Intentionally Evolving Together: Challenges, Inspiration, and Possibilities
Date: Friday, June 6th, 2025
Location: Limberlost 185 Queens Quay East, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 1B6 and online
Our GBC (George Brown College) year-end conference, sponsored by the Teaching and Learning Exchange (TLX), is an annual event focused on teaching and learning. It is a chance to highlight and celebrate all of the teaching innovation and excellence that is happening across GBC. This one-day conference, taking place Friday, June 6th, 2025, at our Limberlost Campus and online, will include a keynote presentation by Dr. Elizabeth "Dori” Tunstall, concurrent sessions led by GBC faculty, lunch, a SoTL photo showcase, and a reception at the end of the day. In-person participants will have an opportunity to join online sessions. Likewise, some of the in-person elements will be livestreamed online.
This year's EvolvED will be offered as part of GBC Programming at Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. In its 94th year, Congress is hosted by a college for the first time. This historical opportunity of Reframing Togetherness invites all attendees to contribute their perspectives with different ways of learning and producing knowledge in order to collaborate on solving historically-rooted problems and offering innovative solutions. Please register for EvolvEd conference with a $30 Community Pass through the Federation website. Registration will open in early April. The TLX will cover the registration fee for presenters.
This year's theme is Intentionally Evolving Together: Challenges, Inspiration, and Possibilities.
Higher education is in a state of disruption and is being shaped by emerging technologies, shifting student needs, and evolving societal expectations. In this dynamic landscape, we are called not just to adapt, but to evolve—intentionally and together.
This year’s conference theme, Intentionally Evolving Together: Challenges, Inspiration, and Possibilities, invites us to reflect on key questions: What challenges us to grow as educators, students, and institutions? Where is our inspiration in times of change? What new possibilities emerge when we approach evolution with intention?
This year's registration is a 2 step process.
First, you must purchase a $30 Community Pass for Congress.
Following, you may register for evolvED.
Please visit the Congress website. When asked, “Are you attending or presenting at an association’s conference?”, please select: "No, I am attending Open Events Only." to register for your community pass.
Note: This registration process applies only to attendees who are not part of TLX and are not presenting at EvolvED.
Click to register for your community pass
To register for evolvED, please click on the button below and complete the Microsoft Form.
Click to register for evolved 2025
Agenda
| Registration/Coffee/Breakfast | 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. |
| Opening Remarks | 9:00 a.m. - 9:20 a.m. |
| Keynote - Dr. Tunstall | 9:20 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. |
| Concurrent Session Block 1 | 11:00 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. |
| Lunch | 11:50 p.m. - 12:50 p.m. |
| Concurrent Session Block 2 | 1:00 p.m. - 1:50 p.m. |
| Spotlight Talk Block 1 | 2:00 p.m. – 2:25 p.m. |
| Spotlight Talk Block 2 | 2:35 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. |
| Concluding Ceremonies | 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. |
Keynote
Decolonizing Design: Doubling Down on Liberatory Joy
In this talk, Dr. Dori Tunstall discusses the shifted possibilities of institutional transformation in regards to decolonizing design as well as other fields. She addresses "Putting Indigenous First" as the moral and ethical guideline to face present/future times. She focuses on liberatory joy and the everyday practice of saying "no" to that which is harmful to self, communities, and the environment and how joy is found in the deeper connections to self, communities, and the environment. She concludes with a call to double down on liberatory joy as the antidote to fear.
Dr. Dori Tunstall
Dr. Elizabeth "Dori" Tunstall is a distinguished design anthropologist, celebrated author, visionary organizational leader, consultant, and coach. As the renowned author of "Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook," she is a path-breaker of liberatory approaches that challenge conventional paradigms that exclude and harm Indigenous, Black, and other cultural communities.
With a global career encompassing an Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Swinburne University in Australia, respectively, Dori made history as the first black and black female Dean of a Design Faculty anywhere at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Her accomplishments have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, notably the 2022 Sir Misha Black Award for Distinguished Service to Design Education, the inaugural BADG of Honour for Design Education from the Black Artists and Designers Guild, and the 2023 SEGD Excellence in Design Education Award.
Ever expanding the contexts for libratory joy, Dori has established Dori Tunstall, Inc., a firm dedicated to decolonizing and diversifying institutional processes for companies and organizations through strategic consulting, care-shops, corporate education, and leadership coaching.
