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The President received the PART report on April 27, 2022. Senior leaders are in the process of reviewing the PART accountability framework to build capacity and develop structures to ensure that recommendations can be successfully implemented.

The PART report highlights several ongoing initiatives already in the pipeline that are aimed at improving the experiences of racialized students on our campuses:

The Black Excellence and Indigenous Excellence faculty cluster hiring initiatives includes one cluster of 10 tenure track/tenured positions restricted to Indigenous faculty and one cluster of 10 tenure track/tenured positions restricted to Black faculty, for a total of 20 positions. Research shows that having representation within faculty can improve the teaching and learning environment. It’s important for our racialized students to be able to engage with faculty members who share their cultural perspectives and worldview. We have already started hiring some faculty members, so we anticipate reaping the impact of this in the very near future.

We recently hired a senior manager of anti-racism response responsible for providing confidential and direct support to students, faculty and staff experiencing racism to explore informal/alternative mechanisms to resolve complaints and disclosures. Jennisha Wilson has been working for just under a year to support individuals through the racism disclosure process. Jennisha is also finalizing developing a user-friendly centralized approach to manage complaints related to racism. She also provides recommendations to senior leadership on addressing systemic racism within the University.

University-wide events and communications, including an Anti-racism book club seeks to promote education, awareness and a deeper understanding of race, culture and ethnicity across campus. Each month the University community engages in respectful of meaningful conversations about several relevant and important subjects such as white fragility, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in Canada, the Indian Act, and the equity myth. We hope that these conversations will help to fuel change on campus.

Anti-racism is the shared responsibility of the entire community – not that of a specific leader or a campus unit. Too often the job of dismantling racism rests on the shoulders of Black, Indigenous and other racialized individuals. Implementation of such a comprehensive set of recommendations requires everyone to make a commitment to enact changes, not just EDI-R and IR.

While the President’s office will ultimately responsible for ensuring that these recommendations are implemented, the accountability framework which outlines the responsibilities the various units on campus will be focused on can be found on page 72 of the PART report.

The EDI-R Office has been working on a project called Anti-racism Program Area Leads or Anti-racism PALs which will be a coalition of student, staff and faculty volunteers, who will work collectively to support embedding PART recommendations into the various units.

Anti-racism is the shared responsibility of the entire community. The Task Force knows all too well that often this kind of work falls on the shoulders of a few, mostly racialized individuals. PART have been mindful in the report to recommend appropriate leaders and departments across the university for each of the recommendations, so that there is clear accountability.

While the Equity and Indigenous offices do have ownership of several of the recommendations, the report spreads the responsibility of implementing the 88 recommendations across many departments, including: HR, Campus Wellness, Office of the AVP – Academic, Graduate and Post-Doctoral Affairs, Office of Research, among others.

The President's Office is committed to ensuring that all accountable leaders and groups have the resources needed for the programs, services, initiatives, and other activities that have emerged from PART.

Within Human Resources, an Indigenous Recruitment Specialist and a Black Recruitment Specialist have joined the Marketing & Undergrad Recruitment team.

��ݮ��Ƶ has launched a full review of our admissions processes, engaging with our many campus partners and with support from both the Indigenous Relations Office (IR) and the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Office (EDI-R). As an institution, we are leading a provincial consultation and developed plan across all universities to begin equity data collection on undergraduate applications for admission (beginning with applicants to Fall 2023). Furthermore, we are engaged with early-stage planning to explore potential scholarship plans (with Advancement, IR, EDI-R) as well as transition year programming (currently with EDI-R)

Intersectionality is a term coined in 1989 by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how various constructs (e.g., race, class, gender) do not exist in isolation but interact to impact discrimination and privilege. We are complex beings with multiple identities, and often, individuals with many marginalized identities, experience simultaneous disadvantages. Our Working Groups – in particular, the Health and Mental Health WG – used this framework/lens to guide their work and recommendations.  In addition, PART hosted an event last year called Mental Health at the Intersections to explore this topic.

The EDI-R Office also uses an intersectionality lens in their work.  For example, when the Office uses the term Black", it is referring to all the different identities of Blackness (Queer, masculine, disabled, etc.).

Managers and directors can start to review their operational policies through an anti-racism lens and ask themselves the question: “Do my staff members feel like they belong?” “Am I actively ensuring that my staff members are given opportunities to thrive?” “Do my staff members feel safe and supported?”

There are also many resources that are available to managers, directors and other members of our community to guide them in their anti-racism journeys and in applying these recommendations in the classroom or workplace. You are encourage you to visit the websites of the Offices of Indigenous Relations and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-racism for these resources – e.g., on anti-racism training and education, engaging with Indigenous communities.

The University does have existing data (e.g. FCP, OLF, stats can, and other national 'equity' surveys) that can be used as benchmarks. Moreover, Dr. Malinda Smith and those involved in the Scarborough Charter, have completed extensive work, including quantitative and qualitive data, on the (lack) of representation of Black academics in post-secondary institutions in Canada.

Institutional Analysis and Planning, Human Resources and Registrar’s Office have been collecting equity demographic dimensions through the administrative systems, various student surveys, Federal contractor’s Program for four designated groups for all employees and through other venues. Faculties and ASU’s routinely ask and receive reports from these data sources when requesting this information for their planning and evaluation purposes. These sources provided some, but not complete and extensive baseline/benchmarking data.

As of last June, EDI-R and IR offices partnered with Institutional Analysis and Planning to begin to systematically collect equity demographics on eight dimensions (gender identity, sexual identity, pronouns, Indigenous identity, disability, racial identity, religious or spiritual affiliation, family education background, and Canadian residency status). This pilot data gathering delivered reliable high level population demographic characteristics both for students and employees, but the response rate among some segments of the ��ݮ��Ƶ populations was insufficient for more detailed reports. This year, the data gathering will transition to Workday and Quest systems where we anticipate full participation rate (although responses to each individual question are voluntary).

A more complete, routinely collected and updated data will allow us to answer three general, vital questions such as how does the makeup of ��ݮ��Ƶ's community compare to ��ݮ��Ƶ Region, Ontario and Canada? Are equity-deserving groups participating in the programs and services that ��ݮ��Ƶ offers, and how does their participation compare to other groups and the overall university community? What are the gaps and how can they be addressed? Do some groups experience fewer benefits or more barriers while learning or working at ��ݮ��Ƶ, compared with the overall university community? What can be done to improve any gaps?

Read the PART report, see how your work might fit in.

Educate yourself through training and reading, and reflect on how you can apply anti-racism in your daily lives and work.

Call out racism when you see it.

Get involved with this work on campus: join a committee, attend events, join the Anti-racism book club.