Introducing our REDI Committee!

• Dena Shahriari (she/her/hers), Faculty Rep and Co-Chair
• Kisa Naqvi (she/her/hers), Undergraduate Student Rep and Co-Chair
• Mahsa Khalili (she/her/hers), Postdoc/RA Rep
• Jocelyn McKay (she/her/hers), Staff Rep
• Max Arsenault (he/him/his), Undergraduate Student Rep
• Calvin Kuo (he/him/his), Faculty Rep
• Carl de Boer (he/him/his), Faculty Rep
• Ardin Sacayanan (he/him/his), Graduate Student Rep

Action Over Words

SBME has established a Respect, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee (REDI), comprised of SBME students, staff, faculty, and partners, that as part of its mandate:

Provides ongoing review of our curriculum, and our teaching, mentoring, hiring and research support practices for racial and gender biases;
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Connects with UBC EDI committees to learn, contribute and collaborate;
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Creates a School-wide, evidence-based action plan to address identified biases; and
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Establishes measurable and relevant KPI’s as guided by the current literature on implicit bias and social equality;

The committee pledges to:

1. Create space and mechanisms to actively listen to and understand the experiences of under-represented students, staff and faculty, and to facilitate and encourage dialogue around these issues;

2. Provide students, staff and faculty with resources to connect, align and collaborate with EDI initiatives across campus;

3. Recognizing that there are many inequities that limit participation in SBME activities, develop multiple avenues to participation that account for these limitations;

4. Recognizing that some groups of people are often asked to overcommit time to committees, develop mechanisms to broaden participation and provide recognition for these efforts; and

5. Commit to an annual review and augmentation of the above actions so that we are always holding ourselves accountable to our goal of continuous improvement toward an equitable and inclusive culture.