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This research explores the perspectives of faculty members teaching in undergraduate tourism programs across British Columbia (BC), Canada regarding curricula revitalization in consideration of macro changes that have occurred in the tourism industry worldwide including the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing climate change crisis, and the urgent need for indigenization. With a focus on programs that offer bachelor’s degrees in tourism management, this qualitative study investigates the perspectives of nine faculty members representing Capilano University, Royal Roads University, Thompson Rivers University, and Vancouver Island University. Data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews. A reflexive thematic analysis indicated one overarching theme: collaboration; two themes: tourism management higher education must 1) craft leaders who embody 21st century skills and 2) be as dynamic as the tourism industry; and three subthemes: 1) multi-disciplinary, 2) work-integrated learning, and 3) macro changes. Due to the rapid pace of change in the tourism industry, the current curriculum offered in tourism management degree programs across BC must be reimagined. Recommendations include course content revitalization, mandatory work-integrated learning, and the renewal and maintenance of collaboration across institutions. The study’s findings are relevant to tourism management students, faculty members and higher education institutions in British Columbia.

This paper aims to explore the demand for wellness tourism and how it has grown in the last decade. This growth is in part due to increased stress levels from various factors. Some of these factors are heightened stress in society such as COVID-19 and high inflation, people working longer hours, unhealthy lifestyles, and higher obesity rates. The study focused on the demographic cohort known as millennials, ranging from 25 to 40 years of age. Millennials are projected to account for 75 percent of consumers and travelers by 2025 globally. The study aimed to determine how Destination Marketing Organizations (DMO) can rethink their approaches for targeting millennial consumers and travelers and the preferences of Canadian millennials specifically related to their perceptions and their needs from wellness tourism within Canada. The material presented in the literature review represents the relevance of wellness, wellness in tourism, the importance of wellness in Canada, the impact of COVID-19, and millennials' characteristics and influence on tourism. The study uses a qualitative approach for interviews with DMOs on how to approach their marketing strategies and a mix-method approach on surveys for millennials on how they perceive wellness tourism. The qualitative research assisted in identifying the elements of millennial travel and DMO's influence in marketing to the demographic. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was the critical component in developing the questions for the interview and survey. The questions focused on AI's four D's: Dream, Destiny, Discovery, and Design. The purpose of AI is to help anticipate if the best-case scenario occurred more frequently within the wellness tourism industry in Canada instead of analyzing problems. The data gathered produced a list of the critical factors pertaining to millennial consumer and travel behavior, the importance of wellness tourism for the millennial demographic, and DMO's marketing techniques to target millennial travelers within Canada. Additionally, the data also produced recommendations for the future of wellness and tourism.

A sense of belonging is a fundamental human need, especially important for first-year undergraduates since it is directly related to their overall success and experience with the institution they attend (Ahn & Davis, 2020; Freeman et al., 2007; Tinto, 2017). This need drives individuals to seek mutually beneficial relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Over, 2016; Taormina & Gao, 2013), underscoring the need for ongoing, positive interactions between the students and their instructors—and the university as a whole—as well as between the students themselves (Tinto, 2017). For the 2020-2021 school year, however, first-year students at traditional universities in Canada faced a new and unexpected reality: an online-only experience—along with restricted in-person contact in general—due to policies enforced by the Canadian government in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic (CBC, 2020; CDC, 2020; Government of Canada, 2020). At the University of British Columbia (UBC), specifically, on-campus activities and related events were cancelled, limited, or offered solely online, the requirement to live locally was removed—removing the dormitory or shared housing experience for most students—and all courses (except a select few within visual arts, music, and theatre) were delivered online (UBC Service Desk, personal communication, April 4, 2022). This combination of restricted in-person contact and digital course delivery highlights the importance of understanding the students’ need for belonging—specifically, whether and how it is met in the online-only context—as well as the roles played by the communicative tools involved.

This research examined the function and value of a coalition in identifying and mobilizing novel solutions to health organizations across Canada in an environment of forced disruption (i.e., COVID-19). More specifically, the study used a naturalistic inquiry methodology to understand the process of how the Canadian Health Leadership Network (CHLNet) coalition responded to the need to integrate e-Learning—an unfamiliar delivery practice for leadership development—into leadership development for its member partners and was hastened by the pandemic. The CHLNet case study results suggested that the coalition was a valuable setting upon which to identify and mobilize knowledge across Canada, despite the many challenges the pandemic brought. Further, the findings suggested that for CHLNet, key process elements contributed to their success that included using an adaptive leadership approach, taking advantage of an opportunity, selecting the right people to work on the project, actively managing the project, and allowing iterative journey processes that mirrored those of design thinking to emerge. Out of this study came three recommendations that address gaps in knowledge and suggest new lines of inquiry, namely: to look for patterns of successful project initiatives in coalitions; to explore a possible correlation between design thinking and coalition project initiatives; and to study the mindset, motivation, and empowerment of coalition project members. Overall, this study illustrated the significant value a coalition could have on identifying and mobilizing divergent practice knowledge on a national scale during a chaotic time of forced disruption across health organizations.

This thesis, “Enhancing Capacity of the Coalition of African, Caribbean, and Black Nurses (CACBN) to Support Black Nurses in British Columbia to Achieve Greater Psychological Health in the Workplace” utilizes the methodological frameworks of the Action Research Engagement model, Black Feminist Thought and Intersectionality, Participatory Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry to answer the following question: How can the CACBN support Black nurses to achieve greater psychological health in the workplace? The African, Caribbean, and Black nurse participants were predominantly from CACBNs membership, held various nursing designations, and came from different practice environments. Data collection methods included a survey, interviews, and reflective journaling. Several sub-themes emerged from five overarching themes: Relational Connection: “Fitting In”, Factors that Contribute to Safety in the Workplace, System Level Supports Needed from Health Care Organizations, CACBN Supports for ACBNs, and Impacts of COVID-19 on ACBNs. Study recommendations for health organizations include developing workplace anti-racism policies and providing career supports and leadership opportunities, while recommendations for CACBN include providing anti-Black racism education to health authorities and schools, offering mentorship, and creating safe spaces for dialogue.

In response to the severity and tenacious nature of COVID-19, the United Nations (UN) identified the cessation of intensive animal agriculture as one of three foci necessary to prevent another pandemic as well as to bring human society and the planet back on a healthful course. Animal health, human health, and environmental health were deemed to be the three critical factors, and the UN stressed that all three need to be addressed collaboratively as an integrated whole. The Farmed Animal Advocacy Movement (FAAM or Movement), is a social justice movement working on behalf of farmed animals used for food. Currently, the majority of the work undertaken in Canada and the United States to combat intensive animal agriculture is undertaken by women. Numerous measures, however, assert that the FAAM is failing. A core cause is the troubled state of many FAAM organizations, and the impact this is having on the women employed as vocational animal activists. This qualitative approach to research sought to explore the experiences and recommendations of these women through their stories as a means to deepen the understanding of the FAAM’s organizational practices, and suggest tools for sustainability. A reflexive thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 33 FAAM vocational activists was conducted. Ubiquitously, the interviews revealed a pervasive culture of oppressive ‘isms’, including racism and sexism, as well as significant illegal employment-based activities. Participants were also queried as to their suggested recommendations in regard to employment and organizational practices. One significant result of these recommendations was the creation of a proposed, practical, reasonable, and abundantly actionable checklist of practices, that, if implemented, may be instrumental in assuring a positive, highly engaging, highly ethical and more sustainable work culture able to perform the essential labour of protecting animals, and by extension, supporting the proposal by the UN to protect society from another pandemic.

Schools are not immune to crises. Whether it be earthquakes, wildfires, shootings, or global pandemics, schools will always be required to react quickly and efficiently to crises (Liou, 2015, p. 248). One large component of this reaction is communication. Therefore, school leaders need to be prepared to communicate quickly, efficiently, and effectively both internally and with the broader community during times of crisis. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 created an exceptional urgency for schools to practice and refine their crisis communication as they dealt with the ongoing pandemic (Government of Canada, 2022). In British Columbia, the pandemic caused a state of emergency that has lasted nearly a year and a half (Lawson et al., 2021). During this time, schools went through many different situations of crisis, including short-term emergencies and long-term sustained stress. Schools also needed to react quickly to changing government guidelines, community exposures and public health directives (BC Ministry of Health, 2021). The purpose of this study is to examine the opportunities and challenges that arose as school leaders attempted to develop best practices, processes and procedures that amounted to effective communication during an unprecedented international health emergency.

This research explored dining experiences of homebound consumers in Ottawa, Canada and examined whether the COVID-19 pandemic allowed independent restaurant "take-out" to become a new dining experience among individuals. This qualitative study conducted 18 semi-structured in-depth interviews to identify changes in consumer behaviour attributed to events from the global pandemic. While COVID-19 began to impact the restaurant industry in March 2020, this research was conducted in August 2020, five months after the pandemic's introduction. Consumers and industry professionals offered insights into the current local-restaurant industry status, including business closures, worker layoffs, and mental health conditions. The findings showcase the importance of socializing, comfort, and safety, while emerging outcomes included the creation of new eating habits and experiences. Conclusions from this study can provide valuable consumer information as independent businesses slowly start to regain operations. Recommendations include repeating the research in a post-pandemic study to re-evaluate take-out experiences among consumers. Keywords: homebound, COVID-19, take-out, dining experience, restaurant industry, qualitative, thematic analysis, Ottawa, Canada

This dissertation reports on a three-year participatory action research (PAR) initiative aimed at re-localising the food system in a specific locale in Canada. It describes the process from theory to practice of building leadership and collaboration across the food sector—farming, fishing, processing, grocery, restaurant, institutional, policy, and investment—aimed at systematically developing a local food short supply chain. Emboldened by the immediacy of the intersection of a persistent pandemic with the climate crisis, participants are using an interdisciplinary lens to create a local food system based on a values proposition that takes the attributes of physicality, relationships, and scalability into account. In this context, the author suggests that locale is what matters most in considering what “local” means within the food system. Framed in critical social theory, this research reviews the literature that traces the global impacts of the green revolution from its origins to its present day concentrated corporate control, vertical integration, and financialisation of the industrial food system. It joins with others who understand that doing nothing to transform the food system is not an option. The dissertation provides a detailed description of the role of PAR in building shared meaning and sustainability in the dynamic process of food system transformation. The author offers a schematic of a local food short supply chain using a circular economy model that embeds participant values of diversity, equity, and sustainability. The research suggests that networking locale-based food systems may become a new globalising force that re-localises food culture and sovereignty. Keywords: food system transformation, reterritorializing food, local food short supply chain, COVID-19 pandemic, climate action, critical social theory, PAR methodology, food sovereignty

Female genital mutilation, also known as FGM, is a traditional cultural ceremony that has been practiced for hundreds of years in Africa, Asia, South Asia, and some parts of Europe. Girls from infancy to marriage or motherhood have been subjected to the partial or total removal of female genitalia as a rite of passage to ensure protection of purity and cleanliness. FGM is an ongoing cultural practice in Nigeria because of social conditioning. The results of the research show that the involvement of community members (victims of FGM, elders, and medical professionals) and leaders (spiritual, cultural, and political) will play a big role in reducing the practice of FGM in Nigeria. This portfolio synthesis includes methodology, methods, components, theoretical framework, knowledge of dissemination, and plan transfer. I explore why FGM is still an accepted practice in Nigeria and how social norm practices actively contribute to the ongoing practice of FGM. I had originally planned to travel to Nigeria to collect the data for this portfolio by dissertation. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, I was unable to travel and instead resorted to using different social media platforms such as WhatsApp to collect my data. This portfolio synthesis presents an overview of the following three components of the dissertation by portfolio: 1) a journal article submitted to African Studies Quarterly journal detailing the results and answers to the FGM research questions through 30 WhatsApp phone interviews of participants in Nigeria; 2) a 3D animation documentary of the real-life experience of a victim of FGM and its harmful effects; and 3) a peer reviewed conference presentation published in the proceedings at the Royal Roads University Social Engaging Applied Research Conference (August, 2021) comprised of a literature review defining FGM and outlining why it is continued.