Emma Courtney

Biography

Emma Courtney is an educator, curriculum developer, and applied researcher whose work explores recreation as a site of belonging, leadership, community well-being, and social change. She teaches in Langara College’s Recreation Studies Department, where her courses centre relational leadership, systems thinking, experiential learning, and the responsibility to imagine more just and life-giving futures.

Emma holds a Master of Arts in Global Leadership from Royal Roads University. Her graduate research examined what it means for a post-secondary institution to become Indigenous-serving, an inquiry that continues to shape her approach to teaching, curriculum development, and institutional change. She has led and supported projects focused on Indigenous education, decolonization, intercultural learning, inclusive access to public recreation, and community-led program development.

Her current work includes co-leading applied research with immigrant and racialized communities to better understand access to public recreation, and collaborating with Musqueam Recreation and other First Nations partners on the development of an Indigenous Leadership in Community Recreation micro-credential. Across these projects, Emma is interested in how recreation education can strengthen relationships, honour community knowledge, and create the conditions for dignity, justice, joy, and belonging.

Originally from Nex̱wlélex̱m (Bowen Island), Emma now lives in the Comox Valley on the ancestral territory of the K’ómoks First Nation. Outside the classroom, she is happiest on a trail, in a garden, on the water, or otherwise finding reasons to be outside.