In 2023-24 the LA&PS community continued to develop a culture of diversity and inclusion through knowledge sharing and training. This year, in partnership with YouthREX, we worked with staff across the Faculty, many who are the first to welcome the LA&PS community into our inclusive learning environment, and delivered the Centering Black Youth Wellbeing certification course to all employees in the Faculty with a 90% completion rate. 

Employees across the Faculty have also completed the Respect, Equity, Diversity, Decolonization & Inclusion (REDDI) certification, offered in partnership with Centre for Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion (CHREI), to develop knowledge on topics such as microaggression in the workplace, positive space, ableism, employment equity principles, diversity, inclusion and anti-racism.

As part of the Faculty’s commitment to well-being, we ensure academic units are staffed with Certified First Aiders and Emergency Response Wardens, and that Annual Health and Safety Workplace Inspections are timely completed. This also includes the completion and maintenance of required trainings such as the Healthy and Safety Orientation, Workplace Hazards Materials Information System (WHMIS) 1, and Workplace Harassment and Violence for Faculty and Staff, and more.

In partnership with York International, LA&PS ran the Effective Intercultural Communications course for all student ambassadors and peer mentors that work with international students to enhance their communication skills and commitment to service excellency.

In an effort to increase accountability across all LA&PS academic and non-academic units, LA&PS contracted an Equity Firm to audit and complete a report on our staffing composition. The results of the report are under review by the leadership team and recommendations will be actioned across the Faculty.

With a focus on service excellence, the Academic Process team has been working across the Faculty in conjunction with various departments to create new processes and tools to enhance working at LA&PS. In collaboration with York University’s University Services Centre, this year we saw the launch of eReports with additional training initiatives for staff, updated recruitment tools to enhance Diversity, Equity and Inclusion principles, and the development and refinement of the Finance Dashboard.

This year’s LA&PS Research to Impact Workshop Series delivered training on Confronting Online Hate and Harassment of Academic Researchers, where researchers, including graduate students, discussed their insights and efforts to respond to the phenomenon of the abuse directed at researchers, disproportionately targeting female, racialized, transgendered and other marginalized researchers across academic disciplines.

Another positive initiative includes the optional participation in an Independent Development Plan (IDP) for all staff across the Faculty. The IDP is designed to help staff thrive in their areas of interest and develop skills related to their career goals. The result of retaining and developing staff ensures greater client-focused service delivery and service excellence to students, while fostering a culture of high-performance and satisfaction.

Each year we support President’s Awards nominations recognizing the excellent student services our staff work tirelessly to provide to our community. This year’s President’s Voice of York Award was given to Jlenya Sarra-DeMeo, Graduate Program Administrator in the Department of Politics. This award is given to administrative staff who go above and beyond to provide assistance to our community in a manner that exemplifies York’s values, and show outstanding compassion and professionalism, particularly in handling difficult or sensitive situations.

Several new professional development workshops were offered to our academic leaders this year including Active Bystander training and a Difficult Conversations course.

This year, the Operations team worked closely with LA&PS staff to support the delivery of the Becoming YU program, which provides LA&PS Work Study Students a rewarding and enriching earn and learn experience within the Faculty.

In an effort to support the needs of our academic units’ diverse communities comprised of students, staff, researchers and faculty, the Operations team worked with various partners to advance the Faculty’s service excellence objectives. Some of these projects include supporting the Academic Advising team with the implementation of the new cluster advising model, the Academic Process team on facilitating trainings and workshops, and the eServices team on data drive migrations.