Students, staff, faculty and alumni came together on Friday, March 7 for an event that reflected on a diverse array of individuals and communities at a moment when equity-focused work is increasingly challenged or questioned.
Taking cues from the theme of International Women’s Day 2025, the panel, entitled “Accelerating Action on Women’s Health and Wellness” convened on a sunny Friday afternoon in Hart House. First-year kinesiology student and representative of the Hart House Recreational Athletic and Wellness Committee Keren Ophir opened the session by speaking to her experience coaching youth gymnastics. “I have the opportunity to see these girls’ faces light up as they master a new skill,” she said, adding that she hopes to bring that feeling to other students and inspire them to pursue better health and wellness.
Ophir’s remarks set the tone for the panel, who were introduced by Hart House Senior Director & Chief Program Officer Michelle Brownrigg. During her welcome, Brownrigg left no doubt as to the importance of events like this to the university community—and communities everywhere. “We are at a vital moment in time; we must consider what it means to accelerate, when there are clear signs that we are also in a time of regression,” she said, citing several elements of a troubling political landscape for issues of equity along with the recent 35th anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. “In order to go forward,” Brownrigg said, we must always remember our histories.”
The panel included students and staff from U of T and beyond. Attendees heard lively conversation from Vanessa Treasure (Director, Fitness, Wellness and Recreation, Hart House), Alanna Coulson (Manager, Fitness and Performance, KPE), Asha Edwin (PhD candidate with the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, Brock University), and Kritika Sharma (U of T undergraduate student and chair of the Hart House Recreational Athletics and Wellness Committee). In a discussion moderated by Brownrigg, the four women covered a diversity of topics ranging from the impacts of a Black women’s run club, female-focused strength and fitness programs, support for older women experiencing breast cancer, and the importance of positioning restorative practices and community building in sport, physical activity and wellness spaces.
Edwin, whose research focuses on Black women’s wellness, is currently featured in the Hart House Talking Walls exhibit The Body is Home: In Motion. She spoke to “what it means to be at home in our bodies” and the “life-changing benefits of physical activity.” Treasure concurred; the former Varsity Blues swimmer and KPE graduate emphasized the lasting impact that intercollegiate sport made on her confidence. “Swimming taught me that I can do hard things—that I can do whatever I want,” she said. “I’m on a mission to share the love of physical bodies in motion and help raise women up to do just that.” Coulson highlighted the importance of all-female programming in traditionally male-dominated spaces, like weight rooms and fitness centres. “You can’t put into words what it means to have women supporting women in these athletic spaces and sports science,” she said. And every speaker stressed the power of community in their remarks, and lamented the recent elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs—and language—south of the border.
Professor Gretchen Kerr, dean of KPE, closed the event by saying that while she had seen tremendous progress for women’s rights over the last forty years, “we are facing resistance and pushback and regression to an extent that we would never have imagined even a few years ago.”
Speaking after the event, Brownrigg pointed to collaboration and partnership at U of T as cornerstones of making gatherings like this one impactful, meaningful—and relevant. “It was really important to consider who would be on the panel and be able to look at experiences in relation to not just research, but also lived experience,” she said. “We worked with the subject matter expertise from the faculty—not just from its academic side but also from the talented and passionate people who are delivering huge programs to serve the students and weave through this community-building piece that also impacts other disciplines. You end up with an interdisciplinary, interconnected space.”
For Kerr, both the event and International Women’s Day are vital and timely. “Never in my life would I have imagined that with all the progress I’ve seen, we would be revisiting questions and topics and challenges that I thought had long been put to bed,” she said. “But we’ve met these challenges before, and there’s learning from history to be gained, but we cannot let our foot off the accelerator when it comes to advancing human rights. The struggle is still very much alive, and it’s thanks to topics like this, groups like this, communities like ours that will help keep that foot on the accelerator.”