CTLT Indigenous Initiatives is pleased to welcome Keirra Webb.
Keirra will be taking on two new roles as an embedded Faculty of Arts position with Indigenous Initiatives as Place and Power, Project Coordinator; she also will work with HR Workplace Learning and Engagement as Educational Program Coordinator, Indigenous Learning Pathways Project.
The purpose of her dual role is to locate and provide recommendations for implementation and infrastructure creation around Indigenous-focused curricula for students, staff, and faculty at the University. Her work shares an awareness of the power of conversation in creating supportive campus climates, and locates Indigenous representation and Indigenous curriculum as central to this process.
Three fun facts: 
- I try to swim in the ocean weekly, although in the winter it’s more of a dunk and a quick scurry back to shore.
- I’ve been carving out more time for painting lately and am using my great-grandmother’s easel—I never met her, but I’ve covered the walls of my new apartment with her work.
- I adopted the cliché Covid hobby of bread-making and my sourdough starter is named Sam. There’s already a list of II-colleagues who would like their own propagated ‘babies’ to share in the breadmaking process.
What are some of the things you have started working on in your new role? And what are some of the areas you are looking forward to exploring?
I’m walking into this new role with a feeling of deep gratitude for my Indigenous Initiatives colleagues and friends. Erin, Amy, Hannah, and Kyle were some of the many hands who advocated for the creation of two new positions to extend my time with the team after my Work/Learn wrapped up in late August. I’m honoured to continue learning from and weaving together the stories shared with us in the What I Learned in Class Today project as we create a film and article series exploring Indigenous student experiences on campus.
This process of attending to story and student experiences is closely related to the work I will be doing with the Faculty of Arts in conducting an environmental scan to support infrastructure around the new Place and Power BA breadth requirements. At the heart of this requirement revamp, is the importance of attending to the long histories of the unceded Indigenous lands of so-called British Columbia and inviting students to question how their positionalities influence their relationships to place, to one another, and to the Musqueam people on whose territories UBC-Vancouver sits. I look forward to continue walking on this path of learning and community building in my work on this project as well as the Indigenous Learning Pathways project.
What excited you about joining this team/working on these projects?
As the end date to my student position was approaching after almost two-years of growth with the Indigenous Initiatives team, I knew that I still had so much more to learn and give to this teaching and learning community. I was excited to work on three distinct yet interconnected projects: the development of student support structures with the WILICT project, the creation of place-based content for staff new to UBC with the Indigenous Learning Pathways project, and the potential to deepen future BA students’ experiences by supporting the Place and Power project. I couldn’t be happier to spend the next few months listening to and learning from the stories and people whose passion and profound effort has nourished these projects.
Carousel Image by Joel Naren