Anti-Black Racism Curriculum Development Fund
The FCS Anti-Black Racism Curriculum Development Fund was established in January 2021. It provides financial support to schools for initiatives that make their curriculum more inclusive of critical Black scholarship and Black studies, drawing particularly on current Black Canadian scholarship.
Projects and activities may relate to the review, redesign or development of curriculum. The objective is to incorporate and/or expand Black scholarship, Black Studies, anti-racist pedagogies and anti-Black racism into teaching and learning.
Current Projects
2024/2025
| Anti-Black Racism in Dietetic Practice |
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My objective is to create an interactive and open-access virtual introductory module about anti-Black racism (ABR) in Canadian Dietetics using the Pressbooks platform. By providing learners with definitions and language to participate in conversations, links to learning resources, reflective activities, and supporting them with practice-specific examples, students will have opportunities to critically reflect on their intersectionality, their experiences of power and oppression, their implicit bias, how they might be perpetuating these structures, and to explore potential strategies to unlearn and combat ABR. Grant Recipient: School of Nutrition professor Enza Gucciardi. |
Walking the Talk, Year 3: Building and Integrating the Teaching of Black Urbanism into the Planning Studio Curriculum |
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The Anti-Black Racism Curriculum Development Fund from 2021 to 2023 provided an opportunity to evaluate how our studio curriculum translates the teachings of Black urbanism and equity-based planning to our students. This grant will support us in our continued efforts to collectively draw a thread through all of the studio courses that critically engage Black urbanism as a way to meaningfully transform the planning pedagogy. For this third year, we plan to use the previous information gathered to review all the studio foundation courses at the school. We will actively engage all planning students, faculty, the working group, undergraduate and graduate student associations and the alumni association to inform future actions. In addition, we will hire a master’s research assistant to synthesize the information gathered, which will then be used as the foundation for the curriculum review. Grant Recipients: School of Urban and Regional Planning (SURP) professors Victor Perez-Amado, Samantha Biglieri, Zhixi Zhuang and Shelagh McCartney. |
Past Projects
| Black Disability, Deaf, and Mad Perspectives Pressbook |
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Through this funded project, we created The Perspectives Pressbook, a free, accessible resource for faculty and instructors across FCS. The pressbook hosts three Open Educational Resources (OERs), comprising two public speaker events and one private interview with Black disability and Deaf leaders. It elaborates on these OERs with additional curricular components that highlight themes and key learnings. Once distributed, the pressbook will facilitate faculty and instructors to further strengthen the presence of Black disability, mad, and Deaf studies in their curriculum. Grant Recipients: School of Disability Studies professor Eliza Chandler and the School of Disability Studies’ anti-Black racism committee. |
| Black Pain and Crip Pedagogy |
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This project strengthened capacity within the School of Disability Studies to think and teach with Black disability, Deaf, and mad studies in a number of ways. A module, podcast and learning activity will introduce students to the barriers associated with Black pain that arise in the interaction of medical racism and medical ableism. A reading list will introduce students to the afterlife of Black pain through theories of Black pain cripistemologies. Grant Recipients: School of Disability Studies professor Esther Ignagni and the School of Disability Studies’ anti-Black racism committee. |
| Black Excellence in Disabled Children’s Childhood Studies |
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In this project we have identified 117 recommendations for readings or resources inclusive of Black Scholars and Black experiences with recommendations for inclusion in courses across the School of Early Childhood Studies curriculum. We have identified where Black disabled and Deaf activists have made contributions and will include this content in our lectures, feedback to students and recommendations to students for further reading. Grant Recipients: School of Early Childhood Studies professors Kathryn Underwood, Kristin Snoddon and Fiona Moola. |
| Building Increased Capacity for Community-Engaged Experiential Learning Through a Black Planning Lens |
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This project grew the capacity for community-engaged teaching and learning through a Black planning lens at the School of Urban and Regional Planning by redesigning one of the sections of the advanced field research project mandatory course (PLG 531). Outcomes included 1) the development of a syllabus (including tailored course assignments, a resource list, and a program of site visits and activities) that can be used in future iterations of this core course; and 2) the establishment of relationships with Black-led organizations leading planning work in the location where the course takes place. Grant Recipients: School of Urban and Regional Planning professor Magdalena Ugarte and Abigail Moriah (MCIP, RPP Community Partner, Co-Founder, The Black Planning Project). |
| The Creation of a Course: Black Childhoods |
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The main goal of this project was to support the design of a new course focused on Black scholarship, Black studies and anti-Black racism in early childhood, with a particular focus on the Canadian context. The School of Early Childhood Studies will now offer a new course in Black childhoods (CLD 540). The course will be part of the university’s Black studies minor, the first course in FCS to be part of the minor. Grant Recipients: School of Early Childhood Studies professors Rachel Berman and Janelle Brady. |
| Let’s Walk the Talk: Centering Black Urbanism in the Reimagining and Redevelopment of the Planning Studio Curriculum |
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In the first year (2021-22) of the ABR curriculum development project, the core studio team conducted a critical review of Black urbanism scholarship in planning theory and practice in addition to engaging with four Black urbanists from Canada and the USA. Through an in-depth analysis, we identified six emerging themes, which served as the basis for the creation of our first annual anti-Black racism SURP student survey in the second year (2022-23). Based on the student responses, we achieved a baseline understanding on the topic of Black studies in planning and anti-Black racism. This provided a starting point for developing new material for the studio courses and allowed us to explore better ways to teach and engage critical Black scholarship within these courses. The responses also provided a core building block for faculty and contract lecturers to better integrate anti-Black racism, Black scholarship and Black studies in the studio curriculum. Grant Recipients: School of Urban and Regional Planning professors Zhixi Zhuang, Samantha Biglieri, Victor Perez-Amado, Nemoy Lewis, Shelagh McCartney and Ronald Keebl.
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| Social Work Anti-Black Racism Course |
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| Grant Recipients: School of Social Work professors Olufunke Oba and Valerie Borum. |
| Foregrounding Black Urbanism and Planning in Canada: Creating Education Material Through Digital Storytelling |
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| Grant Recipients: School of Urban and Regional Planning professor Magdalena Ugarte, Abigail Moriah (MCIP, RPP, Community partner, Co-Founder, The Black Planning Project) and Simone Weir (Community partner, Project Manager, Black Planning Project). |
| Black Disability and Mad Perspectives Speaker Series: An Open Educational Resource Project |
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This project strengthened the Black disability, mad, and Deaf studies curriculum through a public speaker series, the creation of OERs, and by creating space for Black alumni/student leadership and professional development at the School of Disability Studies (DST). The project provided important building blocks for future objectives related to addressing anti-Black racism, including additional development of the OERs into a pressbook format and opportunities for further collaboration with Black alumni and students. Grant Recipients: School of Disability Studies professor Eliza Chandler and the School of Disability Studies’ anti-Black racism committee. |
| ABR Abolitionist MEP Curriculum Project |
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| Grant Recipients: Midwifery Education Program professor Karline Wilson-Mitchell and Dr. Stacey Alderwic (Community partner). |
| Anti-Black Racism and Early Years Creative Arts Curriculum |
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Through this project, we had the opportunity to work with a Black research assistant in researching and acquiring significant, impactful resources to enhance student learning and broaden the discourse in our required fourth-year creative arts course. Grant Recipients: School of Early Childhood Studies professors Charlene Ryan and Jason Nolan. |
| Representing Critical Anti-Black Racism in Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum |
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We received the ABR Curriculum Development Funds to support the integration of ABR knowledge into the nursing curriculum. We planned and implemented an ABR conversation forum with a number of nursing educators and nursing leaders from various practice settings to explore strategies, challenges, and opportunities for integrating ABR into nursing curricula. Using insights from that forum, we conducted a training session with nursing faculty from all three sites of the Collaborative Nursing program. This was followed by an article submission to the Nurse Education Today Journal. The article speaks to the professional and moral imperative of anti-racist pedagogy within nursing education and provides directions to teaching strategies that support the uptake of ABR in nursing curriculum. Grant Recipients: Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing professors Annette Bailey, Josephine Wong, Mandana Vahabi and Oona St. Amant, along with Andrew Barrett (Nursing student) and Roye Uwoghiren, RN (BScN alumna). |
| Redevelopment of the Farm Health and Safety Module in OHS 823 Sectoral Applications II Course |
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A Black consultant was hired to seek out and gather relevant data on Black immigrant farm workers. The work focused on occupational health and safety issues related to hazardous exposure due to the working environments and sometimes deplorable living conditions on farms. The information gathered was used to enhance the module to demonstrate the unique challenges and solutions to better prepare students for future work in the sector. Grant Recipient: School of Occupational and Public Health adjunct professor/contract lecturer Craig Fairclough. |
| Racial Equity: Understanding Racism in Dietetics and Building an Inclusive Profession and Practice |
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Within our graduate seminar class, students had the opportunity to critically reflect on their implicit bias, how they might be upholding anti-oppressive structures, and strategies to unlearn and combat racism, specifically anti-Black racism. We have some tangible direction that will have a continuing impact on addressing anti-Black racism within the school curriculum. Grant Recipient: School of Nutrition professor Enza Gucciardi. |
| Speaking the Unspoken: Revising Curriculum with an Anti-Black Racism Lens |
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With the support of a research assistant from the public health program, we reviewed and revised the content of four undergraduate courses, namely pollution and waste management, infection control, housing and built environments, and environment and emergencies. Grant Recipient: School of Occupational and Public Health professor Fatih Sekercioglu. |
| Building an Inclusive Studio Curriculum Together: Centering Black Urbanism in a Systematic Review and Reimagining of the Planning Studio Curriculum |
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The project involved a critical review of Black urbanism scholarship in planning theory and practice, and engaged in conversations with four Black urbanists from Canada and the US to help lay a foundation for the curriculum redesign. It draws a thread through five studio-stream courses to strengthen capacity within the core planning curriculum, providing valuable insights for other non-studio courses to critically engage Black urbanism. It not only serves as a building block to achieve the school’s overall equity objectives and anti-racist commitments, but also provides strategic directions and action items that will address studio content, skills development, student engagement, and community connection. Grant Recipients: School of Urban and Regional Planning professors Zhixi Zhuang, Samantha Biglieri, Victor Perez-Amado, Steven Webber, Summer Sutton, Shelagh McCartney, Pamela Robinson; Nina-Marie Lister and Ronald Keeble. |