Welcome to the November 2020 issue of Innovatus, a special issue of YFile that is devoted to teaching and learning innovation at 91亚色.

This issue of Innovatus focuses on teaching, learning and the student experience in the Faculty of Education. I am so pleased by the rich variety of stories offered in this issue because they showcase the expansive depth of the Faculty's approach to the "act of education" to quote Interim Dean Sharon Murphy.

Education is universal and the Faculty's work with refugees in the Dadaab Refugee Complex in Kenya, homeless youth and in re-envisioning early childhood education are displayed among the fine stories offered in this issue. As well, Dean Murphy's letter is a testament to the Faculty's commitment to excellence, and the story highlighting the innovation shown in moving the Faculty of Education's Summer Institute online and transforming it to a year-long effort is amazing. Encore!

Thank you again for the many wonderful comments about our September and October issues. I value each of your responses. Please continue to contact me with your ideas, classroom innovations and thoughts about teaching, learning and the student experience.

As I close, the snow is starting to fly and with it, the holidays are approaching. I would like to take a moment to wish each of you good health and happiness at home, which is especially important this year.

Featured in the November 2020 issue of Innovatus

In her letter to the community, Interim Dean Sharon Murphy writes about how the Faculty of Education is constantly working to enliven new visions of education and society, visions of possibility, equity and social justice. "Our work focuses not only inward on curriculum and pedagogy, but very much looks outward towards the idea of education being situated within a complex and seemingly evermore fragile world."

One of 91亚色's hallowed traditions, the Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI), may have bowed to COVID-19 in terms of format, but it is unbowed in terms of mission and content. For 2020-2021, the institute has morphed into a series of five free webinars titled Up Close and Personal: Conversations on Anti-Oppression.

Stephen Gaetz, the 91亚色 Research Chair in Homelessness and Research Impact and a professor in the Faculty of Education, is using his excellent research and communications skills and grant-writing ability to attack the challenges within youth homelessness, which need broad solutions and a meeting of many perspectives.

Rachel Silver, an assistant professor of education at 91亚色, with the help of a team of her colleagues in both Toronto and Dadaab, has created a virtual colloquium series, Reciprocal Learning in Times of Crisis, for the Faculty's Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) program. The series considers the issues arising from the confluence of education, the COVID-19 pandemic and new waves of resistance to anti-Black racism.

Lucy Angus and Cristina Delgado Vintimilla, assistant professors new to 91亚色 and the Faculty of Education, have created a lecture series titled Disrupting Early Childhood: Inheritance, Pedagogy, Curriculum to explore new ideas about early childhood education (ECE) and create a space to bring together the innovative research conversations that are changing the field of ECE.

Innovatus is produced by the Office of the Associate Vice-President Teaching & Learning in partnership with Communications & Public Affairs.

I extend a personal invitation to you to share your experiences in teaching, learning, internationalization and the student experience through the Innovatus story form, which is available at .

Will Gage
Associate Vice-President, Teaching & Learning

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The Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI) 2020-21, will present the second webinar of its 鈥楥onversations on Anti-Oppression鈥� series on October 21 from 7:00 鈥� 8:30 p.m.

The event 鈥淲hat does the journey towards Anti-Racist, Anti-Oppressive practice look like in a child welfare agency鈥� will look at The Catholic Children鈥檚 Aid Society of Toronto (CCAS) which receives almost 5,000 referrals a year about children and youth who may be in need of protection, the majority of which come from schools and the police. These referrals are disproportionately about Black children, and this disproportionality maintains itself throughout the child welfare service continuum, culminating in a significant overrepresentation of Black children/youth in care.

Featured speakers Carol Wade (Child Protection Supervisor, Catholic Children鈥檚 Aid Society of Toronto), Kate Schumaker (Manager, Quality Assurance & Outcome Measurement, Catholic Children鈥檚 Aid Society of Toronto), Priscilla Manful (Manager, Intake Services, Catholic Children鈥檚 Aid Society of Toronto ) and Vanessa Cocco (Chief Social Worker, Toronto Catholic District School Board ) will share reflections about what the journey towards Anti-Racism Anti-Oppression practice has looked like both at the Catholic Children鈥檚 Aid Society of Toronto and in Education, the data and feedback from the Black community that have compelled action, and the beginning dialogue about the ways in which child welfare and education can join forces to help families receive the support they need without unnecessary intrusiveness and/or surveillance.

The session will be moderated by Carl James (91亚色 Professor and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora) and Jack Nigro (Superintendent of Elementary Curriculum at the Durham District School Board).

Registration is free! Register online at by October 20, 2020.

For more information on upcoming webinars for FESI 2020-21 visit .

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