Post-secondary education needs to focus more on Black studies and advocating for Black students, author and Black activist Robyn Maynard told Fanshawe students Monday.
In a fire-side chat with faculty and students, Maynard spoke about Black excellence and underrepresentation in educational settings. Her books Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada and Rehearsals for Living give light to issues involving systemic racism, state-sanctioned violence against Black Canadians and ideas for liberation.
Robyn Maynard (Credit: University of Toronto website)
“It’s important to bring Black studies into our curriculum,” said Robyn Maynard.
Black students are disproportionately being pushed out of education, said Maynard, through both academic courses and exclusion from post-secondary schools.
A study from Queen’s University showed that Black students face isolation, microaggressions and a lack of institutional support amidst already existing systemic barriers and oppression. It also showed how Black students are limited in their access to academics and that earlier practices of segregated education laid an inequitable foundation.
“How do we in educational spaces find out how our students are experiencing it? What are the measures we have so that they can actually tell us, to let us know how is their feedback being sought and integrated?” said Maynard.
Maynard’s work has earned numerous designations and awards, including the “Best 100 Books of 2017” by the Hill Times and the winner of the 2017 Errol Sharpe Book Prize. Her studies have been brought to classrooms and bookshelves across North America and Europe to educate communities on Black Canadian issues.
With students’ concerns about speaking up and the potential of being seen as hard to work with, Maynard said “it’s okay to be labelled as difficult.”
“If we waited for that acceptance to come first, we’d be waiting a very long time.”
Within the Black community at Fanshawe, changes have been made recently to bring more support to students. The college’s first Black Student Club was formed in Sept. 2025 and has since grown to around 100 members.
Khadija Foeday, Event Coordinator for Fanshawe College’s Black Student Club. Feb, 9, 2026. (Naomi Ljunggren / XFM News)
“They’ve [Fanshawe] been trying to put the community together, especially the Black community, I’ve seen a lot of posters of Black students and they advocate a lot for the Black community here,” said Khadija Foeday, Event Coordinator of the Black Student Club.
The club holds many events for its members, including movie and game nights, discussion panels and study groups. It also ran a week-long donation drive for hurricane relief in Jamaica last December.
The past year has been incredibly eye-opening, said Foeday, who has met many other Black students and faculty members through the club.
“Being in the community and getting that support from the school itself has been very very helpful,” said Foeday.
The college’s next Black History Month event will take place on Feb. 12 to educate the public about what it’s like “Living While Black.”
