Hiring, Retention, Tenure, and Promotion
Workshop Breakout II
Breakout Group 6 (Community and Elders)
Hiring
- advisory council to get First Nations on to faculty – can’t find anyone to hire
- need to be more creative than academic qualifications
- beyond tokenism
Elder involvement
Elder Advisor
Advisory board input not valued
Elders volunteer and non-paid
Elder in residence needed for student success
- Use love to combat racism and judgment;
- promote body, mind, emotion and spirit; be true – really walk your talk
- meet needs, not be judgmental, who I am, not what I do.
Universities stuck in old ways
Funding
- First Nations schools will not get funded if non First Nations institutions “indigenize”
Change
Racism Combatted by Love, spirit
- Use love to combat racism and judgment;
- promote body, mind, emotion and spirit; be true – really walk your talk
Hiring questions not relevant to experience or job description
Academic qualifications given too much importance
Tenure
- afraid of tenure
- Faculty with tenure resistant to change
Tokenism
- can’t find anyone to hire – need to be more creative than academic qualifications – beyond tokenism –
What is the Students’ orientation
- Knowing their own history
- Question value and manipulation at interview
- Pre-European education
- Had to survive in their environment
Student success
- start student support circles
What do we want our people to learn?
- What is it we want our people to learn?”
- Challenging to bring traditional learning into university setting
- To what degree should we share our learning within the institution?
- If not there, where else will they learn it?
Residential schools
- How do we replace the learning that was lost due to residential school?
European education vs past aboriginal learning
Student success and Skills for survival in environment
Right to speak
- The need for learning – if I have a degree, I have the right to speak
Degree
Traditional learning
To what degree should we share our learning within institution
Learning about cultural background
What is the story that goes with the learning
Community consultation:
- first thing, community consultation to find community priorities;
- language, education, business, natural resources, health – advisory council to get First Nations on to faculty – can’t find anyone to hire – need to be more creative than academic qualifications – beyond tokenism
- language needs to be taught
- need to start “teaching” in our own communities
Language
- language needs to be taught
Business
Health
Culture and non-traditional / academic courses
- in nursing school, had to do anatomy and physiology, had to dissect cadaver,
- but culturally, never tamper with one who has passed on –
- for the benefit of our people you need to learn, watch, not touch –
- translate medicine into language –
- look at what will get used in surgery; our elders become our teachers
Learn by watching not by doing
Bureaucracy
- got tired that the University wanted me to prove what I could do, needed to write a resume; before, hired by what I knew, not what I did – meet needs, not be judgmental, who I am, not what I do.
Research and applying knowledge
Take research and knowledge into the communities
- the work has already been done- the research has been done – need to apply what we already know
- start student support circles –
- need to start “teaching” in our own communities
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