Two years after the formation of UFV’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) task force, the university has hired Sundeep Hans as UFV’s first director of EDI. Hans and any future team members will constitute the EDI portfolio, which will work across different UFV departments to identify policies, procedures, and practices which interfere with equality at UFV.
The EDI Task Force consisted of UFV employees and students, and consulted with other community members with a stake in equity at UFV, including members of the UFV Race and Antiracism Network (RAN), to develop an action plan.
In a written statement, UFV president Joanne MacLean said, “Our EDI Action Plan identifies four goals and more than 40 actionable items that we hope to work on through the coming years.” She clarified that the action plan will remain a living document. “The Task Force will stand down later this month, and Sundeep will begin to develop working groups and committees to drive action.”
Hans has had similar roles in healthcare institutions and in K-12 schools in Ontario, and said she has “taken that experience into the non-profit space, working in civic inclusion, civic engagement groups, and with food banks.” She is able to move between different fields by not seeing her role as telling people how to do their jobs, but helping people to see their work in a different way.
Hans explained that since institutions like universities were originally designed to be exclusionary, processes and policies that are taken for granted can be invisible barriers to people working within them, even when they want to be inclusive.
“I use this example, and I’m very mindful that I may be aging myself,” said Hans. “There’s a Mothers Against Drunk Driving commercial where the viewer is in the driver’s seat and in front of the viewer, you see like, it’s a dirty beer mug. And then a second one, and a third one, and eventually the driver crashes. So really, the way I described my role is this: it’s removing the beer mugs.”
Hans identified three foundational projects that will help to establish EDI strategies across UFV. “Relationship building is key,” said Hans. “That’s one of my priorities, and I’ve already started that. And then the second piece is the creation, or the development, of a human rights policy. […] The third one that I’d highlighted was an EDI policy, program, and practice review tool, so creating a tool that folks can look at if they’re about to create a new program.”
Hans acknowledges that she will be building on work that has been being done by others at UFV for a long time, and says that the formation of a specific group of UFV staff devoted to EDI won’t turn equity into an item on a checklist.
“To have the formalization of this portfolio, it allocates resources. It gives it that weight that it needs,” Hans said. “To use RAN as an example, folks were doing this work off the side of their desk. […] By virtue of it being EDI, this portfolio, it’s disruptive of the status quo, right? […] And to have that be housed within a portfolio is profoundly important because you need it to be able to do this work. It takes the load off of the folks who are doing this off the side of their desks.”
Due to travel restrictions, Hans is still in Ontario, but she hopes to come to B.C. over the summer before Fall 2021, and has been using Zoom and other online platforms to begin building relationships with UFV staff.
“This month has allowed me to meet many more people that, in another time, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet so quickly,” said Hans. “[…] And it’s been, I say, an invaluable experience to be able to connect with all of these different folks at all the different levels of the organization to see really, what is UFV?”
Image: Courtesy of Sundeep Hans
