Okay, so welcome everyone to our CTLT Institute session entitled students as partners in course redesign reflections from student faculty and staff partners on learning through partnership. We speak on behalf of our wonderful panel are really delighted to have so many folks here this morning. And hopefully expressing an interest or curiosity around partnership. And we're really delighted to share our experiences working in partnership through the UBC students as partners initiative funded projects with you today. I want to begin by inviting my colleague Polina to provide a land acknowledgement this morning. Thank you Roslyn. Hi everybody. Let's just kick things off by acknowledging the land that we're on. Everyone might be coming in locations today. We're here stationed on the traditional ancestral and territories of the Hong Kong mean I'm speaking Musqueam Squamish and slave what took nations, who are the traditional caretakers of these lands. We want to think about and align ourselves and our actions and how we navigate our time here today and beyond. Thank you Polina. I want to just take a moment to have our panel moderators introduce themselves briefly. So Marissa, would you like to turn on your camera wave and just briefly introduce yourself. Hi everyone. I'm excited to be here. So my name is Marissa and I am the students as partners evaluation specialist so I do all kinds of evaluation work for this fund. And I'm also a PhD student here at UBC so great to be here today. I'm lovely to meet you all. Thank you. Polina. Hi again. My name is Polina. I use she her pronouns. I am the student coordinator for the students as partners fund. I work with Marissa and Roslyn as a, and others, and the day to day tasks and duties of, of what it means to sustain partnership nurture partnership. And if you see me around it's oftentimes for support with that kind of work. Thanks Polina. And hi everyone, my name is Rosalyn Verwood, and I'm this strategist for the students as partners initiative and have had the privilege of being able to mount this initiative at UBC and to engage with the folks that are doing this really important and meaningful and potentially transformative work. I want to just briefly also talk about our agenda for today before I then introduce the panelists and turn things over to them. So our session today, we're here till about 1230, and we will take some time to kind of contextualize partnership and students as partners initiative so what is this concept of partnership, and how do we conceptualize students as partners will then turn things over to have a the panelists speak to their experience being involved in partnership projects here at UBC through the students as partners and course design grants. And at the end, we'll hopefully have time for a bit of summary. What were the key things that came out of the panel.  And we'll end with a chance to highlight some upcoming events that may be of interest. If you want to further your learning and community building in this students as partners fields. And that will wrap up our time together, got a full very packed back to packed an hour and a half together. Great. So I'm going to just stop sharing, maybe just for a moment, and just invite our panelists to briefly say hello. Before we get into a bit of an overview of the initiative so we have a number of panelists here today they will each get a chance to speak about their experiences. So in, in no particular order I'm going with the order on my screen. I would just like to actually introduce. Sorry, Selena and I'm just going to pull up the slides just give me a one second again. I just realized, I need those slides. There we go. So Selena, can you turn on your camera and just wave hello to everybody. Hello, I'm Selena Park. Wonderful and Selena is a fourth year undergraduate student in pharmacology. Bosong, would you like to introduce yourself. Hello, everyone. I'm a learning designer from CTLT. And Natalie. Hi, everyone. I'm also a student partner with SAP. My name is Natalie and I'm a Bachelor of Science and Forest Science student. Thank you. And the three of them Selena Bosong and Natalie worked on a project students as partners funded project called implementing course mastery tracking through student revised learning objectives for forestry 304. And they'll talk more about their experiences in a minute. And Roslyn, would you like to introduce yourself. Hello, I'm Roslyn, I'm a student partner, and I am studying undergrad of visual arts and psychology. Wonderful. Thank you, Christine. Hi, I'm Christine Denaugrio, I'm faculty in visual arts. Thank you. And on a cat. Hi, my name is Anika, I go by day she and I'm just finished my fifth year. I'm an undergraduate student in visual arts, economics and informatics. Wonderful. Thank you. And the three of them worked on a project called decolonizing the studio critique exercises to promote community in the visual art classroom, and they'll be speaking about that later. And our last group. John, would you like to introduce yourself. Everyone I'm a learning designer at CTLT. Thanks, John. Gail. I'm Gail associate professor of teaching and food nutrition and health. And I'll just say that Amber and Lucy were not able to be here today. But Amber is a year for student and Lucy has recently graduated. Thank you. And we've got their photos there as well. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I just wanted to take more from our panelists shortly, but I wanted to just take this moment for them to introduce themselves and put names to faces. So, before we get into hearing about their experiences, we wanted to spend just a few minutes contextualizing this notion of students as partners and to help folks understand how partnership is unique and perhaps then to understand the relationship between students and how they can make those connections. What is students as partners and how does that connect then to their lived experiences. So partnership for for us here at EBC is a process of student engagement, engagement involving faculty students and staff learning and working together. And the goal of that work is enhancing learning and teaching partnership is also a way of doing things rather than an outcome in itself. So we are working together to develop partnership as a process where we are working together. And we are the focuses on the partnership and the process of working rather than getting to a particular desired outcome. Obviously, we will do work together we will produce outcomes, but there's more emphasis on on the processes of working together and and the ways that we come together to do all kinds of wonderful things related to teaching and learning. So we see high levels of active student participation and partnership work and significant contributions from students in that work. We, we always highlight this quote that comes from Ellison Cook Sather, who's a scholar in this field of students as partners, she's located in the US at Bryn Maher. She talks about how students and faculty in partnership work have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways to all aspects of enhancing teaching and learning. And that's really in recognition that students and faculty and staff have different expertise students bring expertise of what it means to be a learner staff bring expertise of what it means to be perhaps pedagogical experts around teaching and learning and faculty bring expertise of the subject matter and what it means to teach in that discipline. And we need all three of those lenses to really create perhaps the best learning experience for for others. So contributing equally, although perhaps in different ways to the course design redesign work in this case. Why, why this concept of students as partners, we know a few things from the research and the literature on teaching and learning, we know that there's importance and emphasis of students being actively engaged in their learning. It's a good thing for students to be engaged in their learning. We know that learners have expertise of what it means to be a learner, and we know that there's the potential to apply this knowledge to enhance teaching and learning. They have that knowledge. Why not fold it into making better enhanced teaching and learning experiences. And we know that there's a range of ways that students can be engaged in teaching and learning activities, both within the classroom and beyond. All the things that happen as we develop courses and programs before they even get to the classrooms before students get there to experience those things. Here's a couple of quotes, really just highlighting this this first quote highlighting. If you're taking learning in the studying study of learning seriously as a transactional activity. It's not a productive inquiry if you do not have all the voices in that dialogue. It's a different kind of research if students are silent, or students are merely research subjects to really emphasizing folding students into the whole process of the study of teaching and learning. And Sophia Abbott who's actually going to be coming to to UBC virtually on June 6 and we'll talk more about that a little later. Who is at Bryn Mawr College talked about becoming more aware of how faculty do their jobs and the things that go on behind the scenes before we perhaps come to that wonderful course or that wonderful program or that wonderful co-op experience or whatever it might be. Having more more patience for the classroom setting as a result of participating in partnership work and more confidence for talking to professors as you know humans real people. So there are lots of benefits and again we'll hear a bit more later today from Marissa our evaluation specialist on some of the impacts and outcomes that this initiative is having here at UBC on the folks involved. So when we think about student participation and active student participation in the context of teaching and learning, we can use this visual of a ladder where when we think about climbing the ladder. The bottom rung is perhaps the easiest to get up on to literally if you climb a ladder. And in this framework from Bovell and bully who come from the UK Kathy Bovell is another scholar in this field. The bottom rung is really a dictated curriculum where students have no decision making no say or control over what they learn or experience in the curriculum. They show up and they're along for the ride, hopefully. As we move up the ladder there's obviously more student participation in the classroom and the course in the program design so on and so forth. As we get closer to the very top which is of course harder to get to harder to climb up more fear so on and so forth, we see partnership where really curriculum is negotiated. We are bringing in space for students to shape and say what they want to learn how they want to learn it so on and so forth. And at the very top students have control over and substantial influence over the curriculum, really. So partnership is the second from the top which signals significant active student participation and involvement. So what my partnership look like we can think about concrete ways that that partnership might take shape things like students and faculty partners working together to explore or research the student experience in a course to determine what changes we might need to make. So what were past students experiences in this course, they might gather some data, we might use that data to analyze revise what we're doing the actual pedagogical approaches and strategies that we're using in the classroom, which might then requires to design or redesign a particular part or section of a course. We together might design decide on the approach that will take and what dimensions of the course or teaching practices will focus on. And we might also identify needs to be addressed within the course and how, for example, how to make courses more welcoming to a diversity of students how to better engage students in answering questions. How to develop actions or strategies to address these needs so we're figuring this out together based on information that we are gathering from our own experiences from other students experiences perhaps other stakeholders so on and so forth. So this is these are some possibilities of what my partnership look like. We are going to pause here and now transition into the panel. Hopefully this gives folks a sense of what partnership look could look like, why partnership is important, and how we at UBC are taking up this notion of partnership in the context of teaching and learning. What we're going to do next is the panel and we have put forward a number of questions that panelists will speak to. After each question, there'll be an opportunity for one or two questions from the audience. And so for housekeeping just to let folks know you're welcome to type your question into the chat and or raise your hand using the raise your hand function and we'll pick up your question that way. If we have more questions than we're able to respond to, we are happy to collect those and do some follow up responses over email to to folks. So that's something we wanted to offer. Any questions before we move forward to the panel. I just want to pause and just see if there's any burning questions for folks. He'll reduce the chat or quickly raise your hands either is fine. Any questions. Okay. So, with that, we will begin our panel. So I get the pleasure of posing the first question to the panelists. And the question question that we have is sort of. We've already heard that we have the opportunity here at UBC for students and and staff and faculty to work in partnership to design or redesign a UBC Vancouver undergraduate course. Looking back, what interested you in the students as partners initiative and can you briefly describe your funded students as partners project. So would you like to start us off? Sure, I'll do that. Thanks Rosalind. So, when I look back, what interested me in a nutshell I'm going to say is that we have the end users voice of resources that we develop involved in the development of those resources right from square one. So, if I look back at my own personal history as a public health dietitian in community practice before coming to academia, I always developed resources from a professional perspective, we focus group people, and then we got their response. And I always, I always struggled with that when the students as partners initiative came along, I was going, Okay, that UBC is committed to funding the development of resources. So that's course content or course design. And having the end users voice integral in that whole process so and working as partners. And I think this is a phenomenal program that UBC has decided to support here in having students voices in partnership. And I can talk about that later, what the partnership look like but right from the start of the project.  Yeah, just briefly. It was actually the students were taking the lead on deciding what elements of the course. They really wanted to put their attention on to potentially make it a more robust learning experience for the students so I'll talk again later about my two students. Partners that I was working with and how they had different perspectives about the course. So it was just updating reintroducing greater accessibility and navigation in the canvas shell was one of the outcomes as well as some resources that we use in the course. So resource development as well. Excellent. Yeah, I'll kind of just start out by describing our project and our project revolved around the class visa for one be which is basically an undergrad open studio class where students. The aim is to basically find like your unique artistic voice and also you're going to develop an independent body of work. And so like the main method for feedback within these classes is the critique and it while it is fundamentally valuable. It's often kind of imbued with a level of bias and colonial power dynamics that can privilege certain voices over others. For example in my experience as a student I have witnessed and also experienced situations where for example and our work was making a racial or cultural reference and it wasn't receiving the same kind of generous feedback as other artworks. And I mean there could be a variety of reasons for this which I can get into later but for our team, this brought up a lot of questions around what a good crit actually is and if there are other ways in which it can exist and if we can implement any colonial strategies within the art studio critique. Yeah so our team really came together with this shared investment and wanting to reexamine this tool especially since it usually goes on question so it was an area really worth looking into. In recognizing kind of this need to decolonize the practice, our project basically aimed to make way for alternative methods for providing feedback on artwork by focusing on various community building exercises and also rethinking these critique methodologies. And I think ultimately we sought to kind of challenge and complicate these predominant narratives within the Western art canon and fundamentally this is collaborative work it's between the class it's between students and faculty. And I don't think there is any other way that we could have gone about it that isn't horizontal so yeah SAP being a partnership between students and faculty kind of ended up being the perfect vessel to do this work. Thanks Rosalind. Natalie. So my interest in our SAP project stemmed really from my interest in the course itself at first. When I took force 304 I was highly interested in the course content and I really liked the way that the course was delivered and structured. So when I got that call to join this project I was very intrigued because as a student. I've never seen these methods of feedback of kind of either going to office hours and talking, or maybe filling in these end of term surveys but when you actually have this opportunity to sit down at a round table and talk with your professor and other students about your perspectives and their perspectives, I thought that was really amazing that you would have that chance to share and build something together towards the course. I also described the funded project mentioned earlier it was called implementing course mastery tracking through student revised learning objectives. The second part student revised learning objectives was really the main focus of the first portion of our project. We were basically breaking down all of the course content and the learning objectives that went with it and we went okay which one of these may be needed or not needed and how do students versus professors read them differently. One point was that a lot of the time the student may see a learning objective but they're not really sure what they are supposed to do with it. So when we have the students and professors come together you can really get a better understanding and hopefully create an objective that is most useful and aligned with the students learning. And then to follow that we then linked all of those student objectives with the canvas tool known as the mastery tracking notebook. We'll see you on a little bit later. Thanks Natalie and Bosa. So Natalie and I were in the same forestry project team. Look back, I believe that the idea of partnering with the student especially those who have previously taken the course was a fantastic opportunity to directly address the needs and experiences of learners in this course. In all my other project I always stress the importance of gathering student feedback. And because this feedback can help the project understand how effective the educational intervention that we made to the environment. There will be many other times we can also consider student voices to create more effective educational experiences. This project was a great opportunity where I can experience student active participation in the process. If I make another like just additional comment about the forestry project by using the outcomes tool and the learning mastery grade book on campus. The student can assist how well they are doing on each learning outcome so they can plan what they need to study more for faculty monitoring the mastery progress of all students. We thought that you can help them quickly identify areas where students are struggling. So this knowledge can help faculty better adjust to their teaching strategy focusing on a specific area that need more explanation or different instructional or assessment methods. Thanks Bosa. So I heard a number of things I heard emphasis on a horizontal approach Rosalyn you really highlighted that that you know with the goals of trying to decolonize this studio critique needing to have that be a horizontal process. I've heard Bosa from your perspective this notion of you know a meaningful way for active student engagement in in the project rather than just perhaps gathering student evaluation feedback which I also heard Natalie speak to like as a student I go to office hours I share my ideas I provide feedback and evaluation but like what's more beyond that but how can I be involved in reshaping the course and in a meaningful way so thank you to all of you for touching on kind of the reasons that you chose to get involved in this initiative. Marissa over to you. Thank you. So the next question we have for the panelists. Each of you contributed to a project as a partner. What did you learn and I know you learned a lot so maybe just some key highlights about what you learned about partnership through working in this partnership. And we can start off with Selena. Yeah, so for this question, my answer will be like on partnership like SAP on project was really different from how like how conventional project with other professors work for me past experience, because usually when I work with the professors it was more like professors already have the decision on how the process should work. But, but then for the partnership was more like we decide how to take the process together and have a field for like where we can share the opinions back and forth. It was a great opportunity because like we could, because from the, for example, like, if the students bring an idea or if we bring an idea, the professors can give like another opinion about like practicality or like efficiency of the idea and how the discussion back and forth. But from my past experience that was a little bit less happening because the process was already set forward. So yeah I think that was why I learned from the partnership. So Selena and Natalie. Yeah, so I think in this partnership. I really want to focus on the fact that it was a very coming together over a mutual interest and investment towards in this case education. And I think everyone within the project came into it having already taken the initiative to either propose the project or read through what it meant and they really wanted to join it. And when you come together this partnership like slain mentioned was very different from what's conventional as you have this chance to talk in a small group with various other people who also have different or similar ideas regarding the course and collaborate over our learning objectives are question banks and how we're going to engage students within the course. So that's at the point of a partnership within SAP itself partnership I've learned really focuses more on how the partnership is done rather than what might come of it. And I think that was a really great learning experience for myself being able to just sit down and share all my thoughts without worrying about what might happen with them to get critique from other one other people and also share my own thoughts to was really really great. And just for everyone, a reminder that Natalie and Selina are both student partners. And so now we're going to hear from John who was a staff partner on some of the projects. Yeah, so students as partner has been an opportunity for me to reflect on my role and relationship as an educational developer and learning designer between what typically has between faculty or staff. And that now includes students and so it's allowed me to recognize and appreciate the role of students as equal partners and voices in course design. And I can better understand their stakes in building a really successful learner centered course. It's also enabled me to practice flexibly and intentionally in my role as a consultant versus as an actual course developer, and also knowing when to balance both in this role. Thanks, John. Yeah, so from the three of you, I think all of you spoke to some very similar things about your learning and partnership it sounds like you Selina you talked about in your previous work with with partnership it's more professors coming in and making the decisions ultimately at the end, and having these predisposed expectations. And so you and Natalie explain how now it's like your voices are more important more ingrained in in these projects and, and also having that equal investment and motivation to achieve a common goal so all of you are motivated you come with your expertise. And what you want to see these courses look like and how to improve courses for student learning. And I really like how that was reflected in your responses. And with john, you know, having your, your unique expertise as a course designer but also you recognizing that now as a course developer and redesigner you're you're taking on this new perspective almost on how important student voices are in redesigning courses, and learning on how you can incorporate that in your own work, even outside of SAP. The three, the three of you. And now I think I'll pass. Oh wait. Are we. Yes, I realize we didn't pause. Yeah. So now's a good time to see if there are any questions so far that folks have bubbling away for that panelists. Feel free to use the chat. Feel free to raise your hand. Any questions so far. Okay, let's continue on. Oh, hang on. We did get a chat. Rohan asks are the student participants students who've attended the course previously, or are they students currently enrolled in the course. So who wants to briefly speak to me. I can talk about so for me I, and I think also now I think we were the students who participated like attended course previously. So we completed a course before we started a project. And can I just add to my course, I had a student who had previously taken the course, and also one that was about to enter the course so it was really capturing those reflections from the past student and the aspirations of what the incoming student wanted to learn in the applied public health nutrition course. Okay, and I'll also just add we have funded projects where the student partners came from outside the discipline so I can think of a project in biology where the instructor brought in a student partner from education. Given the scope of the course it made sense to do that. So there's lots of flexibility. Jasmine. Thank you for your presentation so far. And this is just such important work. And I'm just thinking about, you know, when we're talking about partnership there's a whole science to partnership and I wonder for those. As you were planning your engagement of students, were there frameworks that you were following to think about, you know what is, what is meaningfully engaging your students as partners to help guide that process. Who would like to speak to that. I can just share. I did not have an intentional framework. However, based on past experiences of when our faculty adapted to moving courses online due to COVID. I had some experience of engaging students before a course start so typically with TAs you don't have access to TAs until as I think it was Selena was saying the course is already designed and you know the instructor is ready to sort of run with that design. So when COVID came along we had students as research assistants. And so we use I use that sort of experience to help guide me through the students as partners project. So I'm not sure if that really answers your questions but I just relied on my past experience. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm just going to say that I think, yeah, experience is incredibly important and I think, you know, having these conversations also opens up opportunities to learn from perhaps other disciplines where for example we have, you know, an area like integrated knowledge where we look at what is meaningful engagement of say patient partners or clinician partners and I think, you know, the experiences that you share Gail I think they're very similar to what we see in the literature in engaging patients and clinicians as partners as we do with students as partners. But yeah, maybe there's an opportunity to kind of cross-pollinate those ideas. Thank you. Wonderful. I see a few more questions. And I see a few comments. So just to speak to some of these. Thank you Christine for chiming in around how your team navigated. You did the partnership work while both Annika and Rosalind were enrolled in the class. So instead of prior to it was ongoing while they were taking the course. And then just see a few other questions around. Is it typical to apply for the grant first and then later find students. That's certainly possible. Although we're I think seeing more and more folks come to to submit proposals together already as sort of early partners starting off that work. So just highlighting that there's a couple other questions we'll try to fold them into the next round as we keep moving forward. Blina, I'll pass things over to you. Thanks Rosalind. So our next questions for the student partners. As you know, partnership is a dynamic process. So there can be ups and there can be downs. So what kinds of opportunities or challenges. Did you encounter during your partnership. Hi, yeah, I really resonate with some of the framing of the SAP framework as being a horizontal structure to work inside of. And I think working inside of that structure and whether like provided a really neat opportunity for myself I know to rethink a lot of the ingrained assumptions that I have about how power structures operate in the classroom. Specifically, as we mentioned, as Rosalind mentioned, our project was about feedback, which is often a really like kind of spooky like you're being evaluated and you're you're kind of on the hot seat when your work's getting critiqued and it can be really vulnerable. And so I think it was a really incredible opportunity for me to be a part of this project to reflect on my responsibility to be a be an active participant of creating like critical and community oriented learning spaces. And yeah, just think through some of the ways that I could become more of like an active participant in the class, rather than just kind of like a passive sort of like consumer of the class, and kind of, I guess, rejecting some of those like a preexisting structures of, you know, the teacher, you know, the instructor determines like what's going to happen in the class and how things are going to be done to to kind of letting myself realize that they know there are things that I can contribute. And that as someone who is also enrolled in the class while we were doing this work that I have like a responsibility to also facilitate opportunities for other class members who weren't a part of the project to also bring their voices and their interests and concerns to the table as we were rethinking how to have feedback in a more kind of get community oriented way that that is in line with some of these decolonizing decolonizing kind of methodologies. Thanks, Aniki. Great points, Selena. Yeah, so the project itself was a really great opportunity as a student to give like more in depth feedback or like opinions about the course to the instructors, because like, sometimes, like, it's really, it can be very anxious to give like a direct feedback on like what we found could be missing or can one will make some suggestions in terms of changes to the instructors, or sometimes like also it's very hard to keep in track whether how the exact changes are being made in the course afterwards after we give the feedback to the instructors. But in terms of that, like the SAP project was a really good, I would say it was a great environment for us to like keep constantly check like how our feedback is starting to be implemented into the course, and how, like, and how we can modify it better in terms of the course. And one challenge I encountered during the partnership is that definitely it was because of the course, like because of the project structure, it kind of took me some time to get used to it because, as I said before, it was kind of different. It was kind of different from how conventionally other projects were with different professors. So it just took me some time to get used to it. Thanks, Selena. Natalie. Yeah, um, I think for opportunity wise, a big one would have been working with a group of like minded individuals who are who are all working towards a similar goal, I kind of mentioned that earlier as well but being able to sit down and talk with a professor that I had been taught by regarding my thoughts about the course and also learning about their perspective regarding it was really insightful for me. But I think a newer one for me was learning about the implementation of technology particularly canvas into our learning system as a student I have only ever really seen the student version where you get your assignments assigned and you just kind of do things on it. But interacting with the website and seeing the depth of how much you can do with it was very, very interesting for me, particularly the learning mastery gradebook that was mentioned earlier. For some context, you basically link your learning objectives to particular questions within your quizzes or your assignments on canvas. And through that both the student as well as the professor can track how well a student has understood the concepts throughout the course and it's a really great way for the student to be asking what should they be improving on, and for the professor as well to be seeing which gaps may need to be filled within the course itself. But I think the biggest one was really the opportunity to have an increased interest in my own learning and engaging with my own learning. Like we say traditionally you don't have much of an opportunity to engage with a course beyond attending it maybe going to an office hour, or giving your feedback in those end of term surveys but when you have this chance to actually be in a discussion about how that course is going to be changed or revised you have the opportunity to. Well I guess you have the opportunity to be able to speak about your thoughts in a different way in a more direct way. And for me that was really, really great. Yeah, thank you. Oh, yeah. Hi, yeah I just realized I forgot to mention a challenge that I think is, I think worthy like of bringing up. And that was that when doing this work as a student partner in the SAP grant. Because we were funded with like just a specific like out like a specific allocation of funding. We only ended up having like only at like a few hours a week to do the work that we needed to do. And specifically for our project that was like really concerned with like thinking about what it meant to decolonize a specific visual art pedagogy tool like tool and methodology. We were often revisiting like what our project was how we were like what decolonization like meant to us in those specific work that we were doing. And so when that work, which is inevitably like, you know deeply internal and also community rented and like very complex needed to take more time than was allocated. And that kind of, I think, brought into an awareness of our position within this broader university structure of, you know, like Rosalind and I as students we're only getting paid to do this work for like what three hours a week or something versus there was a, you know, there was more work that actually need to get done. And so our professor who is just because of the way the system works position to kind of like be more securely compensated for that extra work. It was just, yeah, I guess like I wanted to mention that as like a tension that we were kind of existing in just the way that the kind of the funding works that even though we were trying to be like completely collaborative and work in this horizontal way. There were sometimes situations where our professor had to do more work because if Rosalind I as students did it and we wouldn't be compensated and so yeah just, I guess like a tension to kind of exist in and be aware of that we're operating in these broader contexts and funding models and structures. Absolutely. Thank you all for for mentioning it. I'm hearing a lot of you know, higher up structurally the challenges that come with working in these set structures, climbing the ladder as Anakin mentioned to partnership to this new way of working and learning and in teaching and this new way of working together. But also from the perspective of as a student partner navigating the interpersonal elements of you know what does feedback look like. How do you go and like Natalie said, how do you see that other perspective, even on a technological level from canvas right. It's all very new and I think this newness is is what I was hearing in all your responses. Thank you all this was really great I'll pass this off to Rosalind. Great, and I'm noticing that chat is bubbling with questions and panelists shining in with comments and responses so I want to pause and see if there's any questions that haven't been addressed that whether in the chat and that have come up since listening to this last panelist question so any questions that folks have right now. That means that the chat has been doing its job and keep going. Wonderful. Okay, so we're going to turn things over to faculty partners so Christine and Gail. What opportunities and challenges. Did you encounter during your partnership work with Christine. Hi everyone. Of course, challenges and that old cliche results and opportunities. So, I think I'll try and keep it slightly brief but one of the biggest challenges that I faced, and perhaps even the student partners faced was a misalignment of expectations so I think that you kind of have assumptions of definitions of what colonizing might mean or how that those values might play a role in the classroom. And then you actually maybe do a little bit of feedback gathering and you find out that there's a bit of a mismatch. And I think that was the most eye opening. Moment I had, which was, you know, the attitudes towards academia the attitudes towards what counts as good work in my discipline. The values that we have on these more social justice lenses of decolonizing might not actually be shared values. And so the partners and I I think maybe a mind a bit more but then when we brought in the voice of the classroom, it started to lose its direction and so I think what came out of this mismatch was I became incredibly aware of certain perceptions or expectations that I either had to realign or dismantle. One of them being that decolonizing should make everything easier for everybody. But that's not necessarily true decolonizing is a very difficult complex nuanced critical work, and it actually makes things harder. So I think that's what I started to gain from from this misalignment was how to build a better vocabulary. How to take the time to align our values or see where they're coming from a little bit more time for a bit of the buy in, you know, of why it is I'm using these particular methods or why we're going to expand them or revise them. So I think that was one of the most challenging components of this and, and maybe even between the student partners and their peers in the class. But it was also the most revealing because I think I became more confident in why I make certain decisions or why I would revise certain methods towards certain decisions in the classroom. And what they end up bringing forth that I value in pedagogy in facilitation. The other thing I became incredibly aware of is some things that you don't witness in class. So homework you might give might actually have a lot more weight than you'd ever imagined. So I think as faculty members we tend to assess what's happening in the classroom because that's where we can gain knowledge. But through the partnership I actually started to become more aware of what was happening outside of the classroom, certain assignments that we're bringing people together. Things that were unfolding in the homework time. So that was incredibly revealing having student partners that were so invested in this idea of building a community as sort of a pedagogical purpose. They revealed to me quite candidly a lot of really interesting insights that I would never have understood if I didn't have this partnership. So I'd say as a third sort of opportunity and challenge that I encountered during this partnership, it was just genuinely fulfilling to talk about what it is that we do in the classroom with the people that are directly impacted. And so I'd say it just brought me a lot of pleasure in how I was making decisions in the classroom and how I was seeing things unfold. So there's my little spiel. Thank you. Thanks Christine. And I also want to highlight that your project for folks that might not have caught the distinction in the beginning when you were describing it was more about a co-creation of the curriculum. So where the student partners and the class and you all came together to work on revising the course as it was in motion versus perhaps the other two projects that have been talked about today, which were more redesigned prior to offering the new version of the course. So just want to highlight that difference between the two. And for those that are interested, we can talk more about co-creation perhaps a little later when we have some open Q&A time. Gil. Okay, yeah. So, just like Christine, I think challenges can become opportunities. And I'd say probably from my perspective, the greatest challenge is really breaking down that vertical and flattening out that vertical structure that students are so have so ingrained in their sense of academia. So I think that for me, you know, certainly I had worked with one of the students before previously. And knew sort of the openness to working in a flat or more horizontal way as partners. The other student who was the incoming student into the course, I had not worked with her before, but was very open to bringing her perspectives So I think for me, the biggest challenge was just ensuring that we're working sort of in a horizontal plane, although it can kind of go like this, right, you know, sometimes and I think that that provided opportunities because over time, what we what I saw happening is that the students were much more. The process was unfolding the students were much more willing just, you know, off the cuff to say things and provide their perspectives on whatever the component was that we were working on. So, yeah, the biggest challenge kind of turned into opportunities because I feel like the students also just felt more comfortable as a partner. As time went on, and I know I certainly welcome that. As I mentioned before, I think, and users voices of resources that we develop. Really, I think it's critical to have them right from square one. So I'd say that it is almost like what Selena was talking about how you were feeling a little bit uncomfortable. But you were going through the process of unlearning the vertical structure and learning to work more horizontally. And I think that that stood out for me the most. I certainly from my perspective, I saw the students as partners. And sometimes we would take a lead so we'd go through roundtables discussions and different people would take leads on different parts of this discussion. So that was always really an interesting process. And also, I think, a developmental process for for everybody involved to incorporate other people's ideas. When you're taking the lead on a discussion of, you know, redesigning the canvas shell that I can affect everyone. So, yeah, I really liked that the students felt comfortable, you know, towards the end of, you know, really buying in and taking responsibility for or seeing a different way of how they couldn't deepen their learning. process, not just for the course content itself, but the transferable skills. So the leadership skills, the communication skills, partnership skills, what is it like to be a partner. So yeah, so I think that a lot of those challenges did turn into positives in the project itself. I just wanted to pull up a question, because I think you two could perhaps start us off and then we can open it up. Rohan asks, is there such a phenomenon as a conflict of interest during such partnerships, and how were such instances navigated, either of you like to speak to that. It's a good question because my, my student team part as student partners, we're very aware of it, perhaps being an issue and in the very first class we set up a sort of introduction to what the project was, and an assurance to the class of the presentations and it's almost like we spent more time establishing this student as partners project as a sort of facilitation rather than the content of it. And so we anticipated it might have been an issue that students in the class might think that, you know, they would get better marks or, you know, getting to know them would help, you know, communicate for better marks or something like that we were worried. But I would say that it ended up not being much of a problem at all. Although maybe the students feel differently but I felt like that was something we had worried about a little we're concerned about and then it, it didn't actually breed any sort of off situations and maybe that is because it had such transparent directions in it. But Gail, does you feel that way in. So I'm just going to say our situation was a little bit different. So while we were designing new learning activities, developing scenarios for the students to go through redesigning the canvas shell for better navigation and accessibility so thinking about diversity and inclusion, those sorts of concepts. We did not implement that in this year. So it is coming in the next iteration of the course. So the student that was actually taking the course at the time had access to a canvas sandbox. Minus assessments like a quiz types of assessments. So, so there was no advantage for that student other than seeing what the lesson plans were that were coming forward and once the course started we released those anyhow. So it wasn't, I don't, if I'm getting to sort of Rohan's question I'm not sure I'm actually nailing it on the head but in terms of conflict of interest of our student that was taking the course at the time of the revisions. There was really not nothing to really. Yeah, nothing that would influence or provide an advantage for that student. I hope that answers your question Rohan Rohan does that answer your question. Feel free to chime in or use the chat. And yes, yes it does. One of the things I'm always interested in. I think Christine talked about it was the idea of expectations. So perhaps I should have said a conflict of expectations rather than of interest although I think they're very similar. And considering projects like these involve so many kinds of participants. I feel there's multiple kinds of interests and expectations that need to be managed. And that would be on an ongoing basis. So when I posed the question I was looking at looking at it from a generative productive point of view of how they would be actively managed over the course of the the partnership so that's what I was really interested in. And I was, I'm really glad that I have these two different perspectives from from Christine and Gail about entirely different circumstances one where you address the issue upfront. And in the other case it's taken up I think in a more ongoing basis but at the same time there's really no. I'd say a gray area where there's a possibility of students feeling, I think at least the enrolled students feeling disenfranchised. Thanks Rohan. Okay, I'm going to pass things over to Marissa and move us forward. So, so far we've heard from the student and the faculty partners and I want to turn our attention to the staff partners for context, each SAP project was provided learning design support. So, this is geared towards John and both some who were learning designs offered learning design support for SAP project so you know as staff partners providing learning design support what opportunities and challenges did you encounter. Yeah, so for for my projects, I think these partnerships provided great opportunities for shared decision making and course design, but also like understanding and assuming shared the shared risks in those decisions, but also understanding, you know there are shared risks as well. It also created opportunities beyond the literature I feel in terms of like best practices and court course design and like building off new and emerging ideas from the students. I was really thinking about diversity, equity inclusion accessibility, creating a teaching presence. So, I thought those were like the key opportunities from the student voices, in terms of like challenges I think for me. The number one challenge was actually just balancing my role, because I'm typically involved in the meat in the development and the design. And now it has been really allowing the students or giving the students a space to design and develop an experiment on their own and recognizing that they are amazing. And they're developing these pieces in the course that are going to that have really been important by their own perspectives. And so really just balancing my role as just a sage on the stage more and and guiding work where I where but where it's needed but it's really just giving the students a voice in their in their own development work. So, as you know for this kind of project step members are open assigned to a project. Once the project get funded. So it can take time for the project team to understand the skills and support we can offer. It can take us some time to see where we can best to contribute. And I agree with john about balancing our role and cast that was another thing that we can consider we need to consider. Additionally, I think scheduling meetings that work for everyone was a bit of a challenging. Sometimes the meeting were scheduled and late night and then when I cannot attend or have to attend via zoom while others join in person. But these challenges may not be just for the students as partners project for this particular project, I think I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved even before the project was funded. I first got to know I first got to know the professor, the faculty partner through the learning design consultation, and later he reached out to me for the SAP proposal feedback. So this early involvement enabled us to plan, you know, discuss the project and plan things together. Where he the project might need my support throughout the project and then where we need some student perspectives support. Professor Bahola also did an excellent job in coordinating and managing the project. So I had a better understanding about the project progress throughout the, you know, throughout the project and was able to provide the support when it is needed. The specific opportunity that I grabbed from this project was that I finally had a chance to see how this outcomes tool and learning mastery grade book on campus can be implemented. This tool is not something new. It has been there for a while. But despite its potential to enhance teaching and learning, this tool has been largely underutilized at UBC. And I also had the opportunity to collaborate with the LTCOP because we share the same interest about this tool. So throughout the project, we encountered both challenges and benefit of using this outcomes tool and learning mastery grade book. But despite some puddles, I believe that our experience in learning can be a service, valuable resources for other faculty who may wish to leverage this tool in their courses. So it kind of gave me also opportunity to enhance my understanding about the use of this tool, including having some student perspective. Thank you. Thanks for saying and John and I, both of you offer really valuable insights into some of the opportunities and and also some of the challenges that you've encountered. I'm going to just want to be mindful of time. I know we have a few more questions. So if anyone has any burning questions that that you'd like us to talk through right now. I'll give you a second. I'm also seeing that lots of people panelist are chiming in responding to that, which is wonderful because we're able to then answer more questions as we're working our way through. So why don't we move ahead and then we'll see questions come forward. So Polina. Thanks Rosalind. So a question that we have is what occurred during your partnership that you didn't anticipate or expect. Yeah. I think entering this project there was a lot of things that we didn't anticipate or expect. And that's kind of what part of what made the experiencing so enriching. I will say I think one of the biggest surprises actually happened pretty early on and that was basically being accepted to speak on the diversity, equity and inclusion in the art student art history classroom panel at the college arts association conference in New York. And yeah, that was definitely a surreal moment for us. But it was actually kind of the process of preparing for the panel and of writing together that ended up being a very enriching moment for our partnership. Yeah, like, I mean, the presentation is very short. So we had to go through this process of like, kind of getting our ideas down to their core. And in this, like, in this process, I think we were pushed to think more profoundly about what our project actually is and what it means. And yeah, and like, through kind of this process, we were exchanging perspectives we were challenging each other and I think we ended up not just learning about our project but as Annika and Christine have also touched on we were learning about approaches and assumptions. And I think at this point we had to kind of confront our own biases in terms of what decoloniality means. And it was through this reflection of redesigning the crit. I kind of like realized that there, there are aspects to it that could be considered wicked, wicked problems, because of, for example, contradictory solutions and also they're not being a single solution. And this ended up being kind of like, I think a breakthrough moment for us and also a huge point within our presentation for that panel. And yeah, I think we had this feeling pretty early on and it was at this point that we were able to develop the language to realize that there isn't a one size fits all solution to crit. We spent a lot of time in the beginning just exploring like we did lit reviews and we had focus groups and we did various like class activities. And for a while things felt a bit disjointed in terms of like what we actually wanted to do with our project so yeah it's interesting like we just for the in the process of making a 10 minute presentation we found out I think way more about our project than in the month spent was exploring. And yeah, like when you're running a project like this it's easy to get caught up in kind of the nitty gritty and like, you kind of get caught up in your own mindset mindset but like, when you take a moment to step back there's so much broadening and learning and reflection and also, beyond this I think we were just excited to see our conversation extend beyond just the scope of the course and contribute to a larger audience that was interested in the same things as us. And yeah it was a great opportunity to see and learn from other presentations and also see how they approached it. And I also wanted to take just a moment to acknowledge the students as partners dissemination fund which was definitely helpful and for the getting this opportunity for us. And yeah coming back from the experience. I think we were kind of able to see our project with fresh eyes and we had like a better sense of our direction in terms of like where we wanted to go with the project.  But yeah it sounds like that process gave you an extra added opportunity to reflect on the project and sort out those big ideas in a way that I think enhanced your partnership overall it sounds like. Yeah, thank you. Great. Last question for the panel, and then we're going to wrap up and talk about a few other things before we let folks go. Yeah. So question that we're posing to our panelists are what guidance or suggestions do you have to others who are interested in working in partnership. And what both side. So, in any collaborative project, I think it's quite normal for different members to contribute at varying times. So it can open take a while for the project team to fully understand the unique skill and support that or perspectives that each member can offer. Depending on their role and cast certain members might be more involved during specific pages of the project than others. Since the, I think the SAP project aims to provide an opportunity for every partner to voice and learn from each other. So having a regular project meetings that involve or that involve all members can provide space for members to listen to others perspectives, and learn from each other, and help all participating members develop some clear understanding and voice out about the project task and timeline, and give them opportunity to contribute. However, scheduling meetings that works for everyone can be challenging due to the involvement of the many people with different to schedule and different commitment. I think in such case, regular update or having someone assigned with a specific role of the coordinating communication and organizing meeting memo I think could help sharing a timeline clear task and milestone can also help all partner understand the project progress. I think that only that not only keeps everyone on the same page, but also create opportunity for every partner to contribute to the project and not left out and learn from each other. And it can also enhance the overall outcome of the project. Also, I think since we are opening the door to listen to everyone like every partner. I think we should be ready to make some adjustment on the way the open mind did I think that is one recommendation that I want to make. Thank you. Thanks for fun. And Gail. Yeah, I would just say, I think for when you're forming the group that it's really important to make sure students and faculty are using the same language so what is a partnership and understanding that sort of right from the get go right from the start of the partnership, what is a partnership, how do we want it to look like and that could change over time as as as I saw in my own project. Students becoming much more comfortable in just sharing their ideas. At first I really felt like they were looking to me for that guidance, but I would prefer just to say this is a partnership right out out of the gate and say, sort of, have you been involved in partnerships before and what did they look like and how do we want this one to unfold. It's going fully well that we need to be flexible as things may not go as planned, but I agree with both something about the scheduling. Oh, that was, that was challenging. Yeah, when students are taking four other courses or five courses. It's very challenging to find some time to meet. So, you know that I think setting up a standing meeting time right at the start would be beneficial there. Just, you know, maintaining as a, a moving from a vertical to the horizontal kind of structure, maintaining that throughout, like I think it's as a responsibility as an instructor we, we have, we have a potential or not perpetuated that vertical structure for a lot of things. And this is an opportunity to flatten it, and that we need to make that really clear take that responsibility on to make it clear that everybody's voices are equal here. And then, and then it just, you know, becomes natural over time at least with my group that I was working with. Yeah, it just becomes natural as people build that trust and build those relationships amongst everybody on the team. And I think that's some guidance I would highly recommend if you're thinking about applying that do it. There's a lot of learning the students gain a lot faculty members gain a lot in terms of working as partners as actual partners on a project to better and improve the learning environment for the future students so I, I'd say go for it. Yeah, a very common theme of what I've heard from both of you and from what I hear from a lot of different partnership groups is establishing your expectations your meeting times all of those logistical pieces at the very beginning helps to set the tone for the partnership. I'm going to really appreciated gail you mentioned about having a conversation and reflecting on what is partnership and what does that mean to each per individual coming to the partnership, and also just taking time to reflect as you know things change and, and throughout the partnership process, just taking time as a partnership team to reflect on how things are going and where you want to go from there. Thank you all to the panelists for this very rich discussion. I do we have, Rosslyn what do you think do we want some time for questions or do you want to keep any bubbling questions at the moment, I see the chat again has been really busy and thanks everyone for chiming in there, any last questions before we transition to wrap up which will be Marissa talking a bit about evaluation work and us talking about the upcoming call. Any last questions for anybody. Okay, well let's move ahead. And again, if questions do come we still have 10 minutes or so that the chat can be a place in space for those to pop up. Let's talk a little bit about what lies ahead. So Marissa I'm going to hand things over to you. Great, thank you. So, as part as I mentioned at the very beginning, my role is the evaluation specialist for SAP so that involves helping individual projects with their evaluation, whether it's survey development, how do they want to evaluate their project overall, but then also in the bigger grand scheme of things, the SAP initiative was funded for two years. And so my role is to see to evaluate the whole initiative. And one of the ways that I've been doing that is through the what I call the SAP partnership project so we can. Thank you. So this was a project that's approved by ABC breb. And ideally what we're studying is what are the impacts of the SAP initiative on the student and faculty and staff partners. What are the benefits and challenges that we've already talked touched on here about partnership work, and then how, if at all, does the SAP initiative contribute to the an enhanced learning experience for students at UBC Vancouver. So the participants have been everyone involved in the partnerships from students to faculty to staff. And what that has looked like is I have met one on one with each person to do a semi structured interview, getting at the challenges and the benefits, what kind of learning experiences they've had. And, but mostly at the heart of it is understanding this partnership because that's very, that's what we see is very unique to SAP. And then on top, in addition to that we do closure reports with each project team so when they're, when they're finished their project, they, they get a written document that they fill out for us which is data that we'll be able to use at the end to to you know how, how is this initiative doing is it, is it meeting the goals that we, that it set out at the very beginning. So, next slide. So just very briefly I know we did talk a lot about challenges and opportunities that have come with the SAP projects, but I really want to highlight. So to date, I've probably done about 30 interviews I would say a lot of faculty, a few staff and then probably about 12 or 13 students. So one of the major benefits that came across all interviews that I've done so far is just the relationships that have been developed through SAP work. So student from student side confidence and working with faculty, creating meaningful relationships with students outside of teaching so a lot of faculty talked and even we heard today, both sung and john talking about these new relationships that they've had with students. So really fostering that outside of the classroom and what that looks like, and then also trying to start breaking down those barriers of power dynamics. We, you know, we work within the institution. And so there's there's only so much work that we can that can be done in such a short time but we like to see it as the very beginning of breaking down these barriers. A couple quotes from a faculty we had everyone has a unique perspective, and I think having an opportunity to share. This is where I'm coming from. This is who I am. I think that's really important. And then a student quote, I think it's just building the skills and the networks, and then extrapolating everything that I learned from that and applying it to my professional and my personal life. Another of the benefits is the skill development so students don't have the opportunity very often to see what goes on behind the scenes of course development so this was a really unique opportunity for students and As Ross and I've mentioned earlier going to conferences, the dissemination fund that SAP offers students has been really helpful in giving students the opportunity to build their CV, get some conference presentations on it. And then learning how to communicate with faculty was another big thing that that came out of the SAP projects. I don't know if these slides are going to be available afterwards because I, do we know. I don't think that's science necessarily but I think there's potentially a recording. Okay, okay. Yeah, so I, you know, as I'll read then these quotes so from a faculty perspective as an educator you get blinders on you forget what it's like to be a student you forget what it means to learn.  So how do you create something that's effective. And the only way to do that I think is feedback from students which is then a common theme throughout a lot of these projects. And then from a student perspective, I think that it just gives me a sense of what this work can look like because I didn't know anything about it. There's lots of postgraduate things that you can do that you'll need to show evidence and have a built CV. So to show that you've done certain types of work have certain soft skills and leadership skills. And I just really thought this was a good opportunity to build these skills. And then briefly I'll just touch on some of the challenges. And again I know we had a lot of discussion around this so time. That's just a very logistical challenge that I think you would seen a lot of partnership work, but as Gail alluded to earlier when you have so many people involved in these projects students who have five courses. It is just hard to find the time and then as Annika mentioned earlier the funding you know there's a lot of work to be done but only so many hours that students are going to be paid for so how do we allocate our time and how do we prioritize things so time was a big factor. And then lastly another challenge that came up was the power dynamics which you know as I said earlier we're really trying to work at breaking down. Coming from this vertical structure to working horizontally. But that is just that is just the way we've been working and operating for years for decades and decades and so just really at the start of that is trying to work on these power dynamics and so not surprisingly this was one of the challenges as well. Thank you Marissa and I know there's lots lots more to come. That's just the tip of the iceberg of all the wonderful work that you've been doing to really understand the impacts and outcomes of this initiative at UBC. So we want to end on a looking forward note of if you would like to apply. So we are coming up to our fourth call for the students as partners in course design grants and so as you've probably gleaned by now there's two funding opportunities available and they are related. So the first is the students as partners in course design grants and so the ideas that we're supporting UBC Vancouver undergraduate students to work in partnership with faculty to redesign undergraduate courses. The sandbox is undergraduate students and undergraduate courses at UBC Vancouver so unfortunately graduate courses or courses at UBC Okanagan aren't eligible at this point. The funding that's available is $7100 per course design or course redesign project and all of that money except $100 must be used to support student partner remuneration. So when I know there's some discussion in the chat about number of partners that's sort of ideal and so really you need to think about perhaps how that $7000 could be distributed across the tasks and the partners so on and so forth. So mission deadline for this upcoming call is June 16 at 3pm and applications are accepted through our website which is SAP.ubc.ca. There's also a dissemination fund which is available to funded students as partners projects so you have to have a funded project in order to be eligible for the dissemination fund and as Rosalind spoke to. Her project team had a chance to go and present at a conference an art education conference in New York with some funding available and so there's $1,000 per project. Not per student partner but per project that is eligible for student partners only to receive reimbursement for their costs associated with attending and presenting their students as partners work at a scholarly conference or event. So that's the funding that's available there. We, Marisa, Polina and I are happy to meet with folks individually if you have questions or considering submitting a proposal we highly encourage you to reach out. Just because we're able to provide specific feedback and guidance around the kinds of things that you might think about in framing your students as partners project. We also encourage you to bring your student partners to that conversation so that they're also folded into and thinking about the proposal work. The best way to reach out to us would be through our email, maybe Marisa or Polina one of you two could put it in the chat. Thank you. And last but not least we just wanted to highlight an upcoming event that we're really looking forward to we have our first students as partners calling it a forum. Really it's a day of in person and or online learning you can join in either method from 10 to 330 on June 6 and we're celebrating and highlighting several funded students as partners projects who will give kind of lightning round presentations of their work. We have an international panel with two folks doing research and students as partners coming in to join us and we have some workshops one on power navigating power dynamics and students as partners work and another one on disseminating students as partners work. That workshop will also highlight the International Journal of Students as Partners and have the editor of that journal come in and speak to opportunities for disseminating work there. If you're interested in learning if that interests you, you can register through our website, which is listed here. And I think we're at 1230, maybe even 1231 so I want to just take this moment to thank everyone for making the time to come I know we're always also busy. So really appreciate you prioritizing this in your schedule. Also really want to thank the panelists we simply couldn't have done this without you and you're again you've all provided such thoughtful and insightful comments so big big thanks to everybody. For for your contributions today. Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of the day.


My name is Anna McMahon, A-N-N-A-M-C-M-A-H-O-N and I'm the Associate Director with Feeding Chitenden. So yeah, we're very exciting. Feeding Chitenden is excited to have the first phase of this expansion done and to be working more closely with CBOEO, our parent organization. The Community Resource Center has been a welcome partner of ours here and has helped a tremendous amount as far as accommodating the folks that are coming in who need obviously food, the meals that we're providing, but also housing assistance. There's so many services that a lot of our community members need when they're coming in beyond food. And this is really, when we say Community Resource Center, it really is a sense, there is a sense of community here. Food brings people together and we're happy to be part of that. We're excited to see where this project grows and yeah, just to be kind of a focal point in the old North End. We've been here. We're actually, Feeding Chitenden is coming up on 50 years. Next year will be 50 years of Feeding Chitenden. So we're excited for this growth and expansion and to see where it goes. Hi, my name is Travis Poulin. I'm the CBOEO Community Action Network Director and part of my job is to work with the Community Resource Center. I just really want to thank all of our partners, Champlain Housing Trust, OEO, the City of Burlington, for helping us make these changes to the Resource Center reality. It's going to allow us to serve more people in a more welcoming environment and that's very much needed right now. Okay. Hi, my name is Adam Hall and I'm the Community Resource Coordinator for Homelessness, the Homelessness Resource Coordinator for CBOEO and I overseen, supervise the Community Resource Center here at the Food Shelf and we're really excited about the renovations being done. We're excited that we're able to finally seat people again. It's been since about April that we had anybody actually sit and eat food. We haven't had the space so we're really excited that that is able to be happening again and the space looks great. It's more comfortable. We've got energy efficient heating and cooling now and we've got a calming wall color that hopefully will be a pleasing place for people to sit and relax, especially for those of our clients who are experiencing homelessness, which is where we focus has had a lot of our energy and efforts. So we're just really excited about it. Also looking forward to phase two when we might get that second story and have a little bit even more space for people but we haven't filled up yet. It's just really only been, you know, a week or so that we've been able to seat people but we expect we'll get pretty full in the winter. So we're looking forward to having a full house and anybody in the community that wants to come by. It's not just for people experiencing homelessness. This is the community resource center. So stop on by. My name is Brenna Badard. I'm one of the homeless outreach services providers here at CVOO. I am so excited about the new space. I think it provides a little piece of home for folks who otherwise would not have a home. It's very hospitable. It's warm. It's inviting and I think that everyone deserves to feel welcome no matter where they are and I think that the space does that.


We're gonna get to all the... benefits of time t, shortly, including... one of the most well known benefits... coughing. But first, let's look at the nutritional values of time t. Now you may have heard that time is high in vitamin K, C and A. Or that it has lots of iron. But unless you're having a full tablespoon of dried time, you're really not getting that much vitamin E goodness. Spoon of dried thyme contains about 39% of your daily recommended needs for vitamin K. But thyme only has 2% of your daily vitamin C, and even less than that for any other vitamins. What's more interesting about thyme is that it has various phytonutrients. Phytonutrients. Phytonutrients. Phytonutrients. According to one study, thyme made it into the top five T's for its antioxidant power. The most important antioxidant though is thyme's primary essential oil, thymol. We're going to be covering more about thymol as we go along, so keep on watching. There have been studies that show how thyme can suppress the anti-inflammatory agent, cox2. Does that sound naughty to anyone or is it just me? Naughty. Comment below. Another great oil in thyme tea is Carvacol. Carvacol. Carvacrol. It's a weird name. Which has been shown to have similar anti-inflammatory properties to Reservatrol. That happy compound that you find in red wine. Carvacol has been shown to help ease anti-inflammatory problems like gout and arthritis. While thyme tea gets most of its recognition for fighting coughs, historically thyme has been used in a variety of ways for its antimicrobial. I can't say anything correctly today. Historically thyme has been used in a variety of ways for its antimicrobial properties. Some people even believe that the name thyme derives from the Greek term meaning to fumigate. The Romans used it against poisons and to cleanse the air. It was also used to combat the black plague of the 1340s. And it was even used to disinfect the air of hospitals before World War I. And the reason simple, thyme is actually a very powerful germ fighter. While the research on thyme tea is more limited, the experts believe that the general benefits of thyme do extend to the tea as well, just in different forms. Have you ever had food poisoning? Several studies have shown how thyme can help against foodborne bacteria like Salmonella and Staphylococcus by both preventing and fighting off infections. There's also studies confirming how thyme is a good food preservative and decontaminant, fighting organisms like Shuggala which can cause bad intestinal damage and Diarrhea. And to top it all off, several studies have shown that thyme can help against various foodborne or airborne forms of mold. Thyme tea's anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties are known to help with stomach bugs, promote digestion, improve liver function, treat intestinal infections, and normalize bowel movements. Thyme does have many benefits for skin, however, big caveat here. Most of them involve using an essential oil or thyme tincture. Well then what does that mean for thyme tea? It means that the benefits for atopic dermatitis and eczema are possible. You probably just won't get the same or as effective results as using a cream or essential oil. However, thyme tea can actually be effective for things like acne due to its antibacterial effect which, according to some studies, comes in stronger than benzoyl peroxide, the active ingredient in many acne creams and washes. Yes, some might find the cream or tincture form of thyme more effective. Thyme tea still can provide some help, especially those who have problems with that direct-to-skin application of products. Okay, it's time to address those coughing issues. I talked about the anti-inflammatory and antibacterial benefits first because it's really both of those things that enables time to be as effective as it is against coughing and other respiratory problems. There have now been multiple studies showing how thyme tea can help with coughing, sore throats, short-term bronchitis, and congestion. There was even a study showing it to be particularly effective at fighting coughs and acute bronchitis when mixed with IV. The German Commission E, Drugs.com, and even the famous University of Maryland Medical Center, all agree that thyme is great for coughs and congestion. I would drop a mic now, but the one my wife owns is really expensive. Yeah, don't even think about it. See? Research has shown that thyme has the ability to slow down beta amyloid. Thanks to Appagenin. Appagy pedigree perigee. Another high-quality component of thyme. So what this really means is that thyme can help delay the onset of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and depression. The improved neural connections encouraged by thyme tea can also help with your memory and focus. There was even research suggesting that thyme could help with neurological conditions like dyslexia. One 2013 study showed that carvacrol can help increase serotonin and dopamine. And if you're new to the dopamine party, it's one of the primary substances that helps boost your mood. This chair is really creaky. This was an animal study, so there is room to discover more. But I still love the idea that thyme tea can get you into the mood to party hardy. Party hardy. Man, I'm getting old. Thought thyme tea's benefits were done? Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me surely. Research shows how thyme can help against common yeast infections like Candida, also known as Thrush. And in some cases, it was found to be effective, even when the prescription medication flukonazole wasn't. There has actually been a plethora of studies recently going into the benefits of thyme for cancer. While they point to thyme and thyme tea being able to help with malignant tumors, breast, and colon cancer, all the evidence so far is just a little too flimsy. At the very least, thyme is probably just going to be another weapon to help you stave off cancer. But if you're expecting it to stop cancer in its tracks, yeah, that's like asking someone to stop a speeding semi-truck. Not gonna happen. Slightly lessen the spread of genital herpes. Probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of thyme tea, but here we go. A 2007 and 2017 study found that thymol, thymol alert, thymol alert. Thymol and thyme tea had significant antiviral potency against herpes simplex too. Experts say it means it can help primarily ease herpes' legions and sores.  But any help it does provide is definitely a good thing. There are lots of other herbal teas out there making the rounds as potential weight loss aids. Thyme tea and its little buddy thymol might very well be one of the best. Research thus far has found that thyme tea could help with hunger levels and a cornucopia of different factors that help with weight loss. These include improving insulin levels, leftin sensitivity, lowering lipid action, reducing fat accumulation, and even some evidence points to it helping boost your metabolism of fat cells as well. When it comes to women, thyme tea can be a bit of a two-headed monster. No, two-sided coin. That makes no sense. Two, uh, edged weapon? I don't know. I'm totally lost now. When it comes to women, thyme tea is a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That works. On one hand, thyme tea is known to ease menstrual cramps and mood swings. On the other hand, it's not recommended during pregnancy, as it's been known to cause miscarriages. However, on the flip side of that, it's often recommended at the end of pregnancy for those looking to encourage labor. How can there be more? This video's been hard enough already. Thyme tea can be great at protecting your oral and dental health, and thyme has often been integrated into toothpaste and mouth washes for this purpose. Need a healthy heart? Brew some thyme tea. People even use thyme tea as a topical wash for wounds and bites. Speaking of bites, thyme has been shown to be an effective deterrent for pests like rats, mosquitoes, and other animals too. In fact, according to the EPA, thyme has been used in various pesticides for this purpose. You can even possibly use thyme tea to help with fibromyalgia, vertigo, high blood pressure, shingles, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, and even my personal favorite problem, tinnitus or tinnitus. However you want to say it.  So I guess I just need more time to eat. According to the FDA, thyme is considered generally safe for use. But just like any herb, there are some side effects that might affect certain folks, like those with migraines, as carvacrol and thymol have been listed as possible triggers for migraines. Some people have also been known to experience nausea, heartburn, diarrhea, or vomiting. But this is primarily those people who are actually allergic to thyme or other members of the lamea CE family. Other than that, I already mentioned the pregnancy problems, so you should be good to go. Dried thyme leaves are fine to drink, but the process that the herbs go through to make those little jars you find in the grocery store don't make them very palatable for drinking. Instead, you'll want to find dried thyme leaves from a tea distributor, make it yourself, or just do several fresh springs of clean thyme. If you're taking the thyme off the plant yourself, you want to remove the leaves from the woody stems. If the stems are green, you can actually put that in the tea. After that, brew it at five to eight minutes of boiling, or a little longer if you like it stronger. And while you're enjoying your thyme tea, you can watch this video to learn more about thyme. Be kind, take care of each other, and have the time of your life. Thyme tea, that is. Thyme puns are just too easy.


YouTube team keep it clean. What's going on the same grave in here with another video and in this video? You already know when we throw on this shirt. We got to talk some business We got to talk some business and we got two things that we want to talk about today The first well actually three things because the first will be this shirt because it's this thing getting smaller and smaller Every time I put it on I'm like man. I feel like it's a part of my skin or something But that's a that's what that quarantine did me the quarantine God got me cooking and cooking and cooking eating eating eating, but anyway Team keep it clean. I got to start to turn in the team keep it lean, but anyway We did the video a few days ago Where Roger Goodell? He sent out the memo to every NFL team saying that they could reopen their facility as of Tuesday, which is tomorrow or well from when I'm recording this video and The facilities would be able to hold a maximum of 75 people And if anybody got sick, you would have to let them know if anybody had a high temperature You would have to let them know you would also have to take an assessment By Monday and once you completed that assessment then hey, you will be good to go Of course, you would have had to have the facility cleaned and all that good stuff but of course that the biggest thing that they said in that memo was that if you were gonna be reopening then Whatever state your facility was located in then You would have to be in accordance with whatever rules and regulations. They're putting in place So if your state said hey, y'all are good to go you could reopen if your state said hey, y'all are not good to go Then you can't reopen so with the Ravens They are one of the states where the governor said no, they're not essential. They're not good to go yet so the Ravens will not be Reopening right away and I hope nobody is distraught about this messed up about it I mean, it's gonna be some more teams that don't reopen tomorrow So me I don't really think it's a big deal and hey if if the state not fully open yet, okay, it's not like it's Better to be safe than sorry and again you me personally I don't want to be in one of the first batches of people that go out there With the whole thing going on or like and I've been telling you all that from from jump Like once things do start opening up ain't anybody like oh, yeah, I gotta be the first to get there Oh, I gotta be the first to do it. Oh, I gotta be the first to get out there. I It ain't that serious The wherever you trying to go whether to the beach whether to the store whether to the mall whether to this whether to that It ain't going away. It'll be then a week or two or three. It'll be there But I just never really cared to be one of the first ones. Oh, I gotta get there So with the Ravens, they'll be fine. You just got to wait a little bit longer Until Marilyn opens up even more Now we did start to get some news on some other states with their sports and again, I Never thought that we wouldn't have a football season now The one thing I do question and I continue the question is if there will be fans in attendance or not so With Texas in California the updates with those states Governor Greg Abbott from Texas. He said that professional sports without fans in the state of Texas can reopen on May 31st So that's that's that's big professional sports NBA NFL baseball Hagi Whatever they can reopen on May 31st first, but with no fans in the stands So, okay, and then the governor of California Gavin Newsom said professional sports without fans in the state of California They can reopen the first week of June So that's big That's very big Because one of the biggest stories that a lot of people have questioned It's been when are we gonna get sports back? When is that gonna happen? and I don't even think people are have been questioning and questioning it in a selfish manner, but they just really want to know because Sports can be something Well, yeah, it is entertainment It's entertainment, but it's it's fun entertainment It gives you a nice little break from anything that might be going on It gives you you get to chill for a little bit you get to relax and or what Ravens? I mean with a lot of NFL you just you don't get to relax at all They they don't let you relax a lot of time even though last year last year was a lot more relaxed than um Then a lot of years It was a lot more relaxed Because they did a lot of blowouts and stuff But 49ers game that wasn't really but y'all get what I mean but um a lot of people wondered like man, are we gonna have sports this year and Now we're getting the answers to some of those questions But it's just gonna be different and I mean for some of y'all who are fans of um of Wrestling you have seen you seen that Where wrestling has still gone that show has still gone on Vince McMahon said oh what corona you ain't stopping my shine, baby. Oh, no We the shows must go on So he's been he's been doing this. This ain't been nothing for him and a WWE and AEW they they have continued to run shows without fans It's been empty arenas for now AEW what they did they started using their own wrestlers as fans and that that helped out a bunch Because if you whether you grew up watching wrestling if you still watch it recently Hearing wrestlers without fans without without a crowd. It's just it's sad. It's sad to watch So imagine NFL Without fans. Oh, that's like that's the scary almost scary to think about So whatever NFL does we gonna see But it seems like we're starting to get some questions answered We don't have the full answer of these all these questions yet But we're starting to get a little piece by piece again with Texas in California. I'm really starting this whole thing off So I'm sure especially being down here in South Florida, you know Florida They they gonna come with some wild man.  So anyway Um, if you are overly concerned or upset. Oh man Ravens aren't opening yet. It's fine It's fine. It's gonna be a process and again You're gonna hear this news about other NFL teams too, but Ravens they just putting stuff on hold for time being It's not a big deal. It's not a bad thing. It's not an issue They just got to wait until the governor says they're good to go But until the governor says that Their status with being in the facility. Well, it'll be the opposite of them being in cuz They'll be out