Hiya! I’m Meghan and I’m an English student here at SFU. I’ve taken a meandering path to get to this semester, including earning an Associate of Arts degree from Douglas College, working for six months in Walt Disney World and running summer sewing workshops for kids in Comox. 

For me, the Semester of Dialogue is about exploration. I’m excited to see whether philanthropy is a field I want to pursue, if I want to continue learning about facilitation, or maybe decide writing is what I want to focus on. It’s unique and exciting to have access to so many diverse mentors and I’m excited for them to share their stories with us. Also… I’d be lying if I said the location of the campus wasn’t a huge draw! Learning by the water with a local coffee in hand is what I want all of my summers to look like.

This semester’s topic of Trust, Money, and Power, in funding change resonated deeply with me as I have always been interested in learning about philanthropy. I come from multiple positionalities of being ethnic, immigrant and a woman who plans to use the knowledge learnt from the semester in dialogue to create meaningful change in the community. The interactive nature of this course through dialogue puts students and instructors on an equal footing which is a unique and refreshing dynamic for me and I look forward to integrating this experience in my studies as a Health Science major with a minor in Gerontology.

I am a visiting undergraduate student from UBC, completing a double major in English and Geography. I was born and raised in Calgary, AB, and have lived in several different cities across British Columbia for the last four years. I am incredibly excited to be a part of this summer’s Semester in Dialogue. I believe that this program will provide priceless examples of success for me to learn from, as well as expose me to a tangible framework for creating positive change. I am extremely grateful for being able to participate in this program, and I look forward to relationships that I will build along the way!

Hi! I am so excited about the opportunity to be a part of the Semester in Dialogue. I am really looking forward to beginning in a group of students having a shared experience and learning alongside each other in this setting. This personal small group setting is something I have been dearly missing. Furthermore, I am excited to learn from people in their respective fields and to actually hear about the challenges that they face in their daily work. I grew up in Taiwan, and Shanghai for the most part. As I go through this course I am starting to realize just how great of an impact my upbringing has had on how I view and have seen philanthropy at work. I am deeply excited to continue to learn from this diverse class and grow my knowledge and myself.

I grew up on a small Island in the Salish Sea where I learned values such as community, cooperation, and trust. I moved to Vancouver for high school and am currently nearing the end of a dual major in Philosophy and Political Science at UBC. This is a time in my life where I am beginning to look beyond my education and towards what I want to do with my life and what skills I can bring into the world. I feel that this course will help me not only learn new skills but also help me realize my potential. I want to take advantage of my privileged position being an educated, white, male, and actually begin taking action on things that matter to me.

My name is Mitchell Han. I am majoring in Environmental Geography and minoring in Resource and Environmental Management. I am in Semester in Dialogue because I volunteer a lot for social and environmental organizations, and am keen to learn how my volunteer hours really fund change. How does the money I donate to organizations, firms, and charities who claim to be funding change really do so? After researching and teaching about change in lifestyles of privileged people to improve the lives of disadvantaged people, how big of an impact does that have in society? These are all questions I want to find out. I am part of the BC Francophone Youth Council. I speak English and Mandarin Chinese at a first-language level, French at a lower-advanced level, and Spanish at upper-intermediate level. In my free time, I like to play the piano and go on walks around my home.

I am a 3rd year health sciences student. I moved to Canada 3 years ago for my further education and to have more opportunities to grow. I am really passionate about the health policy issues related to mental health and women’s rights. The reason I took semester in dialogue is because it offers a lot of new opportunities to make connections and skill development. It is also quite different from the other classes I have taken at SFU, allowing students to be more active in the classroom. This semester the theme allow a deeper understanding of philanthropy and the world around us. In my free time, I enjoy reading. I am a creative person and I really like to go out to a park or cafe to find more inspiration for my work.

I am a Health Science (BA) SFU student from Bangladesh, a developing-country girl with lofty goals. My great desire is to work for the UN or the WHO so that I can give back to the world rather than just my neighborhood which is why I have taken this course to build connections, learn and grow. Equity is another area I am truly passionate about. I aspire to be a change agent in many ongoing, unsettling issues around the world and hope one day we will attain all the Sustainable Development Goals.

Hi, my name is Alyssa Mossman. I’m an SFU student originally from the Okanagan living on the traditional, unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. 

I’m a Labour Studies Major in my third year, and currently considering pursuing public policy and/or law after my undergrad. 

The Semester in Dialogue program has been something I’ve had my eye on since early in my studies. I have several years of experience working in the social housing non-profit sector of Vancouver, and so the theme of Trust, Money and Power: Funding Change struck me as an opportunity to reframe the narratives I’ve developed around what’s possible in the charitable sector and the world of philanthropy.

I’m also part of the 2022 Ocean Bridge cohort where I will take action and advocate for the ocean through local service projects, regional learning journeys, and place-based education.

Sophia is a 5th year Global Environmental Systems major, Resource Environmental Management minor and Sustainable Development certificate student at SFU. Sophia grew up on a farm in Langley, B.C. and is passionate about sustainable agriculture and soil science. She has experience working on environmental non-profit projects related to ecological restoration, environmental education and agriculture. She is looking forward to pulling back the curtain of the philanthropic sector and learning more about the grantmaking process. She is also a Canadian Yoga Alliance Certified yoga instructor and teaches yoga in Langley and Surrey. Sophia is an avid outdoor recreationist and can often be found mountain biking, snowboarding and hiking with her dog!

I am a third-year BA Health Sciences student at SFU. Being an international student has provided me with the opportunity to grow up and be responsible. I LOVE color green, the reason is always surrounded by greenery. I am a very creative person who loves nature and portrait sketching. I am also very empathetic and caring person since childhood, a quality my mom admires in me. I enrolled in this course because I wanted to improve my emotional intelligence and have a better understanding of philanthropy. My personal struggles lead me down the route of assisting fellow sufferers in the hopes of alleviating their pain. I aspire to learn and challenge my thoughts by getting a chance to meet various philanthropists through this course of the semester in dialogue.

I am a 5th-year SFU student taking a Bachelor of Arts in Health Science.  When I was four, I immigrated to Canada and have lived on the North Shore since then.  Outside of my studies, I like to enjoy our amazing nature in BC, spend time with friends and family, and travel to see family abroad.  Learning wise, I am most passionate about the process of considering the complexities and intersectional components of issues and how to solve them in collaboration and dialogue.  The mechanisms in which change is made is a very poignant effort currently in our rapidly-paced and evolving times, ultimately being a driving factor behind my excitement for this semester in dialogue.

Hello everyone!

A little bit about myself, my name is Olympia and I am a third year student majoring in Criminology. I am an international student originally from Greece, but I moved to Vancouver to attend SFU in 2020. I am currently working as a research assistant both for the SFU School of Criminology, and for the SNF Centre of Hellenic Studies at SFU.

I am super excited for joining the Semester in Dialogue this summer. I was really inspired by my participation in the dialogue camp both in 2022 and 2022, so I thought that a semester in Dialogue would be the perfect addition to my dialogue journey. It is also a great opportunity for me to discover my interests and passions, pave the path for further personal and academic development and create strong bonds with amazing, like-minded people!

My name is Jan Vinoya. I am a 1st generation Filipino immigrant pursuing an Honours degree in Health Sciences. I am currently enrolled in the Semester in Dialogue because I wanted to try a new learning method and gain hands-on experience. The description of the course captivated me as it indicated a lot of opportunities for collaboration with fellow students, which I had been missing after being 2 years in the pandemic. As most undergraduate students, I am still lost and trying to find my voice, therefore, through this class I look forward to being in conversation with people from various backgrounds and experiences to try to piece together my identity. During my time as a Semester in Dialogue student, I hope to learn more about how to effectively share my life experiences and explore my identity through collaboration and dialogue in order to guide me in finding my path after completing my undergraduate degree.

I'm Euan Wilson, and I'm a third year French Cohort Program student and political science major.  I am passionate about politics (especially American politics) and history.  I'm also deeply passionate about climate change and how people can take action at a grassroots level to at least mitigate climate change, if not attempt to solve it.  I applied to the Semester in Dialogue this year because it sounded incredibly interesting and presented a wonderful opportunity to gain real-world experience in fundraising, a key aspect of politics, as well as gaining useful connections, organizational skills and more.