Program
Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies – Sustainability Theme
Awards
Graduate Dean’s Student Leadership Award
Please describe your research.
I am interested in multi-scalarity in politics, i.e., how political movements work across the boundaries of individual action, grassroots groups, municipal and local, and provincial and national levels. Currently, I am examining the cultural history of sustainable transportation policies through this perspective.
Please describe how your award has impacted your academic and/or research endeavours.
As my research is concerned with how one’s individual actions can have effect on larger scales, I value organization-building as a tool of extending positive influence. This award validates my efforts in leading the establishment of the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) with the purpose of supporting grad student advocacy goals in larger scales.
Please describe your leadership efforts.
I led the establishment and incorporation of a new non-profit society: the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) as a founding Director and its first Chairperson. Having had prior experience as a Student-at-Large on the Graduate Student Committee of the Students’ Union Okanagan (SUO) – the existing student society composed of both graduate and undergraduate students – I saw that the graduate student population is ready to have its own society. In August 2024, I started efforts to establish the GSA, which was successfully incorporated in October. We negotiated terms of separation with the SUO and expect to put these terms to a Referendum early in the next academic year. The GSA will be a monumental help in supporting and representing graduate students. I am aware of many grad students who individually advanced advocacy goals without the support of any organization. The GSA will ensure that these initiatives can now continue over the years, and that grad student advocacy will be persistent.
In addition to the above, throughout my program, I strived to help student-workers, such as Teaching Assistants, by educating them about their rights as unionized employees and advocating for their issues to be prioritized in Collective Bargaining. As a BCGEU Steward, I conducted the orientation of almost 400 Teaching Assistants and represented several of them in disputes with their departments. I attended the BCGEU Constitutional Convention as a delegate and pushed for an amendment to the BCGEU Constitution that ensured Teaching Assistants will maintain their Union membership during the summers between their TA appointments. In these efforts, I co-founded the Student-Workers’ Caucus, a grassroots student group with the aim of advocating for and educating all student-workers.