UofT Tri-Campus Food Symposium

Speakers

• 

  Chris Ramsaroop

  Assistant Professor, UofT New College

  Chris Ramsaroop is an organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers. He is also an instructor in the Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto and a clinic instructor at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law.   
  Ramsaroop is working to complete his PhD at OISE/University of Toronto and is also the Coordinator for Community- Engaged Learning at New College, University of Toronto. 

• 

  Danielle Kwan-Lafond

  Assistant Professor, UTSC Sociology; Indigenous Garden Manager, UTSC Farm

  Professor Dani Kwan-Lafond is a mixed-race woman born in Treaty 4 territory (Saskatchewan) who has lived in Tkaronto (Toronto) for many years. She is a former social worker, a former high-school leaver, and someone with lived experience as a social service client; these experiences continue to inform her teaching practice and commitment to non-traditional, decolonized and anti-racist approaches to teaching and learning. Professor Kwan-Lafond’s teaching and research interests include social inequality, Indigenous studies, race/racism, youth studies, and the sociology of education. Her approach to teaching and learning is informed by UDL (universal design in learning), trauma-informed approaches to teaching Indigenous content, and a focus on reflexivity and self-reflection for students. She is committed to the meaningful inclusion of communities in the classroom (‘nothing about us without us’), and her courses often involve guests, collaborators and/or hands-on activities that enhance students’ understandings of difficult material. Professor Kwan-Lafond also works with Indigenous students and teachers at TEC University in Costa Rica, where she has traveled with students from Canada to do land-based learning with Indigenous communities. She was formerly the Coordinator of the Indigenous Studies certificate program at Centennial College, where she helped create a free online eTextbook available to all learners in Canada. Her PhD dissertation involves participatory research with first-generation Canadian youth in a large suburban high school, and is focused on parental involvement, post-secondary pathways, and notions of success for first-generation youth. Her PhD work was supported by the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

• 

  Isaac Crosby

  Indigenous Agriculturalist & Knowledge Keeper, UTSC Campus Farm; Trinity Food Systems Lab; Crosby Gitigaan

  Isaac Crosby also known as Brother Nature is a Black/Ojibwa agricultural expert with a passion for teaching and sharing his knowledge of Indigenous food systems. Isaac is part of a large family from the Ojibwas of Anderdon, a pre-confederation band of mixed Black/Indigenous people living near Windsor, ON. Isaac learned to farm and grow food with his grandparents and community, and has also formally trained in landscape agriculture. Isaac's work can be found across the city, where he has planted many Indigenous gardens with schools and community groups. He has also been the garden expert on CBC Fresh Air. He was the lead indigenous gardener and programer at Evergreen Brick Works for several years, and Since 2020, he has been the community partner for the Campus Farm at UTSC where he mentors students and Indigenous youth, designs and maintains Indigenous food and medicine gardens, and teaches workshops. He looks forward to sharing his knowledge with the Food Systems Lab Team and students.

• 

  Jaclyn Rohel

  Post Doctoral Fellow, UTSC

  Jaclyn Rohel is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto Scarborough, where she works with the Sustainable Food and Farming Futures Research Cluster and the Feeding City Lab. Jaclyn brings an applied interdisciplinary approach to her work on urban food provisioning. She has contributed to Feeding City since 2020, jointly leading research, knowledge mobilization, and pedagogical activities in areas such as food access and community supports, markets, and public food culture. She is also a member of Gastronomica’s Editorial Collective and produces and co-hosts the Gastronomica podcast series on the Heritage Radio Network. Jackie has a PhD in Food Studies from New York University and has held fellowships in community-engaged research and new media at the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto.

• 

  Kaitlin Rizarri

  Doctoral Student, OISE, Social Justice Education

  Kaitlin Rizarri is a Visayan Filipina and Ktaqmkukeweq Mi'kmaw community farmer based in Tkaronto. She farms with Tkaronto Plant Life, an Indigenous youth-led small-scale farm, where she grows food and medicines for community. She is also a doctoral student at the University of Toronto in Social Justice Education, where her research is within food sovereignty in Tkaronto and cities. 

• 

  Luke Daccord

  President of CUPE 3261, Union for University of Toronto Workers

  Luke Daccord is the President of the union CUPE 3261 which represents services workers all over the University of Toronto in more than 100 buildings. This includes some of the University’s chefs, sous chefs, cooks, servers, and cafeteria workers, among others. As we all know, campus foodservice workers are an essential part of our university community and CUPE works to stand up on behalf of good, stable jobs. The bargaining units (full-time part-time, casual, and 89 Chestnut) requested from the University of Toronto Director of Labour relations that all three units negotiate together at the same table. This request was refused by the director, but this process of pursuing unified bargaining is still ongoing and still a priority for the union. 

• 

  Miriam Streiman

  Chef & Educator; MEd Student, Community Development and Leadership, OISE
• 

  Michael Classens

  Assistant Professor, School of the Environment, UofT

  Michael Classens is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. His research predominantly focuses on food systems within the context of social and environmental justice. Michael is also the Professor for the new undergraduate/graduate course ‘The Edible Campus’ which the Tri-Campus Food Symposium was created through. Additionally, he is currently co-leading the food system research  stream of the Youth Climate Action in Toronto project in partnership with the City of Toronto government. 

• 

  Samuel Wong

  Indigenous Harvest Worker, The Stop

  Sam Wong (he/they) is a Métis (family roots in Calahoo AB) -Chinese-Acadian young person from Ottawa who is passionate about transforming the current food system. He currently lives and works in Toronto at The Stop community food centre as an Indigenous Harvest Worker. Sam has also helped support the Humber River lodge, specifically with the restoration of native species of plants in the river valley. This past year Sam also served as a youth representative on Toronto’s Indigenous Climate Action Grant. Sam’s thinking and work revolves around the localization of the economy through education and community involvement.

  Presenting: Decolonizing Food Studies

• 

  Stephanie Chartrand

  MA Student, Leadership, Higher, and Adult Education, OISE

  Stephanie is an MA student in the Department of Leadership, Higher & Adult Education studying Adult Education and Community Development. She holds a BA in Political Science from Lakehead University and an Honours Bachelor of Community Development from Humber College. She is currently the Vice President Internal for the LHAE Departmental Student Association. She is also an Infinite Reach Facilitator which is a program that supports Métis students within post-secondary while also hosting cultural workshops for the broader university community. Her research interests include understanding the social economy, pedagogy of food, and Indigenous community organizing; in particular around food initiatives.