A Welcome Note from Dr. Eliza Chandler

I am thrilled to join the Office of Social Innovation (OSI), whose work I have long admired. I come to the OSI from the School of Disability Studies where my teaching and community-engaged research animates disability arts and critical approaches to access. I look forward to bringing these areas of interest to the OSI as I work with the team to pursue transformative change.  

Over the next few months, the OSI will be meeting with university and community groups as we develop our strategic direction in support of our guiding theme: social justice approaches to accessing education and campus space. We are interested in collecting various perspectives on what access - which is always experienced through a nexus of power and privilege - means to people in our community in order to inform our work. We are eager to engage in these conversations through upcoming Transformation Cafes, which will bring together people to share diverse perspectives on a common theme, and a Free School, a series of events that are free and open to the public, including panels, roundtable discussions, site visits, and performances, that offer a multi-demontional and interactive engagement of a current topic. Throughout the year, we will also build a network of folks engaging in socially innovative work across the university, facilitate access to education through our vital Sanctuary Scholars program, and connect and support student activists through programs such the Social Innovation Activist Fund and activist-community mixers for students

I would like to thank outgoing OSI Executive Director Dr. Melanie Panitch for putting the OSI on the map with her distinctive vision and for steering the Office's approach to social innovation through a social justice perspective.  I am excited to continue this approach through the many programs Melanie established, such as the Sanctuary Scholars program. 

If you are interested in working with the OSI, please get in touch. Getting to know what people are doing, what they are interested in, and facilitating connections is what excites me most about this position. So please, don’t hesitate to send me an email!

Warmly,

Eliza