When issues of academic integrity are brought up, it's sometimes easy to dismiss them as just something that the "bad students" do. But sometimes, it is much more complicated than that. Let's talk about what to do and how to get help ethically.

SFU's Academic Integrity week is September 28 - October 2, 2020.

We know that this year is unlike any we've had before. You are learning from your own home, in front of a computer. In this context, academic integrity can be even more challenging than usual. It is also even more important. 

Participate in academic integrity week to learn more about how to complete your work with integrity, and to celebrate the ways you already approach your learning and your work with honesty and integrity. 

Former SLC English as Additional Language Peer, Trina Lal, shares reflections on the benefits of participating in the Conversation Partners program. The program continues online during SFU's remote instruction. Sign up to participate here. 

By Daniel Chang

PhD candidate and SLC Writing Consultant Daniel Chang welcomes you to the summer 2020 semester and offers some important reminders for how to get the most out of this term.

The Student Learning Commons is scouting out new talent for our Writing and Learning Peer and English as Additional Language Peer programs. 

Both positions will allow you to develop transferable skills in the areas of client service, interpersonal skills, giving effective feedback, and cross-cultural communication, and will give you access to a professional reference as well as a private study/social space in the library.

We hope you will join our team! Apply now through http://myinvolvement.sfu.ca as part of posting #5254. The posting will be available until April 20, 2020.

SLC EAL Peer Ashley K. returns with more information about using a trauma-informed approach to learning. She shares more information about a trauma-informed workshop co-facilitated by Jennifer-Lee Koble and Jennifer Dehoney. She also offers 8 important self-care tips. 

To read the interview she conducted with Dr. Elise Chenier, click here. 

If you are in need of support, please reach out. A particularly good resource for immediate support is My SSP. 

How do we take care of ourselves when we are introduced to difficult material in class? This is a question that SLC EAL Peer Ashley K. asked herself as she embarked on . her learning journey in HIST 436, which focuses on a close reading of Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. 

As part of her work to answer this question, she sat down to interview the course's instructor, Dr. Elise Chenier. This two-part blog series begins with a transcript of that interview. Here is a powerful idea that emerged from their discussion, 

"my main goals is not just know the breadth and depth of the problem intellectually, but to know it in their bodies. In my opinion, when you know it in your body, then it changes you, but to know it intellectually, you can still hold that at a distance and you don't necessarily see why you should change anything about the way you do anything" (Dr. Elise Chenier). 

In part two of this series, Ashley K. shares some self-care tips that she learned through a workshop offered by Jennifer-Lee Koble and Jennifer Dehoney during the class. 

Take care of yourselves. If you are in need of support, please reach out. A particularly good resource for accessing immediate support is My SSP. 

SLC Learning Services Coordinator Ruth Silverman shares notes from the recent session "How I Raised My GPA." The event was wildly popular and invited current students to listen to their peers' stories about raising their GPAs. Stay tuned for the next iteration of this event, coming soon!