CUFA BC’s work is directed and undertaken by a rotating team of elected faculty members from our member associations, four elected officers, and two staff members.
CUFA BC’s highest level of governance is Council, which meets several times per year to discuss shared concerns, and set priorities for the organization. Day-to-day work is carried out under the direction of the Executive Director and the President, with support from the Executive Assistant.
Officers
Dr. Kenneth Christie, President
Humanitarian Studies, Interdisciplinary Studies, Royal Roads University
Dr. Kenneth Christie is the Program Head and a Professor of the Human Security and Peacebuilding graduate program at Royal Roads University. Christie is a political scientist, author, editor and international academic who has taught and conducted research at universities in the U.S., Singapore, South Africa, Norway, the United Arab Emirates and Canada. Working all over the world has given him a unique perspective on peace, development and human security. His work has focused on issues of human rights, security and democratization. He is widely published as an author and editor with eleven books to his credit. His most recent book, co-edited with Marion Boulby, Migration, Refugees and Human Security in the Mediterranean and MENA was published by Palgrave MacMillan (2018). Today, he is working on issues of human security and its links to ethnic and state formation/failure in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Christie is also working on issues of de-radicalization, terrorism and human rights as well as populism (historical and contemporary) and corporate social responsibility. The work he produces is truly interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature. Dr. Christie is also a frequent commentator in the international and national media including television, radio and print on a wide variety of international affairs topics.
Dr. Lynne Marks, Vice-President
History, University of Victoria
Dr. Lynne Marks is a professor with the department of history at the University of Victoria, specializing in Canadian History, Women’s and Gender History, the Social History of Ethnicity, Religion/Irreligion and Atheism, and the History of Feminism. She is currently working on the SSHRC-funded project on the relationship between Canadian second wave feminism, religion/secularism and motherhood and family, particularly among low income, Indigenous and immigrant and racialized women activists. She is co-investigator on the SSHRC-funded Cascadia project, which explores why people in the Pacific Northwest are today and historically have been much less religious than those elsewhere in North America. She is also involved in the SSHRC-funded Defying Hatred project (Jordan Stanger-Ross PI), which explores responses to anti-semitism by Victoria’s oldest synagogue. Dr. Marks also serves as President of the University of Victoria Faculty Association.
Karen Smith, Secretary-Treasurer
Microbiology & Immunology, University of British Columbia
Karen Smith (she/her/hers) is a Lecturer at the University of British Columbia in the Dept. of Microbiology & Immunology. As an educator, she is primarily focused on the first year experience and conducted several scholarship of teaching and learning projects such as student wellbeing in the classroom, productive failure, and currently equity and diversity in learning activities. She is the secretary of the UBC Faculty Association and participated in the UBC FA bargaining committee in the 2019 round of contract negotiations.
Dr. Dan Laitsch, Past President
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University
Dan Laitsch is an associate professor with the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University, and a Director on the SFU Faculty Association Executive Committee. He is a researcher with the SFU Centre for the Study of Educational Leadership and Policy and his primary teaching area is Educational Leadership. He co-edits the open access peer reviewed International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership and is active in the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group on Research Use. Dr. Laitsch has worked with the Joint Consortium for School Health and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development on school health issues in BC and across Canada. Dr. Laitsch’s research examines the use and misuse of research in teaching, policy-making, and issue advocacy; the impact of neoliberal policies on educational systems; and school health approaches to systemic education reform. He earned his doctorate from American University, in Washington, DC.
Staff
Annabree Fairweather, Executive Director
Annabree is honoured to serve CUFA BC as its Executive Director since 2019. Annabree comes to the position with experience in post-secondary academic labour relations, including grievances and arbitrations, labour board disputes, and collective bargaining. Annabree has a Master of Science in experimental Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts & Science in French and Psychology. Whenever she isn’t working, Annabree enjoys spending time with her wife and two children and distracting herself with hobbies, which include stone sculpture and playing piano. Email: [email protected]
Emi Mimiko, Executive Assistant
Emi is delighted to join CUFA BC as its Executive Assistant. Emi is an SFU alumna with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. With extensive knowledge in Administration and Design, Emi brings to the table new ideas and skills suitable to CUFA BC. Emi is currently pursuing a second degree in Computer Science and in her free time, works on her multitude of incomplete stories.
Email: [email protected].