Behaviour Expectations for the Faculty Development Summer Institute

We are committed to providing a safe, productive, and welcoming environment for all meeting participants, team members and venue staff.  We invite you to review this document which outlines our values and invite you to commit to putting them into practice during the institute. 

ENACTING OUR SHARED VALUES 

We all play a role in fostering a positive environment of trust, respect, and ethical behaviours by recognizing: 

•  that participants (no matter their role at an event or meeting) reflect a wide range of gendered, racialized, sexuality, disability, and national origins, and that this is, as much as possible, reflected in the conference and meeting organization; 

• that the above point might mean some organizational details look different to some participants than usual, and welcome those changes as inclusive and welcoming, see Appendix A;

•  that different groups of people bring different knowledges and experiences to events and meetings, and ensure that everyone is not just heard but actively listened to; 

• that different groups of people may have different needs in the event space, and work to ensure that those are met by conference and meeting organizers to the fullest extent possible, and are respected by all participants; 

• that not all research is “comfortable” and that it sometimes challenges status quo ways of knowing and being in the world, and considering comments and questions as productively intentioned; 

• as a follow-up to the above, that some research is more difficult for some groups of people than for others, and considering carefully how one goes about framing and presenting that material in a way that doesn’t further harm those people; 

• that social media formats are a part of conference and meeting processes and being mindful of how one is engaging with presentations and participants via these formats; 

• that we all share individual and collective responsibility to intervene—through both comments and actions—when we witness actions and behaviours that perpetuate discrimination of any kind; 

Participants in the Faculty Development Summer Institute agree not to engage in or condone others’ engagement in actions and behaviours that do not reflect the shared values of the organization. These include:

•  addressing participants, either by tone or content, in ways that perpetuate discriminatory, stereotypical, or harmful beliefs and statements; 

• engaging in—either through one’s own behaviours or by overlooking the behaviours of other participants—comments, actions, or practices that perpetuate racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia or transphobia, ethnocentrism, etc., and instead, intervening when such comments and actions are witnessed; 

• disagreeing with or disrupting other participants’ presentations, comments, and questions, either by tone or content, in ways that are disrespectful or demeaning, or that suggest stereotypes about particular groups of people’s knowledges or skills; 

• insisting—through verbal comment, gesture, or other body language communication—that people adhere to singular modes of thinking, acting, and presenting, recognizing instead that participants have multiple experiences and perspectives; 

• bullying and harassing (along any identity lines—sexual, gender-based, race-based microaggressions, etc.) behaviours, whether physical or verbal, and including persistent unwanted attention of any kind, in all contexts;

The above lists are not all inclusive or exhaustive, and we encourage participants to always be evaluating how EDI perspectives can make them more aware of, and more attentive to, altering their own behaviours in support of the statement of core values. We invite all to enact our shared values by working together to create a more just and inclusive space, in all ways, for a greater number of people. If you have questions, please contact us at TLC@upei.ca.

Sections of the above are adapted with permission from the ENACTING OUR SHARED VALUES developed by  The Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) available at https://www.stlhe.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Enacting-our-Shared-Values-2.pdf

Full refund minus the Eventbrite fee may be requested up until April 30, 2025.