Two members of the Faculty of Arts community have received 2022 President’s Awards for staff. These awards are presented by the university annually to recognize staff members who demonstrate outstanding achievement and excellence within the UBC community.
President’s Service Award for Excellence
Patricia Ormerod, Laboratory of Archaeology Manager, Department of Anthropology
For over 20 years, Patricia Ormerod brings expertise, empathy, and dedication to her role at the Laboratory of Archaeology (LOA). Responsible for the care and housing of hundreds of thousands of artifacts, belongings and environmental samples recovered throughout British Columbia, Patricia advocates for the inclusion and agency of Indigenous peoples in B.C.’s archeology and heritage management.
In developing respectful, reciprocal and lasting partnerships with the students, faculty, Indigenous communities and government, Patricia positions the lab as not only the repository of choice for Musqueam, as well as serving Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and other Indigenous communities; but also as a leader in proactive repatriation and decolonizing archaeological collections.
Recently, Patricia played a leadership role in realizing the Community Research Centre. Once complete, this state-of-the-art provincial repository will house thousands of artifacts, enabling researchers, students and community partners to work on multiple projects simultaneously.
Patricia also fosters an inclusive community for students. She regularly includes student assistants in the lab’s collections curation and provides practical hands-on training and mentorship. She supports faculty in securing grants and hiring student assistants to carry out research, curatorial, and public outreach functions.
Patricia is actively engaged in many aspects of the archaeological community at UBC and beyond. She served as the President of the B.C. Archaeology Society. She helps organize UBC’s annual Archaeology Day and volunteers at Open Archaeology Lab Nights, providing students with hands-on experience in Archaeology.
President’s Staff Award for Advancing Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence
Christine Lee, Associate Director, Alumni Engagement, Development & Alumni Engagement
Christine Lee’s commitment to cultivating respectful and reciprocal university-community relationships goes far and wide – and is a reflection of her leadership in equity, diversity and inclusion at UBC.
Christine is a founding member and co-chair of UBC’s Asian Canadian Community Engagement (ACCE) initiative and in this role, she has made incredible strides improving engagement between UBC and local Asian Canadian communities. Her leadership spans over a decade, and includes stewarding the ACCE and supporting the legacy and UBC’s commitment to pay tribute to the 76 Japanese Canadian students who were sent away to internment camps and were unable to graduate in 1942, coordinating to bestow honorary degrees for those students in 2012.
Christine continues to advance anti-racism through leading the creation of the new Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement. During the planning process for the National Forum on Anti-Asian Racism, she played a pivotal role in holding space for students, faculty and staff to share their expertise, perspectives and lived experiences.
Christine is tireless in her efforts to raise the voices of systemically underrepresented and marginalized communities, as she did when shaping a groundbreaking study to survey the landscape of Asian Canadian experiential learning on alumni over the past 15 years.
Her volunteerism and leadership has resulted in significant institutional change.
Note, the term “Asian Canadian” encompasses local communities whose origins stem from Asia (including East, South, Southeast and West Asia). It is important to note that not all such communities self-identify using this term, and there is no single “Asian” community in Canada. We use the term “Asian Canadian” to refer, therefore, not to a pre-existing category of people, but as a way of acknowledging the ways in which diverse migrant communities within Canada have forged meaningful, dynamic, and complex connections both in Canada and across the Pacific. Learn more at https://acce.ubc.ca/
