Catching up with public speaking award winner, Liz Power

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By Jess Wind

Every year one student from each section of CMNS 235: Public Speaking is nominated by their class for the Rise and Shine Toastmasters award at the end of the semester. These nominees present an acceptance speech as their entry for the award and one exceptional speaker is chosen for the annual $600 prize.

Our most recent winner is Liz Powers, a Bachelor of Arts student with plans to major in psychology before moving on to a Masters in counselling. She’s prepared for it to take longer than the average four-year degree because on top of being a student and server, Liz is a mother of three.

Liz came into every class with a smile and enthusiasm that radiated to everyone around her. Liz’s speeches were relevant to her life, and that of her audience with a healthy dose of humour to draw her listeners in. Most memorably, Liz taught us how to bake cookies for her demonstration speech, and there were plenty of samples to go around.

I caught up with Liz to find out what it took to earn the nomination from her classmates, and the mark Public Speaking has left on her.

Talk to me a bit about your decision to take the class and your journey throughout the term.

So I took the class because I was told there was no final exam. I was just trying to balance out my course load and figure out how to do that with kids and going back to school because I was still really new to the process.

And then the process of learning how to write a speech and then how to execute it was actually far more interesting than I thought it’d be.

What did you think about being nominated, and then about winning?

I was actually very surprised. And then I was grateful and also ungrateful in that I was like “I don’t have time to write another one of these and memorize it,” but I thought, it’s good practice.

Winning the award was a nice confidence booster. It was almost necessary at that stage. When I got the email that I won, it was at a really difficult stage in my life personally with my kids and what not and that was just like a nice moment in what was a really chaotic couple of months.

How’d you plan for the final speech?

One of the memorization techniques that was mentioned in my psychology class was the memory palace. And so I used that to memorize my last speech which was so helpful.

I memorized the speech walking through my house from room to room and each space in my house had a different component of my speech. So when I was giving my speech it was a lot easier because it had a flow to it … I feel it made the process far less nerve wracking.

Do you find you’re more aware of speaking skills in others now?

I am more aware of my hand gestures when I’m talking, because when I started I looked like an aerobics instructor from 1980. Which is really appropriate being the size of my hair typically.

I went to the Tedx Chilliwack, and it was very interesting watching the different speakers because they work with coaches and some of them were so on point and I can tell [they’ve] really dialed this down. I was so impressed — things I probably wouldn’t have noticed before … but now when you understand the number of things that need to go into that. And then the moments where they would forget you could see them stop and close their eyes and look for it in their mind … I know what that moment feels like.

Do you have any tips for the next round of public speaking students?

In terms of memorizing, the memory palace was key for me. And the other thing that I think helped was … I practiced in front of my video recorder … and then I would watch it. And then I would do it again and I would watch it. I would see where I stumbled or where I missed and then I would try to make those pieces more memorable.

And I would also practice in my car, anytime I was driving anywhere, it was repeat, repeat, repeat.

Looking toward the future, Liz dreams of opening a bed and breakfast one day and possibly combining that with her counselling focus into a retreat centre.

I actually just love making people’s beds and cooking them breakfast and telling them about the community and all the cool fun things there are to do.  

 

Another (awesome) Writer in the House

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By Mai Anh Doan

Jennifer Browne gets things done FAST. There is no doubt about that when you are her co-worker and witness the way she organizes her tasks and wades through the myriad of administrative requests of an ever-growing department. She simply puts it down to being a mother three kids.

But of course, we know there’s more to it.

What some of us don’t know is that Jen is a published writer with six books under her belt. Outside of her current full-time job as the Communications Department Assistant, she’s a professional writer, copy-editor, and event coordinator. Jen writes extensively about plant-based food, digestive health, and mental health.

Writing and publishing books to her is personal. It started with her personal interest in finding practical books to tackle everyday physical and psychological health issues. When she became frustrated and couldn’t find what she was looking for, she decided to write what she felt was missing in the bookstore. She also creatively involves her children in her writing projects. She co-wrote her latest book, Understanding Teenage Anxiety, with her oldest son while having her younger son photograph another book.

“How do you do it?” I asked Jen about her finding time for writing.

“I believe that health is a very relatable issue. When I interviewed people for my books, I could feel it in the tone of their voice. How they were (just like me) concerned about their own wellbeing and wanting to find ways improve it. They empowered me; I wrote everywhere including during my kids’ soccer games, ballet lessons, you name it. Anywhere I had five minutes of free time.”

And that passion fuelled her writing ferociously.

After completing her first book, Happy Healthy Gut, in 2014, she was asked to write a follow-up cookbook (Vegetarian Comfort Foods). After that, she immediately started not one, but two books, at the same time. Baby Nosh and Medicinal Tea came out in 2016 as the results of this creative craze. She vowed to herself to never write two books simultaneously again—until 2019. Two of her latest books, The Anti-Anxiety Cookbook and Understanding Teenage Anxiety, were released in the same year she started a new job in the Department of Communications here at UFV.

Since joining the department in March 2019, Jen has been more focused on her full-time role here, but she still keeps writing in the back of her mind. “Working in this environment constantly reminds me of how important communicating with the audience is—just like writing. If you put your students or your readers in the center and try to understand what they need, you’ll achieve leaps and bounds, for sure.”

“Would your busy schedule mean that we might not see another book of yours for quite some time?”, I attempted to fish information about her writing plan.

“I’m still learning a lot about this job, and I’m loving it, but I keep my creative juices alive too. I’ve been administratively coordinating the SiWC (Surrey International Writers’ Conference) to help writers develop professionally for seven years now. Being surrounded by these motivated and inspiring people at these events, I can’t help but think about my next book. I’d love to write some fiction next time around.”

Well, fiction or non-fiction, we wish Jen the best a new year as a new semester has just started. We are thrilled to have another writer in the house (or department, to be correct) that shares the same philosophy with our other members—connecting with and focusing on people.

Useful tools for a virtual world: team communication

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Communication styles in virtual communication by Francis Norman (https://ulfire.com.au/communication-styles-virtual-teams/)

Students taking CMNS 420: Virtual Team Communication in Winter 2019 had to communicate virtually with their instructor and online classmates, because their instructor was teaching from Australia. Virtual teams create collective action without team members working in the same time and space. In this class we used technologies including video conferencing, instant messaging, blogging and short videos to interact with each other.

We researched useful platforms and tools for virtual team communication including SSharepoint (and IR System), Yammer, Trello, Slack and OneNote, BlueJeans, Skype, Dropbox, Google docs, WhatsApp chat and Blink.

Check out the videos below where students, Lisa Matty and Heather Simpson describe the features of some of these tools.

Watch Lisa Matty’s self shot review of OneNote, Collaboration at your fingertips (5.07 mins). Lisa demonstrates how to be a responsible hands-free driver while also collaborating with her teams.

Watch Heather Simpson’s quick introduction to using Zoom for video conferencing and instant messaging, Knowing your options: An introduction to zoom (4.35 mins).

Try these tools out and let us know what you think.

Elevating conversations about intercultural topics: Improving intercultural competency in our daily lives

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Culture is not just language

To meet demand in the Fall 2019 term, our department ran two hybrid sections of CMNS 180, Introduction to Intercultural Communication. In practical terms this meant stepping up the amount of out of class and online activities while still meeting learning outcomes around improving intercultural competence in the daily lives of our students. Intercultural competency is something that really needs to be accomplished through interpersonal interactions and that is hard to do online.

Working from an idea found in the course textbook “Introducing intercultural communication: Global cultures and contexts” by Shuang Liu, Zala Volčič and Cindy Gallois, students were asked to “Get together with several friends, family, coworkers, or students (from classes other than this one) and get people talking about (insert topic here)… Make a journal entry about content and communication dynamics of the conversation.” There were five topics spread across the semester of which the class members needed to initiate four out of five. Topics were: intercultural issues in politics The Canadian federal election happened in October), identity, cultural appropriation (always a good discussion prompted by Halloween), cultural adaptation, and conflict.

NO ONE was excited about the prospect of completing this assignment but some took it on right away while others lagged to the very last minute, and everywhere in-between.

Culture is not just languageHowever journaling was not the whole assignment. The culmination of all those Blackboard journal entries was our One Day (research) Project in the final class session. Drawing from what they had written, each student was asked to answer six questions based on the Who, What, Where, When, How and Why framework (concentrating not on the content of the discussions but on the dynamics). The answers were then crowdsourced onto six posters and the class divided up to look for patterns in the answers, relate those patterns to things they had been learning about intercultural communication, and to ultimately come up with a list of “best practices” for engaging in tough conversations around intercultural issues.

Some of the things that surprised many of the students were that:
* family, friends, coworkers and even strangers were interested in elevating casual conversation beyond surface topics (i.e. the weather 🙂 )
* they learned a lot about the people they thought they already knew really well
* they started to look forward to having the conversations
* the people in their lives were interested in the details of what they were learning in class

In the end our list became “best practices for getting more comfortable with having tough conversations.”

First, choose:
* people you already know or are in a context where they might already expect such a conversation (i.e. university)
* places where you are comfortable and where a conversation is most likely to happen naturally
* places where you already know people
* places where you go frequently

Then:
* Work towards going out of your comfort zone (engaging with new people in public places)
* Find new comfortable places
* Pay attention to surroundings for what might impact participants willingness to engage
* Watch for right time/place; Make sure conversations are in a safe environment
* Consider age/maturity of those in conversation
* Approach topics casually
* Make conversations one-on-one personal
* Do during normal routines of the day; During free time, preplanned w no surprises

Think about:
* Using an indirect approach (don’t be blunt and demanding about having a conversation)
* Looking for common ground
* Demonstrating attention/active listening
* Taking responsibility to lead/guide the conversation
* Using current issues
* Always having an eye to building relationships
* Having conversations regularly
* Possibilities for having a facilitator (third-party)

Prepare yourself to:
* Be willing to ask questions
* Show curiosity
* Validate others
* Be present in the conversation
* Give prompts
* Value others opinions
* Use examples
* Be open-minded and show others that you want to listen
* Be willing to challenge your own beliefs and ways of thinking
* Be intentional

Improve your own comfort level by:
* Personally engaging in and learning about topic so you feel comfortable and can engage others
* Start with video/article/info to create interest, knowledge and participation
* Developing relationships and meaningful connections to learn about others interests and to create an environment where one feels safe addressing culturally sensitive topics
* Setting aside intentional time or incorporating into everyday conversations

Hannah Celinski dances her way to becoming a communications professor

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Hannah Celinski is one of three newest faculty members to join our Department this Fall. She shared with us some interesting facts, and one boring one, about her life and her teaching in a conversation with Mai Anh Doan earlier this month.

Mai Anh Doan: Congratulations again on your new position. It’s great to see you again with your usual contagious energy and smile. I know that you’ve been teaching as a sessional for a couple of semesters here, but we didn’t get to chat much. Shall we start with your telling us a little bit about your professional background?

Hannah Celinski: I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo, and after graduating from Sheridan College’s Music Theatre Performance Program, I worked as a professional dancer and choreographer across Canada and abroad on industrials, musicals, music videos, cruise ships, commercials, and notably on the workshop of the Broadway show Fosse with dance legend Gwen Verdon. I eventually moved to Abbotsford and became the owner of Aerial Dance & Acro Academy. I had the pleasure of teaching students from all over the Lower Mainland, and mentoring interested students through the process of becoming professional actors, singers, and dancers.

Hannah being caught at the West Coast Flying Trapeze Circus School, 2018

Mai Anh: That’s very impressive! I used to want to be able to dance professionally but soon realized that not everyone can pursue it as a career (there goes my dream ☹). How much of it do you bring it to your new position? Can you give us some examples?

Hannah: At UFV, I teach business writing, public speaking, and first-year courses for students learning to thrive in the post-secondary environment. My experience as a business owner allows me to draw from real-world examples to bring the material to life, and my work coaching students to successfully navigate a variety of intense interview settings is the bedrock of my public speaking course. I also relate the theory, textbook readings, and assignments to stories that capture incredible things that happened to myself, my friends, and my previous students. Storytelling has always been a feature of my teaching style.

Mai Anh: We also know that you are pursuing your PhD at the same time. What is your PhD about? How do you think your PhD study helps with you with your teaching?

Hannah: My PhD research is currently focused on what I call Legacy Learning and Legacy Instruction, which capture the role of exponential growth in the physical and cognitive processes of learning. I became interested in the topic while examining Virtual Reality (VR) as a vehicle for archiving movement. The current project has evolved to include the evolution of Learning Outcomes, and the importance of mindfulness in the classroom.

My research is deeply connected to my position, as it informs my teaching practice, assignments, and assessment strategies. For example, my previous experience with technology has resulted in an assignment that incorporates Virtual Reality, reflection, and team development strategies to serve specific Learning Outcomes for CSM 104.

Mai Anh: Given your creative background and your PhD project, what would you say is your most outstanding character(s) as a professor?

Hannah: I believe in student success. Each student approaches the material in their own way, for their own reasons. I am there to offer each student the tools they need to be successful in their own right. I cannot do the work for them, but I can certainly offer them my knowledge, support, experiences, and positivity so they can develop their own academic toolkit. My hope is that their kit serves them long after they have graduated.

Mai Anh: As we are entering a new semester, what would you advise students for them to do well in university?

Hannah: Go to class. Just be in the room. Attendance allows you to connect to UFV’s community, your instructors, and classmates. I encourage my students to attend everything they can because you never know where the conversation will go, what tidbit of wisdom will resonate with you, or who you will meet. My best assignments grew out of unexpected connections I made simply by being in the room, even when the topic did not seem to relate to my interests. Go to class.

Mai Anh: Excellent advice! Let move from students to the Department. What do you like the most about working at UFV’s CMNS department?

Hannah: Our department is full of like-minded instructors who support one another and see the potential for Communications at UFV. I am delighted to contribute to a department that encourages its instructors to expand their teaching practice and subscribe to Universal Design for Learning, while supporting contemporary assignments that stimulate student engagement and development.

Mai Anh: Finally, what’s the most boring thing about you? 😊

Hannah Celinski: I floss.

😊 😊 😊 Hannah, thank you so much for your sharing and for your time. All the best with the new semester and the new role!

Puzzling over a Career in Communications?

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Are you interesting in taking communications courses but not sure what you could do with them? At UFV, we offer both a Minor in Communications and a Professional Communication Essentials certificate. Completing a program in communications will teach you how to make and move messages within or between individuals, organizations, companies, NGOs, charities, societies, cultures, and media.

Professionals in communications learn to deliver ideas to public or private audiences.

What industries are looking for communications professionals?

Any organization that communicates with the public, clients, or businesses (such as corporate management, governmental management, policy producers, political and charitable interests) all connect with, influence, or inform individuals, clients, and strategic partners (often through the media).

Most large industries or corporate entities communicate internally, between departments, offices, or branches. Corporate communications and organizational communications professionals shape and move this kind of messaging.

What does a communications career involve?

Communications careers typically involve shaping the public or private/internal voice and identity of an organization through writing, webpage design, Audio/Visual, social media, and public/media engagement. If you’ve ever interacted with a company, a charity, a government, or an NGO, a professional communicator created the pathways, messages, materials, and the themes for that communication.

Communication professionals develop a “voice” for brands, products and companies. This voice is specifically developed to be appealing to the particular demographic that these brands, products and companies want to engage.

In what career field or industries do communications professionals work?

Here are some examples of various roles communication professionals find themselves in:

Business

Public Relations        

Advertising    

International Relations and Negotiations

Broadcasting 

Journalism (Print or Electronic)          

Theatre/Performing Arts       

Government/Politics

High Technology Industries  

  • Television / Film Producer / Director
  • Systems Analyst
  • Technical Copywriter

Communication and Health Care / Social Services

Think you like what you just read? Check out our communications course offerings by viewing the UFV timetable. For more information about the Department of Communications, visit the Communications website.

Natasha Knight selected for the 2019 Communications, Undergraduate Research Excellence Award

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On Wednesday May 23rd, Communications student Natasha Knight was honoured along with a host of amazing student researchers at the 2019 Undergraduate Research Excellence Awards at the University of the Fraser Valley. Here is what Natasha had to say about the research she completed for her W19 CMNS 351 course [Professional Research Report Writing for the Workplace] with instructor Dr. Marcella LaFever.

My project topic stemmed from an underlying passion for health and fitness. Since health and fitness has become a popular trend in today’s society, I decided to compare five health and fitness apps to see which apps best motivated its users and kept them actively engaged. I searched for the highest rated health and fitness apps through Google and the Apple Store. The final list included MyFitnessPal, Fooducate, Fitness point, Nike Training Club and 8fit Workouts & Meal Planner.

The report reinforced that not all fitness apps are operated the same and some do not motivate consumers as well as others. I was able to differentiate each app and determine which apps provided easy navigation techniques, provided useful information to the consumer, and used motivational features to keep the consumer engaged.

While none of the five apps were difficult to navigate and provided a variety of useful information, two were superior in providing motivational strategies. Both of these apps had social networking techniques. MyFitnessPal allowed you to add friends to motivate you along your journey and share your logs with them. Fooducate had a platform similar to Facebook in which users could post anything motivational such as progress photos, healthy recipes, and inspirational quotes, to name a few. Having these kinds of features in an app is something that will keep the consumer engaged and wanting to use it more and more. Not only do they get to learn about health and fitness, they get to connect with others who are going through similar journeys.

Dean of Arts Jacqueline Nolte introducing UFV student Natasha Knight: Photo by Dr. Mai Anh Doán

Engaging in this research project has allowed me to enhance my education in terms of gathering information in a variety of forms and taking a hands-on approach to research. This allowed me to gain more insight on the kinds of reports written in a business setting and has advanced my skills.

I am a third-year student in the Bachelor of General Studies Program minoring in Business and Communications. I have previously completed a Social Services Diploma and a Professional Communication Essentials associate certificate. I plan to apply this degree towards a project management or a human resources related position in my future career.

Social Researchers win awards at Student Research Day 2019

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GUEST BLOG by Maxina Spies for UFV’s Centre for Social Research

On March 26, 2019, University of the Fraser Valley students from a variety of faculties presented their research findings with posters and mini-lectures at the annual Student Research Day in Evered Hall on the Abbotsford campus. Several individuals and teams presented projects related to social research and won awards for their outstanding work. We are proud to highlight them here.

Among the winners was Erin Haan, a second year student minoring in Communications, who was awarded the $200 Associate Vice-President, Research, Engagement & Graduate Studies prize for her research on “Media Framing of the Dairy Industry in the Canada/US Trade Renegotiation,” supervised by Communications faculty member and Centre for Social Research affiliate Dr. Marcella LaFever. As part of her Professional Research Report Writing class, she looked at the framing of the new USMCA trade negotiation, with a focus on the dairy industry because of her own experience working on dairy farms for over six years. Erin also has taken a dairy certificate program, which helped her interpret her research on how Canadian and American newspapers framed the dairy conversation during the 2018 free trade negotiation. She stressed that “media outlets have had a large impact on the renegotiation issue by presenting particular points of views,” and that “biased headlines can cloud the public opinion on the renegotiation.”

Nursing student Christine Drew, supervised by Professor Shelley Canning, won the $200 Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences Award for her research titled, “Exploring the understanding and comfort levels of nursing students with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).” Christine’s research flowed out of a directed studies research course in the nursing program and her recognition of the layers of ethical and practical challenges for nurses in relation to the recent MAiD legislation. Her research contributes to a small existing body of research on the topic and helps address these challenges. Christine said her research highlights that “comfort levels surrounding MAiD are very multifaceted and can be influenced by age, gender, work experience, educational levels and background personal beliefs such as religiosity.”

Christine found that when she began the project, people would often ask for her opinion on MAiD, although she feels that the “opinion of the nurse innately shouldn’t be considered for a patient requesting MAiD.” This dichotomy intrigued her and spurred her interest in her research question. In reflecting on her research, Christine stressed that “it is vital that nurses reflect and be aware of their values and beliefs surrounding MAiD so as to provide impartial patient-centred care,” which points to the importance of education for nurses on end of life care. Christine will be presenting this study in May at the UBC Graduate Nursing Student Association annual symposium, and will be graduating in June.

Psychology student Caroline Duncan won the $200 Dean, College of Arts – Social Sciences Award for her poster presentation on “Loneliness, Resilience, and Cognition of Older Adults.” Duncan’s research was supervised by Dr. Lesley Jessiman, a psychology professor and member of UFV’s Centre for Education and Research on Aging (CERA). Dr. Jessiman’s work with CERA has looked at issues related to improving quality of life for aging populations, researching ageism and higher education, and the effects of typical aging on emotional and cognitive functions. She points out that Caroline’s research has is “particularly important given the growing older adult populations in the Lower Mainland, which is where the data was collected.” As a mature student, Caroline shared about the relevance of her research to her own life as she cares for her aging father, who has “struggled with loneliness and loss of his resilience when faced with adversity later in his life.” Caroline’s interest in completing this project as part of her honour’s thesis for her psychology degree grew after taking UFV’s Adulthood and Aging course.

The research also connects to the intergenerational aspect of aging, because, as Caroline puts it, “We are all hopefully going to be given the opportunity to grow old in our lifetime, and loneliness does not align with our human nature.” The chance to interact with participants and learn from their life experiences was a highlight for Caroline as she conducted her research. She hopes that this work pushes UFV to integrate a gerontology program for students. Dr. Jessiman hopes that the research “will help inform policy by identifying specific means with which to reduce levels of loneliness among our aging populations,” which has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a significant factor in rising morbidity and mortality rates in older populations. Both researchers hope to continue a second phase of the study with semi-structured interviews of a wider sample set.

Business students Allan Les, Ford McMahon, and Simeon Gellert were awarded the $200 Vice Provost and Associate Vice-President, Academic Award for their poster presentation on “Crime Rates in Canada,” supervised by Professor David Dobson from the UFV School of Business. As part of David Dobson’s Economic and Business Statistics course, the team developed a research question focused on whether there is a correlation between a local police force and lower crime rates. The group focused on Surrey’s expensive decision to switch from RCMP to a local police force. Based on a statistical analysis, the team concluded that there is a positive correlation between having a local police force and lower crime rates. Although this was a strong factor in reducing crime rate, they also found that socioeconomic factors played an even more significant role, stressing that, “In order to ensure continued decreases in the local CSI (Crime Severity Indexes), Surrey’s City Council should continue their work to encourage post-secondary education, stable families, and economic development to provide well-paying jobs.” Although this project was not directly related to the business program, Simeon Gellert stated that it was an enjoyable project and he hopes to work with Allan and Ford again in the near future.

We congratulate these students for their excellent contributions to social research which not only enriches the UFV academic community, but also has important applications in our wider communities.

For more information on the Centre for Social Research:

Website https://www.ufv.ca/social-research/

Twitter @4socialresearch https://twitter.com/4SocialResearch

Book Displays for Raising Intercultural Competence a Big Success during Valley Fest

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Your Heart Is the Size of Your Fist: A Doctor Reflects on Ten Years at a Refugee Clinic by Martina Scholtens

In case you need a reading recommendation… here are six great reads that could help raise your intercultural competence along the way.

On March 13, during Valley Fest week, the students from Communications 180 showed off their semester project. They spent the weeks leading up to the event reading, reflecting, and planning. It wasn’t easy. Their job was to pick out concepts from the book that they were also studying through other materials in class and be able to tell their audience why their particular book was a good way to learn about that concept.

Price Paid: The Fight for First Nations Survival by Bev Sellars
The Boy on the Beach: My Family’s Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home by Tima Kurdi
Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto

It was my pleasure as the instructor to spend the previous summer reading through a dozen wonderful books to pick ones that would engage, intrigue, and also connect to real life Canadian stories of challenging intercultural encounters. Connecting the assignment to Valley Fest seemed the perfect vehicle to press the students to do their best and the rose to the occasion.

In Search of A Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey by Payam Akhavan

Of course the project had a broader goal as well; to work towards meeting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s several Calls to Action that ask again and again for institutions to increase the levels of intercultural competence for professionals and all Canadians.

This is also a great place to announce the exciting news that while the Introduction to Intercultural Communication course has only been running once a year for the last several years, it will run twice in the 2019-2020 academic year. Check out the timetable for one section in Fall 2019 and another for Winter 2020.

The Juggler’s Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind Us by Carolyn Abraham

All of the books featured by these students are available through the University of the Fraser Library and through most public library systems throughout Canada (as soon as the students return their copies of course) 🙂

Listening from an unfamiliar worldview: It takes practice

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NOW RESCHEDULED: Monday Feb. 25, 2019

Hot on the heels of Dr. Mai Anh Doan’s talk at the Scholarly Sharing Initiative event this month about financial communication as it relates to crowd-sourced fundraising you will have a chance to catch up on a research project undertaken by another member of the Communications department, Dr. Marcella LaFever at the upcoming February 13 event.

Marcella, in examining the implications for herself to decolonize her communication practices, has focused her ongoing research program on listening to Indigenous voices that have been saying for a long time what colonizers need to do to change their attitudes and practices. Dr. LaFever’s current work alongside Shirley Hardman (UFV’s Senior Advisor on Indigenous Affairs) investigates use of First Nation storytelling as a form of dialogic participation, specifically in relation to how stories were used by Indigenous participants in submissions to the 2010 Cohen Commission on Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River.

The presentation for the Scholarly Sharing Initiative follows up on stories that were initially coded through use of Stó:lo story types: Sqwelqwel (oral narratives relating to personal history) and Sxwôxwiyám (oral histories that describe the distant past). This discussion focuses on the third stage of the analysis, the use of Linda Tuhiwai-Smith’s “Twenty-Five Indigenous Projects” as explained in her 1999 innovative book “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples.”

The presentation will ask participants to engage in a discussion investigating the validity of using this as a qualitative coding framework.

From the UFV Events Calendar:

Scholarly Sharing Initiative — Indigenous Stories, Reflections