Increasingly, educators, administrators, and students are taking note of the urgent need for educational institutions to lead transformational change, and many are noting the centrality of the SDGs to these change processes. In this session, we will hear from sustainability leaders in the education sector describe what they are doing, how they are successful, and why these efforts are needed.

Presenters reflect on the educational process and the role of the sector from their perspectives and highlight some of the challenges and opportunities that they have faced in promoting the SDGs as a framework for transformational change in academic settings, and in engaging with diversity, equity and inclusion in relation to the 2030 Agenda.

The speakers include experienced educators and students affiliated with BCCIC GECCO, Pillar Non-Profit Network, ReImagine17 and the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Moderator:

• Dr. Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki-Gruber is the Policy Director and Gender Specialist at the British Columbia Council for International Cooperation (BCCIC).
  
  Informed by her doctorate in International Development Studies (University of Oxford, 2007), Zosa has worked for a wide range of United Nations and international non-governmental organizations and their local partners, on projects that seek to prevent or respond to the sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking of children and women in South East Europe, Central Asia, West Africa and Southern Africa. Zosa is also an Executive Board member of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan) and is a member of Digna’s (Canadian Centre of expertise on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) Advisory Committee.
  
  Zosa was an Associate Professor in Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg for several years and believes strongly in the role that academic institutions can play in promoting global citizenship and supporting students as ‘agents of change’ to accelerate the 2030 Agenda.

Speakers:

• Rosalind Warner has nearly 30 years of experience teaching and researching in the areas of international development, global environmental politics and Canadian international policy. She is the Contributing Editor of two books on Canadian Foreign Policy. As an educator and researcher, she has been motivated to advance environmental, social, and governance objectives in her professional and volunteer work. She is involved in a leadership role in local environmental groups, including the Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council, the Okanagan Climate Hub, and Citizens’ Climate Lobby Okanagan Chapter. She is also a Research Fellow with the Earth System Governance Research Program, and a Board member of the Canadian Environmental Network and BCCIC.
  For more please visit rozwarner.com, or follow her on Twitter @rwarner23.

• Luis Patricio has been working with the UN Sustainable Development Goals since 2018. Luis was the lead researcher of a community-oriented project to translate the global goals to a Canadian context at the local level. Currently, Luis is one of the co-leads of the SDG Cities program that provides direct support to organizations to understand and align with the SDGs, represents the Pillar NonProfit Network and is a part-time teacher at Huron University College using the SDGs as the main framework to teach environmental stewardship. Luis holds an M.A. in Urban Management and he is now pursuing a Ph.T. researching Urban Literacy.
   
• Kshamta Hunter is a PhD candidate and a sessional instructor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Kshamta’s research explores the intersections of sustainability learning and leadership, using Transformative Learning and social innovation frameworks. She is interested in exploring and designing a comprehensive, responsive and relevant integrative curriculum and pedagogical approaches for the 21st century, through understanding the development of competencies for innovation toward sustainability. She holds a master's in sustainability curriculum and pedagogy and is the Manager of Sustainability Engagement with the UBC Sustainability Hub, where she is able to shape a lot of her research ideas into practice. She is the co-chair of publications for the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies and sits on the editorial advisory board for the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies.
   
• Anjali Mishra is an undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia and Co-Founder of ReImagine17. Weeks into her undergraduate degree, Anjali was cutting class to road-trip across BC to engage communities on sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals. This transformed into co-authoring policy briefs on Canadian SDG implementation, advocating for intergenerational equity in sustainable development at the United Nations, creating a student directed seminar on the SDGs, and supporting UBC’s first-ever SDG week. Believing collaboration is a powerful tool for change, her UBC sustainability organizing transformed into co-founding the youth-led not-for-profit, ReImagine17, which works to amplify youth action and reimagine progress towards sustainable development.