For Ekta Singh (MEd'11), pursuing her Master's research at the Faculty of Education was a time when her big questions were taken seriously. Ekta focused on anti-racism and human rights education — a subject that pressed her to think critically about her own experiences as a learner and to ask harder questions about whose voices shape the systems we call education.
"My time there helped me discover my voice as a social-justice-driven educator."
Awarded a SSHRC scholarship in recognition of her research's academic merit and social significance, Singh's master's thesis examined why higher education institutions struggle to move beyond symbolic commitments to anti-racism — toward genuine, sustained action and accountability. Her research explored the ways in which well-meaning policies can be reduced to "lip service," undermined by bureaucratic inertia, institutional risk-aversion, and the quiet comfort of the status quo. It was rigorous, urgent work and it set the intellectual foundation for everything that followed.
While at the Faculty of Education, Ekta developed not just a research focus, but an entire orientation toward her career. The master's program, she reflects, "gave me both the lens and the language to name issues of identity, human rights, anti-oppression, and anti-racism." More profoundly, it was where she came to understand that "'good teaching' is inseparable from questions of power, access, and dignity."
That understanding was shaped, in no small part, by the mentors around her. Under the guidance of professors like Dr. Magda Lewis, Dr. Sheryl Bond, and the late Dr. John Freeman, Ekta's reflective practice took root. "Working as a TA and RA for Dr. Bond and Dr. Freeman was particularly formative," she recalls. "They invited me into the 'backstage' of teaching." Late-night research sessions, thesis drafts marked up by committee members, and long hours spent with the works of George Dei, Carl James, bell hooks, and other scholar-activists — these were the textures of her formation.
Outside the classroom, Ekta carried her values into student governance. She served as the first Equity Commissioner with the Society of Graduate and Professional Students, working alongside fellow graduate students to embed equity and human rights more intentionally into institutional structures. "I cherished the community that formed through seminars, social events, and informal hallway conversations," she says. "Peers became collaborators, friends, and co-conspirators in the work of unlearning and re-imagining education."
Among those peers was Tyler Wilson (MEd'11) — now Ekta's husband. They connected through a shared commitment to social justice, serving together on the executive of the Education Graduate Student Society (EGSS) and crossing paths regularly in the Education Library. The bonds formed at Queen's became the foundation not only for their careers, but for their shared life. Tyler Wilson now serves as a principal for a Kingston-area high school.
After Queen's, Ekta pursued global, international education. She taught at International Baccalaureate (IB) schools in Kuwait and Mexico, immersive environments focused on the IB Learner Profile philosophy of developing internationally minded, principled, reflective, and open-minded individuals. "Those classrooms — filled with students from many countries, languages, and faith traditions — deepened my commitment to culturally responsive, globally minded education," she says. Teaching across two countries and multiple cultures confirmed what her MEd research had suggested: that equity in education is not a policy position — it is a lived, relational practice.
Upon returning to Canada, Ekta pursued roles spanning education, community health, human rights, and equity advising. She became a certified intercultural competency trainer, earning national recognition for her work helping educators and administrators across Canadian higher education develop the fluency to lead across difference. That journey led her to St. Lawrence College, where she started as an Intercultural Competency and EDI Advisor. Ekta now serves as a full-time professor and Program Coordinator of the Health Care Administration program. In this role Ekta oversees and designs curriculum, mentors students, coordinates community placements, and teaches with one consistent goal: creating safe and inclusive learning environments where students can thrive in their professional goals.
Twenty years of teaching have only confirmed what Ekta first discovered at Queen's: that the most powerful classrooms are built from belonging. "I keep coming back to the same commitments," she reflects, "creating spaces where every person feels they belong, interrogating our own privilege, and continuous learning and self reflection." For Ekta, teaching has never been a destination. It is a lifelong practice of growth, humility, and showing up. Whether examining how equity practices take root in graduate student governance, or how internationally trained health professionals find their footing in a new system, Ekta will find you the well-researched, compassionate answer and remind you, gently, that the question itself was worth asking all along.