I am an Associate Professor of Teaching with an emphasis on Spanish language and Latin American literature and culture in the Department of French, Hispanic & Italian Studies. I had the privilege of teaching in Arts One’s Authority and Resistance stream from 2017-2019 and more recently in Border Crossings (2024-2025).
Each return to the program has reminded me of what makes Arts One so unique. The cross-disciplinary team-teaching approach of Arts One also positively impacts the student experience. The program is built around community-centered, (inter)disciplinary, and academic values that come together to provide first-year students with the time, space, and (inter)disciplinary exposure to simultaneously foster interpersonal relationships, skills, and resilience, without sacrificing academic rigor. The program also conscientiously engages with UBC’s diverse course formats—lecture, seminar, tutorials—, disciplines in the new Arts “ways of knowing” pathways, and skill-foci. Arts One has a reputation of being reading and writing-intensive (which it is!), but it also positions students to build on other key university-level skills—active listening, critical thinking, respectful discussion and debate, analysis, reflection—and engage meaningfully in interdisciplinarity and perspective-taking in a safe, fun and dynamic collaborative learning environment from year 1.
I’m delighted to return once again to teach in the second round of the Authority and Resistance theme and to serve as Chair of the program during the 2025-2026 academic year!
Bri Orr-Alvarez
