievement is now recognized through evidence-based improvements to evaluation that celebrate wide-ranging perspectives and merit irrespective of social distinction. This evolution aligns with the SHAPE commitment to "meaningfully integrate our commitments reflected in Braiding Past, Present and Future" alongside equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Values in Action
Click on the values-based practices below to view but a few of the actions that were submitted:
- The Researcher Development and Services Team in VPR is developing artificial intelligence literacy programs and tools. These resources help researchers ethically engage with AI, including creating narrative CVs to support those from diverse linguistic backgrounds.
- The Office of Continuing Education developed an online learning module titled "Learning Online with Confidence". This initiative equips students with foundational skills and self-regulatory strategies to support their success and retention in online learning environments.
- HRHSE is realigning university recognition events into two distinct categories starting in 2026-27. This purpose-driven approach separates milestone recognition from performance-based awards to more effectively reward individual and collective excellence across diverse university roles.
- The Faculty of Arts revised its teaching awards to align with access, community, and belonging priorities. Starting in 2026, these awards will formally recognize pedagogical practices that advance equity-informed, community-engaged, and inclusive teaching excellence.
- The Department of Biological Sciences developed a resource to integrate equity and inclusion into field research safety practices. This online worksheet provides specific recommendations to ensure broad participation and safety for all researchers in unique environments.
- The Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation is engaged in a deeply consultative process to hire an Indigenous scholar. This initiative includes co-developing job advertisements and interview questions directly with Indigenous scholars and community members.
- The Office of Continuing Education established the Community of Practice for Online Learning (CoPOL) to connect faculty and staff. This initiative fosters shared learning and resource exchange regarding accessible, learner-centred, and evidence-based online teaching and course design practices.
- The Faculty of Law implemented programming to welcome and nurture enrolled Black students. These efforts address curricular gaps by expanding course offerings that reflect diverse Black experiences, particularly regarding race and systemic barriers, to support student inclusion and success.
- The Faculty of Law launched a multi-pronged recruitment strategy to increase Black student applications. This includes relationship building, dedicated information sessions, and the ELITE Pathway symposium, which introduces Black high school and undergraduate students to the legal profession.
- The Faculty of Education is exploring a representative admission policy to better align faculty demographics with Alberta’s K-12 classrooms. This initiative adopts a holistic approach to recruiting, supporting, and mentoring diverse students to ensure their long-term success.
- The College of Social Sciences & Humanities launched "Teaching Squares," a peer-based development initiative. Instructors across four faculties engage in structured observation and interdisciplinary dialogue to strengthen mentorship, renew teaching practices, and build a collaborative culture of pedagogical excellence.
- The Alberta School of Business hosted the 2025 Business PhD Research Conference to strengthen its scholarly community. By providing a platform for peer feedback and interdisciplinary dialogue, this initiative fosters inclusive research cultures and capacity-building for doctoral students.
- The Safeguarding Research Office developed training and resources to assist the community in acquiring research security competencies. By defining the role of a modern, responsible researcher, this initiative moves beyond blunt bans toward nuanced, ethical engagement in global collaborations.
- The Faculty of Arts launched a retreat workshop for Chairs focused on integrating Indigenous knowledge and EDI principles into faculty evaluation. This initiative strengthens institutional fairness and cultural responsiveness by developing consistent, evidence-based approaches to assessing academic performance.
- The Department of Biological Sciences successfully advocated for graduate application equity by revising English proficiency requirements and adding optional EDI statements. These structural changes reduce barriers for diverse applicants, ensuring a more inclusive recruitment process while maintaining standards.
- The Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine developed the "Authentically & Critically Engaged Spaces" (ACES) framework and survey. This initiative identifies specific barriers and opportunities within the faculty, aiming to ensure learning environments are inclusive, equitable, and critically engaged for all.
Ensuring Access to Academic and Community Life strengthens our spirit of community by removing recurring systemic barriers to services and spaces. Modernized infrastructure, paired with innovative pedagogy and policies ensure community members have the access required to flourish.
Improving Structures that Guide Us
The University is fulfilling commitments to safety through transparent administrative planning and modernized infrastructure. By prioritizing accessible spaces like prayer rooms and sensory-safe environments, these structures address under-met community needs. Policy revisions to accommodations and enrollment aim to minimize systemic barriers and individual exceptions. Collectively, these efforts integrate accessibility and belonging directly into the university’s operational fabric.
Improving Cultures that Sustain Us
The sum of contributions in this trajectory emphasizes removing systemic hurdles through shared responsibility for accessibility and intersectional care. By improving accommodation coordination and policy transparency, units reduce the individual burden on students. This trajectory also highlights robust support for international students through wellness programs and bursaries. Ultimately, the narrative reflects a transition toward inclusive environments that anticipate diverse needs rather than relying on individual exceptions or reactive administrative responses.
Improving the Ways we Share Knowledge
Units seek to improve transparency and accessibility through coordinated communication and centralized information hubs. Newsletters, heritage spotlights, and the Disability Cultures and Access (DCA) Hub serve as primary mechanisms for distributing resources and highlighting community diversity. By standardizing information about multi-faith spaces and student progress monitoring, these efforts reduce navigation barriers. This narrative reflects a commitment to transforming institutional data into tools for ensuring student success and belonging.
Points of Possibility
How might our stories about what fair and equitable access look like be changing?
Stories about fair access are evolving from a reactive system based on individual exceptions to a proactive, institutional commitment to systemic design and collective responsibility. By modernizing infrastructure and policies to anticipate diverse needs, the university removes persistent hurdles to flourishing. This shift fulfills the SHAPE principle that "exceptional experiences are only attained after systemic barriers to equity and access are addressed".
Values in Action
Click on the values-based practices below to view but a few of the actions that were submitted:
- The Faculty of Engineering established temporary multi-faith prayer, meditation, and Indigenous Ceremony rooms to address under-met community needs. This initiative provides local access for students, particularly the significant Muslim student population, reducing barriers to practicing their faith on campus.
- The Research Partner Network within VPR is integrating equity, diversity, and inclusion principles into their work processes and services. By normalizing a culture of feedback and diversifying communication methods, the team ensures research support and workshops are accessible to all.
- Student Success and Experience launched the Student Mental Health Action Plan, a collaborative framework for fostering well-being across campuses. This initiative creates a university culture where mental health and academic success are integrated, fulfilling institutional commitments to psychological safety.
- External Relations is collaborating with the Disability Cultures and Access Hub to modernize university web policies. By identifying specific opportunities for accessibility enhancements, the web team ensures digital infrastructure follows best practices to coordinate information and resources for all.
- The Augustana Faculty is implementing updated program and disciplinary policies to minimize the need for continuous individual exceptions and accommodations. These procedures integrate non-disciplinary accountability options, ensuring academic and community life are accessible and governed by fair, systemic design.
- The Alberta School of Business opened the Papaschase Ceremonial Space and a multi-faith prayer room to address under-met community needs. These quiet, monitored environments feature adjustable lighting and discrete signage, providing dedicated spaces for students to engage in spiritual and religious practice.
- The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is standardizing digital access through consistent course layouts and navigation in Canvas. This initiative reduces digital barriers by recording lectures and providing remote assessment options, while ensuring religious observances are prioritized during scheduling.
- The Faculty of Nursing secured a grant to launch the "UofA Recovery on Campus" initiative. This program provides campus-wide substance use recovery support, including peer meetings and harm reduction education, ensuring members of the university community can access necessary wellness resources.
- The Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation is developing "Culture Crafting Agreements". These lab-based frameworks provide springboards for practicing equity and inclusion daily, actively reducing harm for equity-denied groups while creating more affirming environments for learning and collaborative work.
- Facilities & Operations (UTOPS) formalized an agreement with the Dean of Students to provide free Friday prayer spaces on campus. This initiative supports the spiritual needs of Muslim students, fostering a more welcoming and inclusive campus environment for all.
- The Integrated Planning and Development Portfolio (IPDP) is opening a new calming room in UCommons. Developed from a student design competition, this sensory-safe space addresses under-met community needs by providing a dedicated environment for students to recharge and de-stress.
- Residence Services has trained all Residence Life and Education professional staff as members of the Options Navigation Network (ONN). This initiative provides staff with role clarity and support in addressing interpersonal and psychosocial harms, ensuring student residents have accessible reporting pathways.
- Student Success and Experience launched the International Student Experience and Impact Grant and a study permit approval pilot to support international student retention. These initiatives, along with the Identity Abroad resource, provide wrap-around supports to ensure global students thrive.
- The Integrated Planning and Development Portfolio (IPDP) collaborated with university partners to prioritize campus accessibility. This initiative includes installing automated door openers and washroom renovations, fulfilling institutional commitments to modernize infrastructure to address under-met community needs.
- The Alberta School of Business utilizes its newsletter and interactive "Human Bingo" activities to celebrate community diversity and build critical consciousness. These efforts highlight significant dates and resources, fostering connection and collective remembering while ensuring a shared belonging.
- The Faculty of Law is expanding experiential learning opportunities through clinical placements and community-engaged legal projects. By exploring the establishment of a dedicated Law Clinic, this initiative provides students with hands-on training while reducing systemic barriers to access.
- The Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences supports the Association for Women in Mathematics Student Chapter. Through weekly "Homework Hangs" and mentorship, this initiative builds community and inclusive representation in STEM, reducing academic isolation for women and gender minorities
- The Department of Psychology hosts "Queer Coffee," a monthly social hour for 2SLGBTQIA+ community members. This initiative provides a dedicated space for connection and belonging, directly fulfilling institutional commitments to fostering campus environments rooted in cultural and psychological safety
- Student Success and Experience implements radical transparency by sharing Student Experience Action Plan (SEAP) data with Deans and student associations. This data-informed approach ensures institutional investments and decisions are strategically targeted to improve cultural and psychological safety for all students
Nurturing Transformative Collaborations propels learning and innovation by questioning institutional boundaries. It prioritizes relational partnerships and diverse ways of knowing to achieve shared accountability, purposeful access, community, and belonging for all members
Improving Structures that Guide Us
Different units and offices are establishing frameworks for community engagement and global research grounded in trust and reciprocity. Actions include developing partnership guidelines and auditing systemic barriers to mobilize research for social impact. Recognition programs and academic credit for service reward those leading culture-crafting work. These structures ensure collaborative efforts are visible and integrated into the university’s strategic planning and international identity.
Improving Cultures that Sustain Us
Cultural narratives emerging focus on the sustainability of change by investing in those leading culture-crafting work. Through matching-funds programs and academic recognition, the university validates the labor of community members advancing equity. Developing accessible online modules, such as MOOCs, expands capacity-building to broader audiences, ensuring foundational knowledge is widely available. This trajectory fosters a collaborative ecosystem where cultural learning is continuous, diverse groups are supported, and contributions to social justice are institutionalized.
Improving the Ways we Share Knowledge
Mobilizing research for social impact and institutional change propel and shape this narrative. Through interdisciplinary hubs, podcasts, and bookshelf series, the university translates scholarship into accessible public-facing knowledge. By co-developing curriculum with Indigenous partners and highlighting equity-denied scholars, these collaborations ensure academic work is grounded in reciprocity and community insights. This narrative demonstrates how storytelling and impact-driven research foster transformative partnerships and drive broader systemic transformation.
Points of Possibility
How might our stories about why we collaborate be changing?
Our collaboration narrative is changing from transactional, siloed efforts to relational, transformative partnerships that question existing institutional boundaries and prioritize reciprocity. We are moving toward mobilizing research and teaching for direct social impact through diverse ways of knowing and interdisciplinary engagement. This storytelling approach enables SHAPE to achieve its mandate for "purposeful action toward greater access and belonging across the three pillars: education, research and community engagement".
Values in Action
Click on the values-based practices below to view but a few of the actions that were submitted:
- External Relations (Alumni Council) engages volunteers in community events, such as Indigenous art tours, Pride Brunch, and the Campus Food Bank Gala. These initiatives prioritize relational learning and Elder teachings, deepening the university’s connection with diverse local communities.
- The College of Social Sciences & Humanities produces the SSH Podcast to highlight faculty and student research through accessible, public-facing conversations. This platform fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and storytelling, connecting academic work with broader audiences to enhance institutional impact.
- The Alberta School of Business Societal Impact Plan embeds community-based projects into coursework, advancing inclusive business practices through student engagement. By scaling outreach via specialized centers and storytelling, the school empowers students to apply business acumen for benefit.
- The Faculty of Law strengthens rural justice partnerships by engaging with the Central Alberta Bar and regional legal communities. These efforts address provincial access-to-justice challenges and support law students thriving in summer placements within diverse Alberta communities.
- The College of Social Sciences & Humanities, through eHUB and the Firefly Institute, launched the Rainbow Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. This initiative conducts research on challenges faced by 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs, aiming to create new inclusive pathways via emancipatory entrepreneurship and advocacy.
- The Alberta School of Business advances thought leadership in inclusion and well-being through the 2SLGBTQI+ (Rainbow) Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. This initiative features research on female and 2SLGBTQI+ entrepreneurs, addressing societal challenges through scholarship and community engagement to build more equitable communities and support diverse professional transitions successfully.
- The Faculty of Law’s Students’ Association publishes an annual “1L Guide” to help incoming learners navigate their first weeks. This peer-led resource offers practical tips and insights, strengthening early belonging and channeling student expertise into ongoing cultural support and connection.
- The Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation integrates EDI and Indigenous learning into its bi-annual staff and faculty retreats. These immersive sessions cover treaties, land acknowledgments, and Indigenous-engaged research, fostering a collective commitment to institutional change and belonging.
- The Alberta School of Business is developing MOOC-based microcredentials, including courses on Black Studies and Indigenous content. This initiative explores flexible learning pathways and integrates online modules into onboarding to align professional development with university policies on harassment.
- The Faculty of Arts launched a matching-funds program to support department-led ACB initiatives. This fund empowers students and staff to lead workshops, accessibility audits, and artistic research-creation, providing the sustained capacity needed to advance equity and community-building.
- The Office of Continuing Education provides instructional design and quality audits for university-wide online ACB learning experiences. This support ensures that modules like “Black Canadians” are accessible and pedagogically sound, facilitating meaningful professional development across diverse contexts.
This is an integrated action plan
Here are some of the ways contributions to changing the story support the suite of strategies at the University of Alberta. Many of these strategies pre-date Changing the Story and reflect commitments to equity, diversity and inclusion. These commitments still stand and weave together with the actions of Changing the Story. We approach this work sustainably, collaboratively and in ways that pursue maximum impact for the communities we serve.
The Office of Access, Community and Belonging believes that specific frameworks can be used in particular contexts and for different challenges. Much in the same way we seek to expand excellence, we are always adding to our toolbelt. That means all of these disciplines can co-exist within our approach.
Human rights, equity, universal design & accessibility, and fairness result in greater access. Decolonization, interculturality, anti-racism and diverse ways of knowing and doing foster belonging. Reconciliation, restorative justice, trauma-informed practice and disability cultures build resilient communities.
See the Institutional AlignmentOur future is not predetermined.
What we practice in our labs, our classrooms, our offices, in the field or in the library sets patterns for our entire ecosystem and (re)writes the narratives we tell ourselves about the kind of bold transformations we’re capable of.