Workshops and Events

The Planning Inclusive Educational Events workshop equips staff, faculty, and learners with practical inclusion considerations for event planning across academic, clinical, and research settings. Drawing from the Inclusive Educational Events Planning Guide, participants will explore strategies to create more accessible and inclusive events.

By facilitating a live, interactive program with practical examples on using key concepts from the guide, the Office of Inclusion and Diversity and its collaborators aim to promote skills development among participants by enhancing the way they incorporate access, inclusion and belonging in educational event settings. Participants will understand that inclusive events can increase event relevance, event attendance and participation, and meaningful event feedback.

Objectives and Outcomes: 

After completing this workshop, participants will be able to:  

1. Recognize and describe key inclusion considerations related to educational event planning and implementation based on the Office of Inclusion and Diversity’s Inclusive Educational Events Planning Guide, such as: 
   • Selecting diverse speakers 
   • Avoiding tokenism  
   • Cultivating social safety 
   • Embedding accessibility and disability inclusion.  
2. Demonstrate best practices in inclusive event planning processes through interactive learning activities. 

Presenters:

Saba Khan is the Manager of the Office of Inclusion and Diversity at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. In this role, she leads planning and oversight of key strategic and operational initiatives aimed at advancing equity, diversity, inclusion and social accountability within Temerty Medicine’s learning and working environments, using collaborative and culturally safer approaches. Prior to joining Temerty Medicine in 2023, Saba led cross-functional teams and worked with diverse and global community partners across the public sector at organizations including ICES, Dignitas International, the Ontario Ministry of Health, and the Ontario Anti-Racism Directorate. Saba holds an MPH in Epidemiology from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Outside of Temerty Medicine, she serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Health Nexus, a non-profit organization which supports health promotion and knowledge mobilization in the reproductive, infant and early years space. 

Corrine Bent-Womack is the EDI Advisor at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. She is a PhD candidate in Leadership, Higher and Adult Education at OISE, where her dissertation examines the experiences of Black women in experiential education through an intersectional, critical race feminist framework. She holds a Master's degree in Higher Education from OISE and has published journal articles and a book chapter on equity-deserving groups in higher education. Corrine brings expertise in facilitating difficult conversations around race and equity, designing anti-racist pedagogical practices, and building institutional capacity for transformative change. She co-chairs the Advancement, Mentorship and Accountability Committee within the Black Executive Leadership Advisory Committee (BLAC) at U of T, and co-founded and co-chairs the National Community of Care for Education Developers in Canada. She uses her scholarship, leadership, and lived experiences to advance justice and belonging in higher education.

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This webinar offers a critical overview of how Islamophobia, including gendered Islamophobia, manifests within clinical, educational, and academic settings. Through shared insights and real-world examples, participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own environments and experiences. The session will also introduce practical strategies for recognizing and addressing Islamophobia at both individual and institutional levels, from everyday interactions to policies and institutional practices.

Learning Objectives:

1. Define Islamophobia, including gendered Islamophobia and share its historical and social context

2. Recognize biases and discriminatory practices in society and academic/healthcare settings that perpetuates harmful stereotypes of Muslim patients, colleagues, and learners

3. Appraise one's own biases about religious groups and question how they may impact patient care or conduct with learners and colleagues

4. Discuss strategies to identify and challenge Islamophobic practices in health care to foster a safe environment for Muslim patients, colleagues, and learners

Presenters:

Dr. Kashmala Qasim is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wilson Centre. She completed her PhD in History, Theory, and Critical Psychology at York University, where her dissertation examined how Qur’anic learning influences Muslim women’s empowerment, well-being, and identity using a Standpoint Feminist framework. Her research blends community-based inquiry, psycho-educational workshops, and pastoral counselling experience. She has also completed Islamic Studies at Al Huda Institute and a Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Methodology at the University of Toronto. Under the supervision of Drs. Cynthia Whitehead and Umberin Najeeb, she is conducting research on the role and impact of Islamophobia in medical education and healthcare settings.

Dr. Umberin Najeeb is an Associate Professor of Medicine and a staff internist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She is the Vice Chair Culture and Inclusion and Co-Director of the Master Teacher Program in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is a Clinician Educator whose scholarly work focuses on supporting the transition and integration of Internationally Educated Health Professionals and advancing health professions education, particularly in curriculum design, faculty development, and mentorship. She developed and implemented a unique research-based longitudinal collaborative mentorship program for international medical graduates (IMGs) physicians and is the Faculty Lead for IMGs/IFTs Mentorship program. She teaches around the constructs of equity, diversity, inclusion, and allyship at undergraduate, postgraduate, and faculty development levels and contributes to research and policy work related to social justice and EDI in medical education. Her contributions have been recognized through multiple teaching, education and mentorship awards at local, provincial, and national levels. She uses her voice and lived experiences to be an ally in her many roles.

The goal of this workshop is to help attendees:

1. Identify how the concepts of equity and social justice apply to the context of Jewish patients and colleagues.

2. Recognize the historical and current reproductive nature of marginalization of Jews in medical and educational institutions.

3. Appraise biases about Jews and question how they may impact patient care or conduct with colleagues.

4. Develop strategies to identify and challenge antisemitic language and policy in health care and in society in order to foster a safer environment for Jewish patients and colleagues.

Presenters:

Dr. Ariel Lefkowitz is an Internal Medicine physician and the Education Lead for the Division of General Internal Medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and is the lead for novel educational sessions at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine on Religious Discrimination in Health Care and on Lessons for Physicians from the Holocaust. His scholarly interests include ethics, equity, professionalism, and narrative medicine in medical education.

Dr. Joanna Krongold is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow investigating antisemitism in health professions education at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity, the Wilson Centre, and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. Her work explores Holocaust literature, memory, and pedagogy; antisemitism and social justice-oriented education; and experiential learning. She has taught at many levels in both university- and community-based settings, and her scholarly monograph is forthcoming from Bloomsbury.