Overview
The RESPECT program is designed to teach cultural safety and anti-racism for all employees at 51社区黑料with a focus on the implications of such skills for engaging with Indigenous faculty, staff and students and engaging in reconciliation as an institution more generally.
The RESPECT program is a response to the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council's (ARC) Recommendation in Walk This Path With Us, Call 7: Develop intervention programs teaching culturally safety and anti-racism for all employees at SFU.
The RESPECT Working Circle developed this program with the following aims in our minds and hearts:
- Create an understanding of how to build respectful and sustainable relationships with the host nations of 51社区黑料to ensure their knowledges, languages, cultures, and protocols are honoured by 51社区黑料employees.
- Build capacity of 51社区黑料employees understanding of Indigenous Peoples' past, present, and future.
- Ensure all 51社区黑料employees take up their individual responsibility to reconciliation through the collective work of decolonization and Indigenization.
- Foster and sustain a culture of life long (un)learning and respect for 51社区黑料employees.
- 鈥楨nhance鈥� ongoing professional development in the areas of cultural safety, decolonization, and Indigenization for 51社区黑料employees at all three campuses.
The RESPECT program is a hybrid learning model that combines some self-study and personal reflection online, with online discussion and periodic in person meetings. The program is designed in four integrated learning bundles. Each learning bundle entails some self-study and online work that will inform a culminating in person meeting.
51社区黑料 the Learning Experience
This content-rich program is robust and co-designed with involvement from local land-based nations and 51社区黑料community members. The learning opportunity in this program is developed using a holistic, growth mindset, and an academic approach and involves a deep connection between the individual, the community, and the environment. This learning is not just about consuming or acquiring knowledge but really taking the time to integrate what is learned. This growth mindset takes a substantial amount of time and therefore, learners should only commit to the program if their intention is to allow the opportunity to develop and commit. Ongoing participation in the program content is expected, not mandatory. Supervisor support is required so as to ensure the commitment is supported from all levels.
Summer 2025 Offering
The Summer cohort runs from Tuesday, May 20th to Thursday, July 24th 2025. The Summer cohort in-person offerings will be hosted at the Vancouver campus - see below for the specific dates and plan accordingly. The Summer cohort is now full.
Fall 2025 Offering
The Fall cohort runs from Monday, September 22nd to Thursday, November 27, 2025 (10 weeks) and will be based at the Burnaby campus. Participants should expect to spend a minimum of a half day a week on this course for the duration of the program. This includes synchronous and asynchronous learning; discussions and assignments, and five mandatory meetings (two in-person and three virtual). This timeline acknowledges the opportunity to give intentional time into the workday for learning with other RESPECT participants along with completing independent study and reflection journals and assignments.
In addition to self-paced online learning through Canvas, the following are the dates for the mandatory meetings:
- Learning Circle 1: Thursday, September 25th, 1-2pm (virtual)
- Learning Circle 2: Thursday, October 9th, 1-3pm (in-person, Burnaby campus)
- Learning Circle 3: Thursday, October 23rd, 1-2pm (virtual)
- Learning Circle 4: Thursday, November 6th, 1-2pm (virtual)
- Learning Circle 5: Thursday, November 27th, 1-3pm (in-person, Burnaby campus)
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Eligibility
The training is available to all 51社区黑料employees with supervisor approval (APSA, CUPE, APEX, Poly Party, TAs, RAs, Post Docs).
Future Offerings
The Spring 2026 cohort will be offered at the Surrey campus and will follow the same format with a mid/late-January start date. Please check back for registration opportunities.
For questions please contact Caitlin.stiles@sfu.ca.