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Hello everyone! Where did March go? And the winter snow? As we start preparing for spring events, especially Teaching & Learning Day Spring 2025, we also start winding up winter ones, particularly the Winter 2025 Human Skills and Three Pillars CI cohorts.
This week’s edition of the CI Newsletter contains the last updates for the Winter 2025 Human Skills and Three Pillars Cohorts content sessions. But this is not the end of the CI newsletter. The next CI Newsletter will be a supersized edition coming out at the end of April. This special edition will be focused on identifying this term’s key learnings and celebrating our Faculty Champions. Don’t miss it!
Faculty Champions in both the Human Skills and Three Pillars cohorts wrapped up their last content weeks, and are heading into an asynchronous week. During this asynchronous week, champions will be able to book time with their CI leads if they have any questions, or would just like another eye to review their deliverables thus far.
Both CI teams are looking forward to celebrating the hard work of all of their champions on their respective celebration days (Human Skills: April 8; Three Pillars: April 10). We are looking forward to seeing our champions' strategies and recommendations!
Caption: Teaching & Learning Day Spring 2025 Call for Proposals. [Image]. Source: Teaching & Learning Centre, Seneca Polytechnic
Teaching & Learning Day Spring 2025 is taking place on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in person, at Newnham Campus. The theme of this conference is “Recharge and Renew”, and the event aims to give Seneca faculty a chance to reenergize and empower each other through showcasing their achievements, sharing their best practices, and connecting with their community of peers.
A Call for Proposals is open for 45-minute workshops or panel discussions in areas including but not limited to the following:
• Extended Reality (XR) use cases • Examples of practiced curriculum integration in any of the four pillar areas (Human Skills, Truth and Reconciliation, Sustainability, Equity/Diversity/Inclusion) • Case studies • Research (completed or in progress)
Proposal submissions are due by Monday, April 7, 2025.
Since August 2024, Akeisha Lari, Manager, Reconciliation and Student Inclusion, has been regularly “spilling the tea” on insights to engage students and incorporate Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion principles into teaching. For her previous entries, visit the Newsletter archive.
This month’s Equi-TEA video will be the last one for this semester, with Akeisha planning to return in Fall 2025. Faculty can still reach out to Akeisha any time to chat 1:1 about student engagement and all things EDI: akeisha.lari@senecapolytechnic.ca.
In this video, Akeisha thanks viewers for watching and encourages everyone to keep thinking about EDI in their classrooms and curricula. Thank you, Akeisha!
The Greater Toronto Area is home to people of many faiths and cultures, and many major religious and cultural celebrations occur in April. (Interestingly, many of them involve a birth or a birthday!) In the spirit of understanding, respect, and appreciation, let’s take a closer look at some of these celebrations.
Ram Navami (April 6, 2025): For Hindus, the festival of Ram Navami celebrates the birth of Lord Rama, an incarnation of the god Vishnu and the epitome of virtue. It is a time for prayer and reflection as well as community celebration and recommitment to upholding dharma (righteousness) in one’s life (Sunila, 2025).
Buddha’s Birthday and Theravadan New Year (April 8; April 13-15, and May 2025): For Buddhists around the world, the new year starts with a celebration of the birth of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, around 563 BCE. The exact date varies from community to community, but for Theravadan Buddhists (mainly from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka), the celebration starts after the first full moon in April. Traditional customs for Theravadan New Year include the use of water to symbolically wash away sins and showing kindness to animals by buying live fish and birds in order to free them from captivity (Theravada New Year, 2023).
Mahavir Jayanti (April 10, 2025): Jains celebrate Mahavir Jayanti to commemorate and life and teachings of their last guru (spiritual teacher), Lord Mahavir, who was born around 588 BCE. This is a day of religious observance and personal reflection on the teachings of Lord Mahavir about non-violence, non-stealing, truthfulness, chastity, and non-attachment (Rudra Centre, 2025).
Passover (April 12-20, 2025): The eight days of Passover commemorate the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in ancient Egypt. For practicing Jews, it is a time of prayer, attendance at synagogue, and gathering with family and friends to hold a Seder. During the Seder meal, symbolic foods including unleavened bread (matzah) are eaten as a way to celebrate freedom and redemption while also remembering physical and mental subjugation (Beck, 2013; Bonikowsky, 2015).
Vaisakhi / Khalsa Day (April 13, 2025): In the Punjab province of India, Vaisakhi is a spring harvest festival celebrated by both Sikhs and Hindus as the start of a new year. In Toronto, the Ontario Sikhs and Gurdwaras Council (OSGC) organizes Canada’s third largest parade and largest Sikh celebration, attracting thousands of participants each year. People from all backgrounds and religions are welcome to attend. This year’s Khalsa Day parade in Toronto takes place on Sunday, April 27, 2025.
Ridván (April 20-May 2): Arabic for “paradise,” Ridván commemorates the birth of the Bahá’í religion when, in 1863, Bahá’u’lláh declared his prophetic mission to his followers. There are few specific rules about how to celebrate Ridván, but on the 1st, 9th, and 12th days of Ridván, work is prohibited and communities gather for prayers and celebrations on those most holy days. Bahá’í elections are also held during Ridván (Walbridge, n.d.).
Good Friday and Easter Sunday (April 18 and 20, 2025): In 2025, the Easter weekend falls on the same days for both Western (Catholic and Protestant) and Eastern (Orthodox) Christians. This doesn’t occur often due to the use of different calendars by the Western and Eastern churches. But this year, Christians of every denomination around the world will observe Good Friday, when Jesus Christ was crucified and died, and celebrate Easter Sunday, which saw Christ’s resurrection, on the same days (Heatherington, 2025).
Easter is a cultural event too, and there are many Easter-themed events throughout the GTA such as parades, egg hunts, fairs, and markets that are secular and open to all.
To learn more about these and other religious, cultural, and diversity-aware observances, check out the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion's Diversity Calendar.
References
Beck, M. (2013). Why do we have to eat matzah on Pesach? The Jewish Chronicle. https://www.thejc.com/judaism/why-do-we-have-to-eat-matzah-on-pesach-lryryzgd
Bonikowsky, L.N. (2015). Passover in Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/passover-in-canada
Buddha’s birthday. (2025, February 18). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha%27s_Birthday
Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. (2025). 2025 Diversity Calendar. https://ccdi.ca/resources/ccdi-diversity-calendar/
DharmaCrafts Blog: Teachings. (2023, April 5). Theravada New Year. https://dharmacrafts.com/blogs/news/theravada-new-year
Heatherington, K. (2025, March 21). Churches East and West celebrate Easter the same day in 2025; could it be a step to unity? Northwest Catholic. https://nwcatholic.org/news/kimberley-heatherington-osv-news/churches-east-and-west-celebrate-easter-the-same-day-in-2025-could-it-be-a-step-to-unity
Rudra Centre. (2025). Mahavir Jayanti 2025: Date, Meaning, Significance, Puja Vidhi. https://www.rudraksha-ratna.com/articles/mahavir-jayanti
Sunila. (2025, March 21). Ram Navami in 2025: Wishes, Dates and Celebrations. Vedantu. https://www.vedantu.com/blog/shri-ram-navami-celebration-and-significance
University of Toronto. (2025). Vaisakhi in the Workplace: Inclusive Employer Guide. https://people.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2025-Vaisakhi-Inclusive-Employer-Guide.pdf
Walbridge, John. (n.d.) Ridvan. Bahá’í Library Online. Retrieved 2025, March 26. https://bahai-library.com/walbridge_encyclopedia_ridvand
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