VIU Campus

Equity, diversity and inclusion

Vancouver Island University serves a diverse community of learners. We support a total population of 12,600 including more than 2000 international students and over 1,500 Indigenous students. More than half of these students are "non-traditional" learners, meaning they are over 25.

Along with cultural, experience and age differences, our students come to us with a wide range of talents and abilities. A complicating factor is that people belong to many groups. Individual people may self-identify in one or more of these groups. The diversity of our student body has implications for learning, and the way we interact with our students, face to face and online.

Designing your course for equity goes a long way to help all students learn. Designing for equity means giving all students the same opportunities to be successful, even if that means creating special access for some students. Equitable learning experiences are not equal (or identical). Instead, you can focus on how students can meet the learning outcomes of your course. There are often multiple ways a student can demonstrate what they have learned. By focusing on learning outcomes, we can make learning more successful for all students.

The following paragraphs are very general. They are an overview and not a reflection of the reality of any individual student.

Indigenous students

Situated on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples, VIU is fortunate to host a large number of Indigenous students. Indigenous students make up over 13% of our students and are thus a significant population to think about when creating your courses. VIU's Office of Indigenous Education and Engagement (OIEE) provides support for students at VIU. You can connect with them at Indigenous@viu.ca.

Students come to VIU with varied experiences with education, including experiences of trauma. Indigenous students may have a more complex relationship to institutions like VIU than their peers. There is a long history of education used as a colonizing force in Canada that continues to impact Indigenous people today. Learning this history is an important part of Truth and Reconciliation. No matter how much you know or don't know, there are a lot of resources available.

There is no single teaching strategy that will work for all Indigenous students. Like every student in your class, each Indigenous student has their own context and set of needs. Some things you can do in your course to support your Indigenous students are:

  • include Indigenous authors and knowledge keepers when selecting course materials

  • make acknowledging territory part of your regular practice

  • invite an Elder to your class

  • build your course with flexibility in mind so students who need to miss class for cultural or community reasons aren't left behind

  • adopt Universal Design practices that offer students flexibility in how they demonstrate learning

For more ideas on how to help Indigenous students thrive in your courses, you can reach out to OIEE at Indigenous@viu.ca or book a one on one consultation with CIEL.

Inviting Elders

Elders do important work at VIU. This includes supporting students by providing counseling and guidance. They are also active in classroom instruction, teaching traditional protocols and cross-cultural sharing. You can invite an Elder to your class to discuss Indigenous protocol and to foster cross-cultural sharing. The OIEE website has information on how to extend an invitation to an Elder.

When planning to include an Elder in your class, please work with the staff in the Office of Indigenous Education and Engagement unless you are already working with an Elder.  Elders are open to being contacted directly, but if you have any further questions or you need assistance connecting with them, please feel free to contact Aboriginal Education and Engagement.

Work with Elders is relational and should not be last minute. You should always ensure you are planning well in advance so that OIEE has time to facilitate your request in a good way.

Map of Vancouver Island Indigenous Nations

International students

International students come from a variety of cultural backgrounds. They bring different perspectives on education based on the context of their prior learning. Rather than assuming a student will or won't know, you can help both international and domestic students by:

  • having strong learning outcomes for your course

  • building time to develop skills required for your course, such as reflective writing or voicing opinions in a discussion

  • using formative assessment to guide this development

  • explaining why you're asking students to do an activity or assessment by linking back to your learning outcomes

  • setting clear expectations, especially around citation requirements for your discipline

  • providing more than one way for students to demonstrate their learning

  • writing instructions in clear language without jargon

Keep in mind that English is not the first language of many of our students. Many of our international and domestic students speak, read and write in several languages. Clear and simple language can help these students understand your expectations. Accessibility features like captions on videos and extra time to complete reading and writing tasks can also be helpful.

In 2023, one of VIU's international students, Becky Duarte, shared her experience as a first year student coming to Nanaimo. You can read her post 5 things that surprised be about Vancouver Island University on the VIU blog.

The Faculty of International Education and CIEL collaborated some years ago to capture international students' experiences at VIU. We interviewed four international VIU students. These students came to Canada from China, France and Kenya. We asked them to reflect on the differences in education between their home country and VIU. They shared positive experiences as well as challenges they've faced and ways their instructors helped them. We are pleased to be able to share the results with you!


Open What helps me learn playlist in a new window

Students with disabilities

Equity is the principle underlying our duty to accommodate students with disabilities. Accommodations allow students with different needs to access the same learning as their peers. Students registered with VIU's Accessibility Services will give you an accommodation letter. These letters describe specific accommodations you must provide for that student.

Accommodations help ensure all students have the opportunity to meet the learning outcomes for your course. There are many course design elements that benefit all students and can included in your course from day one.

  • allow students opportunities to show you what they know in multiple ways

  • use clear language

  • make sure videos have accurate captions

  • when adding images or diagrams, make sure you have a text description available

  • remove time limits for quizzes so students can focus on what they know rather than their speed

  • when designing activities consider mobility and other access needs

Read more about building accessible course materials.

An example

A student with dyslexia is as capable of meeting your course learning outcomes as any other students. But when taking a timed test, dyslexia can make it impossible for the student to show what they know. Even if the student understands all the content and how to apply it properly, they may run out of time or have to rush through their responses. A timed test in this case does not measure knowledge or understanding--it measures reading speed and the student’s levels of anxiety.

Giving more (or even unlimited) time for the test allows everyone to show what they have learned, not their ability for reading quickly. Time limits on tests are often used as a substitute for rigorous question design to guard against cheating. However, there are better ways to achieve this that don't introduce barriers while still meeting course learning outcomes.

Open book exams mirror the real world experiences students will have once they leave your course. If students have access to their study materials you can skip basic rote memory questions and focus on application. These types of questions allow students to apply the skills and knowledge they have learned. The lack of time restraints give everyone the same opportunity to show what they know.

There are many different types of abilities and challenges for learning, and this is just one example of a suitable response. Our pedagogy and technology specialists are here to help you build accessibility into your course for these types of cases and many more. Book a one on one consultation with us or send a question to learnsupport@viu.ca.

VIU has an excellent resource for students and for faculty: Accessibility Services. Staff in this office work with both students and faculty to ensure that students are supported and we meet our legal duty to accommodate. You can connect with Accessibility staff at Accessibility.Services@viu.ca.

Universal Design for Learning

You have probably noticed a pattern on this page. A lot of the best practices to help students we identify as needing additional support actually help all students. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework that focuses on proactive design choices. The goal of UDL is to build learning environments and materials to be accessible to as many types of learners as possible.

Some common UDL elements in course design include:

  • presents information in a variety of formats

  • gives choice in how students demonstrate their understanding (writing, speaking, creating etc.)

  • gives students agency in their learning

  • meaningfully incorporates a variety of perspectives and ways of knowing

  • proactively removes common accessibility barriers

    • videos have captions
    • images have alt text
    • appropriate contrast between text and background
    • uses built in styles for headings and lists

UDL practices make your course more broadly accessible. By removing barriers you will create a more engaging learning experience for your students. Once you build the habit of incorporating UDL, you will also find it makes meeting your legal duty to accommodate easier.

You can find a comprehensive list of UDL guidelines through CAST (formerly the Center for Applied Special Technology). However, you don't have to change everything all at once. You may not include every recommended UDL practice in your teaching. That's okay. Even small changes can make a difference for your students.

UDL reminds us that, even when we no matter how clear we believe our course design is, there may be unintentional barriers to learning. Course design, in-class practices, and online tools can be used to improve access for all students. The Accessible Syllabus is a rich resource to help you create an equitable classroom. The site has guidelines for policy design, language choice, text presentation, and purposeful use of images.

If you're interested in implementing a new UDL practice in your course, we would love to support you with that work. Reach out to our team at learnsupport@viu.ca to book a consultation or if you have any questions.

Why we need Universal Design

Michael Nesmith's 2017 Ted Talk "Why We Need Universal Design"

Additional resources