Five questions with Associate Dean Patricia Badir 

Dr. Patricia Badir is Associate Dean, Faculty in the UBC Faculty of Arts and a professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures.

As Associate Dean, Faculty in the UBC Faculty of Arts, Dr. Patricia Badir works at the intersection of policy, mentorship, and academic life, supporting department heads and faculty through appointments, tenure and promotion, and the key decisions that shape academic careers.  

A scholar of Renaissance literature and drama, Dr. Badir joined UBC in 1995 and most recently served as Head of the Department of English before joining the Dean of Arts Office. 

In this Q&A, she reflects on her priorities for the coming year, the importance of informal mentorship, the growing recognition of diverse scholarly pathways, and what she’s been reading and watching lately. 

What does your role as Associate Dean, Faculty involve? 

At a high level, my role is to support department heads and faculty members with employment-related matters across the full arc of an academic career. That includes appointments, retirements, tenure and promotion, salary adjustments — essentially all of the key milestones faculty move through.  

I also do a lot of policy work. I work with department heads on things like workload policy, teaching evaluation, merit, and PSA policies, and I work closely with our Director of Human Resources and Faculty Relations on faculty performance issues.  

Workload policy, for example, sets out how teaching and service responsibilities are assigned and how work is distributed within a department. Like all faculty-related policies, it has to align with the collective agreement between UBC and the UBC Faculty Association. Because the collective agreement is written in fairly broad terms, departments develop their own policies to put it into practice. Part of my role is helping departments do that in a way that reflects their disciplinary context while still staying compliant. 

What drew you to take on this role?

I was department head of English for five years prior to taking on this position. There were two things I really liked about that job. One was on-the-spot problem-solving, which I find interesting. This felt like a continuation of that work. The other thing I really enjoyed was working with other department heads. You can get siloed in your own unit, and being a head gave me insight into the exciting work happening across the faculty. I really liked that collaboration and realized I wanted a job where I worked with department heads all the time.  

The other thing that’s fantastic about this role and getting to interact with so many people across the Faculty is how extraordinarily smart, interesting and hardworking the faculty are. It amazes me every single day how brilliant they are. 

What are your priorities in the coming year? 

A major priority for me each year is supporting faculty through the tenure and promotion process. I run workshops for new department heads on how to support colleagues going through tenure and promotion, as well as workshops for faculty who are preparing to go up for tenure or promotion.  

This year, in alignment with the Arts Strategic Plan, I’m also offering two special workshops on tenure and promotion pathways. One focuses on tenure and promotion under the new collective agreement provisions for Indigenous scholarly research. The other is for faculty whose career paths don’t follow a traditional trajectory—for example, those doing public or community-engaged scholarship, creative work, policy research, or other forms of scholarship that don’t always fit neatly into conventional academic categories. 

The collective agreement explicitly recognizes these “diverse pathways to tenure and promotion,” but how they’re evaluated depends on the discipline and the unit. A key part of my role is helping faculty present this work clearly as scholarly output and supporting departments in identifying appropriate external referees who can assess it against disciplinary standards. My focus is on making that process as transparent as possible and giving faculty the best chance of success. 

What advice would you give to new faculty members as they settle into their work at UBC? 

My main advice is to talk to your colleagues and actively seek out informal mentorship, which has been the most valuable guide in my own career. Whenever I’ve had teaching or research challenges, my first resource has almost always been the people around me. Remote and hybrid work have reduced many of the casual, everyday interactions where people used to exchange advice—whether that was about teaching, CVs, or even pension planning. A lot of information now comes through one-off workshops or formal sessions, which can be hard to retain when you actually need it later. That’s one reason we’re being intentional about making key workshops in person and building in time for informal conversation. Those moments are often where the most valuable connections form. 

I also encourage new faculty to talk regularly with their department head. Share concerns, but also share your successes. Being a head can be challenging if you only ever hear about problems, and it’s genuinely meaningful to hear about things like publications, prizes, or fellowships. And faculty should feel free to reach out to me as well if questions about tenure, promotion, or merit remain. 

Outside of work, how do you like to recharge, and what have you been enjoying lately? 

I recharge by walking my dog, spending time with friends, and watching TV. I’ve also been watching a lot of hockey lately. I grew up in Edmonton in the 1980s, so hockey is kind of in my genes. 

I recently watched The Lowdown with Ethan Hawke, directed by the same filmmaker behind Reservation Dogs, and found it hilariously weird. Also, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, from the Game of Thrones franchise, is surprisingly adorable. I recently read The Pretender by Jo Harkin, a goofy historical novel about a plot to overthrow Henry VII and I just finished a thrilling (and moving) procedural novel called The Woods by Tana French.