The ENN video included in today’s Communiqué newsletter is to introduce all employees to and request their participation in the Employee Well-Being and Engagement online voting survey.

This opportunity to capture your feedback, through your vote, is of significant importance in advancing the strategic initiative – Employee Well-being and Engagement. The result of your vote will help to define Humber’s Employee Well-being and Engagement framework, which is part of a larger strategic pillar to build a healthy and inclusive campus here at Humber. Additionally, through the framework we will be able to focus the programs, initiatives, strategies and approaches we deliver to you.

• Visit our Employee Well-being and Engagement website
• Watch the ‘Get Ready’ video to prepare you for voting
• Take the survey and vote

Voting deadline: June 30, 2020

Email oe@humber.ca with any questions/comments.

The Orientation Team within Student Success and Engagement (SSE) has been working hard to develop an innovative and responsive on-line product that will support and inform our students for the Fall term.  

We wanted to reach out to members of the Humber Community to provide important updates and information regarding Fall Orientation 2020. Below is a summary of what Fall Orientation will look like:

• Fall Orientation will be fully online. We have applied lessons from our Spring Orientation, which was our first foray into a fully on-line program (we are sure you can all relate):
• Monday, August 24 we will launch online orientation in two parts:

a) Our Orientation website: a hub/resource for students, including pre-recorded video workshops, wayfinding information on how to navigate Humber’s website, links to CTL tool kits and other key information.

b) An Orientation Blackboard module will launch which will further strengthen students’ knowledge of supports/resources that are available to help them succeed in their new journey at Humber.  

• Tuesday, September 1 – Thursday, September 3 we will host Academic Orientation which will consist of Meet Your Faculty sessions. Students will sign up online on the Orientation website and each Meet Your Faculty Session will be conducted through a Teams Meeting. The Orientation Team will provide all students and faculty with a Teams link to use for their session, an Orientation Volunteer to introduce the session and take attendance as well as some best practice/Teams guidelines for Faculty to run their session.  
  • Our opening ceremony format will be revamped to be a welcome video that highlights student voices and the strength in our equity and diversity at Humber. This will be featured on our website along with the Blackboard modules. 
• September 8 – September 30 Orientation will offer students a welcome month calendar of events through collaboration with campus partners and great interactive social media contests.  

Through our Spring Orientation and Re-Orientation experiences, we have found students value space where they can express their anxiety about the struggles they are facing personally, along with being fully or almost fully on-line, to student leaders/student staff. 

• In response, we have increased opportunities to connect to trained peers and created original blackboard modules to address these issues.  

We have also heard the desire for student facing communication and programming, along with a focus on equity in light of conditions and events occurring in our local and global communities. 

• We are responding to this need by planning all our Orientation staff training and student programming through an anti-oppressive lens.

Planning also includes digital swag for students, a welcome month of events - instead of just four days, and an opportunity to access recorded programming at any time through our website. We are continually reviewing what other institutions are planning and creating, sharing best practice and canvasing our students to ensure we are supporting them to the best of our ability. The landscape changes weekly, if not daily and we have tried to position ourselves to be both pro-active in our planning as well as responsive to new needs as they arise.   

We appreciate everyone’s continued patience and support as we continue to roll out our revamped Orientation and look forward to connecting with you all further with more details shortly. 

Best,

The following is the first of a series from Humber leadership on the great work being done by each of the EDI working groups. This issue is focused on the work of the Curriculum & Programs working group. The next issue will focus on the work aimed at staffing, hiring and training on EDI.

Equity is a core value at Humber. We want each member of our community to feel that Humber campuses are welcoming and safe places where they can succeed, and where they belong. We know we have work to do to reach this goal. That includes looking at the composition of our curriculum, how our employees reflect our student body, and behaviours inside and outside the classroom.

With the introduction of our Strategic Plan in 2018, we created a dedicated Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Taskforce. The Taskforce comprises approximately 50 members, including students, faculty, support staff, administrators, community organizations, industry partners and alumni. The Taskforce is working with the Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Diversity and the Indigenous Education and Engagement department to develop a college-wide EDI framework to shape the institution’s policies and practices, and support the advancement of inclusion throughout Humber.

Over the past weeks, members of the Humber community have reached out to our Faculties seeking information about the steps we are taking to ensure our curriculum reflects our values.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, including anti-racism education, is a priority for inclusion in all programs, and a key mindset of the Humber Learning Outcomes. Mindsets are worldviews that are crucial to the well-being and prosperity of individuals and communities. As values, they inform how we approach challenging situations and interact with each other. Additionally, one the Taskforce deliverables is to embed EDI and Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing (IWBKD) in the curriculum and programs at Humber.

We want to share with you the steps identified by the Taskforce’s Curriculum & Programs Working Group that we are taking to embed EDI and IWBKD in Humber’s curriculum and programs:

1. Embed EDI and IWBKD into course outlines in academic programs
2. Develop and implement a three-phase EDI curriculum implementation plan
3. Develop and implement an EDI and IWBKD quality assurance protocol for program review processes
4. Develop and facilitate an EDI and IWBKD Community of Practice and shared collection of resources
5. Build EDI and IWBKD capacity in Faculty, Academic Division, Teaching and Learning Support, Libraries and Program Planning, Renewal & Development

People also want to know more about our faculty training and hiring practices. One of the goals of our Strategic Plan is to increase the diversity of our faculty and staff to provide our students with role models and mentors that reflect their diverse backgrounds and experiences. There are many activities underway in support of this, including: the reestablishment of the college’s Employment Equity Program; a review of our hiring practices; and the development of EDI training for managers and hiring committees.

A number of departments, including the Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Diversity, Indigenous Education and Engagement, Teaching and Learning and Student Success and Engagement continue to offer robust EDI-related training and education for employees and students. We are working on creating a single calendar for upcoming workshops and training sessions to make it easier for our community to find information and engage with these opportunities.

Across our six Faculties, we are committed to cultivating rich learning environments grounded in the fundamental values of equity, respect and inclusion. We want Humber to be rich in diversity of thought and identity and for our students to feel that they are supported and can achieve their potential.

Sincerely,

Effective June 29, 2020 PARAGON Security Services will be taking over at all Humber and Seneca locations where uniformed security is present. PARAGON is one of the largest security service company and provides similar services to many post-secondary institutions.

This is the first sourcing project as part of the Humber-Seneca Polytechnic Partnership. Both organizations leveraged each other’s expertise and experience to come to a consensus on the best new provider.

As part of this change, there will be new uniforms along with introducing new patrol cars. All existing guard personnel have agreed to transition to PARAGON Security Services.  

The Humber-Seneca Polytechnic Partnership (HSPP) promotes co-operation and collaboration between Humber and Seneca while enhancing and expanding learning opportunities for students at both institutions.

Leveraging combined strengths as providers of comprehensive polytechnic education, the work between Humber and Seneca provides broader options and greater access to world-class education.

Sanjay Puri
Vice-President, Administration & CFO