Know a leader in inclusive education? Here’s how you can honour them

Since 2014, the University of Calgary Teaching Awards have celebrated outstanding contributions to teaching and learning. This includes recognizing teaching excellence in diverse learning contexts by individuals and teams through curriculum design and educational leadership. 

There are many examples at UCalgary where incredible work is being done while centering diverse, inclusive, and accessible conditions where everyone can thrive. Out of the 15 Teaching Award categories, there's one that specifically honours these types of contributions. 

Recognizing Inclusive Excellence

The Award for Inclusive Excellence, launched in 2023 in partnership with the Office of EDIA (now Office of Institutional Commitments), acknowledges educators who foster equitable, accessible, and inclusive learning environments.

There are three distinct awards for Inclusive Excellence:

• The individual award recognizes the teaching excellence of an individual academic staff member who has created inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible initiatives within their classroom, course, or other learning environments.
• The team award recognizes groups that collaborate and support equitable, respectful and diverse teaching and learning environments. This might be designing a course as a team to implement inclusive and accessible practices or conducting a curriculum review through an EDIA lens.
• The unit award recognizes departments, faculties, or offices that make systemic changes towards inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible practices, policies and processes within teaching and learning at a unit level. This could be by demonstrating curricular innovation to embed EDIA principles in teaching and learning initiatives. 

What inclusive excellence looks like

Dr. Fouzia Usman, PhD, an educational development consultant at the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning and member of the UCalgary Presidential Task Force for EDIA , explains that recipients of the Inclusive Excellence Award demonstrate key traits: they recognize the existing diversity within their teaching and learning environments, ensure that multiple perspectives are included in the course content, and remain open to student feedback, adapting accordingly.

An individual recipient might also inspire meaningful change outside the classroom, perhaps within their faculty, by incorporating social justice topics or decentering Eurocentric norms in the curriculum. According to Usman, “Countering bias in teaching and minimizing barriers to learning in post-secondary settings” is one of the main steps educators can take towards inclusive excellence. 

Fostering belonging is another important aspect of creating an inclusive classroom. A practical way to make this happen is through the creation of a community agreement (sometimes called a classroom agreement or community guidelines). As Usman describes it, “a community agreement is a collaborative document usually co-created by the instructor and students at the beginning of the term. It outlines how, together, they can cultivate an inclusive learning environment for everyone in the classroom over the course of the term.” These agreements can be revised and referred to throughout the course to ensure that they’re being upheld. 

The Inclusive Excellence award isn't limited to instructors. Both the team and unit awards can include a combination of postdoctoral scholars, members of other employee groups, and students who support teaching and learning. Outside the classroom, inclusive excellence could be a teaching and learning committee or working group focused on enhancing EDIA practices, or a team that has developed a tool or resource to support inclusive learning. "There are so many individuals and groups on campus that are doing such great work embodying inclusive excellence in teaching and learning,” says Usman.

Inclusivity in education keeps evolving

Inclusivity in education has grown from a focus on representation to a deeper commitment to equity, accessibility, and more recently, belonging. For Dr. Wendy Benoit, PhD, interim vice-provost (teaching and learning), inclusive excellence is an integral component of UCalgary’s goal to educate transformative leaders. “Inclusive excellence means designing learning environments that actively dismantle barriers, embrace diverse perspectives, and empower students to innovate and thrive — not just in the classroom, but across the academic community and as they prepare to take on future challenges,” says Benoit.

Submit a nomination before Sept. 24

Do you know an instructor, team or unit whose work promotes inclusive and equitable learning? Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to nominate individuals and groups who make outstanding contributions to enriching the quality and breadth of learning.

Find out more about the nomination details here.

Nominations for all University of Calgary Teaching Awards close Sept. 24, 2025.