Endorsed by UBC’s leadership, the Strategic Equity and Anti-Racism (StEAR) Framework guides the university’s approach to implementation of equity and anti-racism priorities and evaluation of progress.
Introduced in 2023 by the Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion (AVPEI), the StEAR Framework is a community-engaged, data-informed, action-oriented and accountability-driven planning tool developed to guide the implementation of equity and anti-racism priorities and the cyclical evaluation of progress over the next three to five years.
The framework is built around four broad institutional domains of change – structural, curricular, compositional and interactional – and six principles of practice. Using the framework, the Equity & Inclusion Office (EIO) reviewed UBC’s existing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI)-related plans and reports to identify salient objectives and strategic actions that constitute the StEAR Roadmap for Change.
A StEAR governance model provides an accountability structure and establishes lines of communication, consultation, and engagement with Equity Leads, EDI champions, and HPSM community groups.
Additionally, efforts will be made to build the competencies and capacities of leaders to act as change agents, to develop reporting and accountability mechanisms, and to establish quantitative and qualitative measures and methods to track progress.
In support of the inclusion theme in Shaping UBC’s Next Century: UBC’s Strategic Plan, the university has committed to addressing the priorities articulated in the following plans and reports:
The StEAR framework guides UBC’s systematic implementation of these equity and anti-racism priorities and the cyclical evaluation of progress over the next three to five years.
The Indigenous Strategic Plan (ISP) Guiding Network is responsible for facilitating the implementation of the ISP, which “provides thoughtful guidance for action and a framework for reconciliation”. The StEAR framework is meant to complement, not compete with, the ISP, which is the university’s organizing framework to advance priorities related to Indigenous rights, decolonization, and reconciliation.
In collaboration with Indigenous leads, mutually beneficial mechanisms for communication, consultation, collaboration, and coalition-building across the StEAR and ISP frameworks will be in place to ensure that equity and anti-racism priorities relevant to Indigenous students, faculty, and staff are appropriately addressed and/or referred to in the StEAR framework.
Structural change: to develop institutional principles, paradigms, and processes that build organizational capacity to enable, drive, and sustain systems change through equitable and anti-racist leadership, governance, and accountability.
Curricular change: to promote locally and globally relevant and responsive ways of learning, knowing, and translating knowledge through equitable and anti-racist teaching, research, and community-engagement programs and pedagogies.
Compositional change: to expand the representational diversity of the student body, professoriate, staff complement, and senior leadership and enhance lifecycle experiences of historically, persistently and systemically marginalized (HPSM) groups through equitable and anti-racist recruitment, development, and retention policies and practice.
Interactional change: to develop individual proficiencies that build campus community capacity to foster positive and effective intergroup relations and cultivate a climate that promotes human rights, dignity, equality, and belonging through equity and anti-racism training, education, and dialogue.
1. Recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and respect for self-determination: implementing equity and anti-racism plans in a manner that complements and elevates, but does not subsume, Indigenous-led plans;
2. Race-consciousness in the pursuit of equity and inclusive excellence: centering anti-racism in an intersectional anti-oppressive framework to address deeply imbedded institutional racism and systemic inequities;
3. Meaningful and ethical community engagement: ensuring ongoing consultation with, transparent communication to, and meaningful recognition of contributions of historically, persistently, or systemically marginalized groups;
4. Networked leadership and coordinated de-centralization: cultivating a collaborative network of cross-campus equity champions working in communities of practice to advance unit-level and university priorities;
5. Accountability through collective responsibility and leadership ownership: demonstrating senior-level endorsement of and investment in strategic initiatives to mobilize and sustain campus-wide ownership and action towards systems change;
6. Data-informed decision-making and continuous improvement: undertaking assessment, evaluation, and research and leveraging qualitative and quantitative data to inform cyclical strategic planning processes.
The StEAR Roadmap for Change sets out 18 salient objectives and numerous strategic actions as part of the StEAR framework, to be implemented over the next three to five years.
As a living document, the roadmap will be updated to reflect new plans and reports as well as signal progress on strategic actions. Implementation sponsors, leads, and partners have been identified for each strategic action, and will be included in subsequent versions of the roadmap.
Explore the objectives and strategic actions for each of the domains of change below or review it as a PDF.
