'The Unleader': Dr. Vidya Shah’s road from OISE doctoral student to new OISE faculty

Dr. Vidya Shah, a two-time alum of the University of Toronto, is back at OISE.

Previously, she completed the two-year Master of Teaching program (MT), and a Doctor of Education (EdD) in Educational Leadership and Policy here. Today, she resides in the same department, of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, as an Associate Professor.

The route to her tenured position was not linear; in fact, she was tenured faculty at York University for 11 years. 

Her commitment is to transforming conditions in K-12 schooling and she prioritizes that commitment in her research, teaching, and service. 

In fact, during her graduate work, she had no intention of being an academic. She often describes herself as an “accidental academic,” someone who is in the academy but not of the academy.

Shah challenges normative approaches to educational leadership that prioritize theory over lived experience. “I think about the fact that I learned about leadership at the kitchen table, watching my mother navigate complex schooling dynamics with other parents," she says. 

With this transition, she is excited to collaborate and build with colleagues in Educational Leadership and Policy to reimagine liberatory education in K-12 schooling.

Before working as a teacher within the Toronto District School Board, she prioritized an MT at OISE, wanting more experience, practice and learning before entering the classroom.

Her entire professional journey has been guided by principles of justice, community, curiosity, and relationality. At the beginning of her career, she recounts, “How do I transform the conditions of this classroom into one in which students can practice what it means to be human as both an enactment and a rehearsal for life, collective struggle, and deep learning?”

She dove right into this process of thinking into the classroom, theorizing it as a research practitioner from the very start.

Then came along a central program in the TDSB, Model Schools for Inner Cities – which is a program designed to support the learning and well-being of students, families, and communities marginalized by poverty. Here she learned about the politics of schooling, including the challenges and possibilities of strong collaborations between schools, families, and communities.

Her educational pursuits

What she experienced at the school board prompted her to pursue doctoral studies at OISE, wanting to understand the nuances, complexities, and possibilities of systems transformation towards justice and liberation — with the intention of returning to TDSB to implement her learning. 

Part way through her OISE studies, she was seconded to York University to teach in their Bachelor of Education program. 4 years later, she was hired in the faculty as an Assistant Professor in Leadership and Community. She taught in 2 undergraduate and 2 graduate programs, including the Master of Leadership Community Engagement Program, teaching a range of students in different sectors.

Both practice-based programs informed the way she thinks about research, shifting towards understanding the conditions that make transformation possible in the classrooms – blurring knowledge and practice between schools, academies and communities.

Whether as an elementary teacher, a Lead Teacher with Model Schools, or faculty at a university, Shah has been guided by the same principles of justice, community, curiosity, and relationality. 

In 2021, Shah launched the UnLeading Project, a website and podcast series featuring community partners, academics, and K-12 practitioners. “UnLeading challenges us to undo and unlearn the ways in which we've been socialized into leadership, often through Eurocentric and Global North knowledge systems to honour often-silenced knowledge systems and imagine radical alternatives for our conceptions of leadership,” she says.

“I really want to challenge the idea that [leadership is] not just in one person, that leadership can exist in relationships and networks, that it’s not about power over, that it’s power with,” said Shah.

In 2023, she gained tenure at York, a highly interdisciplinary faculty. Being one of the only people researching educational leadership at York, Shah’s conceptions of leadership were informed and expanded upon by colleagues with very different research interests. Her research focuses on anti-racist, decolonial/anti-colonial approaches to educational leadership and school transformation. As Shah’s vision for school transformation expanded, she realized that she wanted to collaborate and build with colleagues who shared similar research interests, initiating the idea of the transfer over to OISE.

Full circle 

Thus, she began her present role as Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership & Policy Program in LHAE in 2025, integrating her scholar-activist-practitioner roles. “I’ve started to work in ways that honour these different parts of me, [working for something much greater.]” 

Here, Dr. Beyhan Farhadi became reacquainted with Shah and together, they ignited the Liberatory Education Network, a collaboration with OISE alumni and University of Ottawa Professor Dr. Sachin Maharaj. They initially met at York, where Farhadi was a postdoctoral fellow for Dr. Sue Winton, Shah’s mentor at York University. Their work was complementary to one another; the theoretical and political commitments aligned, and both focused on liberatory models of education.

“Her relationships Vidya has built [created] so much trust and community, which moves through her research and teaching,” Farhadi says.

Farhadi said that Shah’s move to OISE has made deeper, more grounded work possible, in principle and practice. 

“For students, it strengthens their access to learning about leadership, justice, and community, as well as mentorship that nurtures the capacity to build better futures,” she says. “For colleagues, it models what it looks like to ‘unlead,’ a term I draw from her work to describe leadership as a move away from ego, authority, or control, and toward leadership as accountability, relational responsibility, and purpose.”

Their work includes curated gatherings both in person and online that bring together academics, community partners and K-12 educators to understand the current workings of schooling systems, imagine different possibilities, and collectively work towards those possibilities. “We need to practice what it means to be the leaders and educators that are required for these times, people who are grounded, relationally responsible, and ethically guided who can collectively imagine and risk for more liberatory futures” Shah said. 

“I [said] yes because I trusted her and the purpose she was moving with. I feel embedded in the network as her collaborator, and personally, in my orientation to community and my own research focus on learning and surveillance technology,” says Farhadi.  

The future ahead

Shah credits her departmental Graduate Liaison Office and her new colleagues for her smooth and welcoming transition.

“The staff in LHAE are amazing. It just goes to show the importance of staff in creating the conditions for faculty to be able to soar and succeed, and they’ll do is required to make that happen. My colleagues are so collaborative and generous with their time and knowledge and I look forward to seeing what becomes possible through deepened relations over time.”

As she continues in her tenure, she focuses on her commitment towards communities, future generations and justice.

“We are so lucky to have [Vidya]. She is someone who takes integrity seriously, who does not take any decision for granted, nor lets any moment escape examination,” says Farhadi. “She offers us all an example of how we can get out of our own way in the work we do, of how necessary it is to move in good relations, and the time and commitment it takes to build those relations. 

“Vidya isn’t anchored in the centre of self, but in the centre of purpose,” Farhadi added.