Collectively Building Leadership and Mentorship Capacity Denise Johnson, Director of Instruction, Vancouver School Board Dr. Hartej Gill, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, UBC

An overview of the presentation: A review of the process involved in co-creating, implementing and researching a social justice mentorship and leadership initiative between the Educational Leadership and Administration program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Vancouver School Board (VSB).

Bringing the Initiative to Life: Envisioned collaboratively between UBC/VSB Goal to bring current site based administrators and leaders into a formal ‘Leadership and Mentorship’ role with a cohort of UBC graduate students Focus on ‘Social Justice”

Institutionalizing an approach to Mentorship and Leadership Focus area: Social Justice Finding a way for mentor-mentee relationships to be sustained To build capacity in social justice leadership

The Agenda: Institutionalizing the Mentorship Initiative The Partnership and Selection of Mentors Feedback from the Graduate students Brief video clip of Initiative Video debrief Future directions of this Initiative Questions/Discussion

Institutionalizing the Mentorship Initiative UBC/VSB Pilot Initiative- Collaboration How we came together (Our Story) The Design and Organization of the Course - Inquiry driven - Social Justice focused curriculum - Relevant research/leadership topics for both graduate students and administrator mentors

Mentor and Mentee Selection and Partnerships Selection of Mentors - Pilot initiative, build from strength - Six mentors, 3 principals, 3 vice principals, secondary and elementary - Administrators who had previously demonstrated knowledge and interest in social justice issues and professional growth

Mentor and Mentee Selection and Partnerships Mentorship matching - graduate student input - social justice curriculum focus areas - mentors background and passions - Areas of learning needs in the district – Aboriginal education, 21 st century learning spaces, special education, etc.

The Leadership and Mentorship Cohort Course Design Expectations of the students and mentors Course meetings and inquiry leadership projects School visitations Guest presenters Formal and informal mentor/mentee working times Formal sharing of leadership projects

Video UBC Graduate student production by Vincheth Sen Focus on reflections from the mentors

Debrief Some key reflections from cohort participants on the UBC/VSB mentorship aspect of EDST-532 How (if at all) was the mentorship component of this course valuable for you personally, professionally or academically?

Reflections from Cohort Participants Value of complicating praxis (theory/practice) “I valued the depth of conversations when social justice theory and practice are complicated through the literature and lived leadership experiences”. (5)

Reflections from Cohort Participants Reciprocal Teaching/Learning “The social justice focus of the course was crucial for me/us personally, professionally, academically. I learned so much about my own location of privilege/marginalization and my responsibilities for advocacy and activism. I think the administrators also valued this aspect and learned a lot – it was great to see them talk about their learning in this area. Made us feel like we weren’t the only ones who had so much to learn about social justice leadership. Such a complex area everyone needs more support in this area”. (6)

Reflections from Cohort Participants Capacity Building “I was able to meet some pretty inspirational people who were able to show a more ‘human’ side to leadership….I gained a lot of experience and insight and a very different perspective of the role. I never thought of really going into administration, but because of the experiences, comments and thoughts, they have made me reconsider”. (4)

Key Finding From Both Mentors and Cohort Participants Systemic issues with regard to institutional absences: “It would be important to include more administrators with social justice and aboriginal education/leadership locations, experience, and backgrounds…To see more administrators from marginalized groups”. (7)

The Continuation and Evolvement of this Initiative… “The Gift that keeps on giving…” What has transpired since this pilot initiative: - conference presentations and opportunities - presentations to UBC / VSB with an interest in expansion of this model - expansion and growth of the mentors and graduate students in terms of diversity and social justice work

The Second Cohort Partnership What will continue? What has changed? The research involved Goal: To continue to be mutually beneficial

Our Hopes…. We hope that the research from this initiative will provide an important model for social justice mentorship and leadership as well as share the value of such a model for social justice action within schools.

Questions/Discussion