2014 greenSPEAK Seminar Series Tuesday, April 1, 2014 Shirley Hardman, Senior Advisor Indigenous Affairs and Chantelle Marlor offered a joint Seminar Indigenous Perspectives and understanding biological or ecological knowledge. More and more work is being done to tie together Resource Management, Environmental Studies, and Aboriginal Ecological Knowledge, so that balanced relationships with their environments facilitate comprehensive understanding of […]
Indigenizing the Academy Questionnaire for Participating Institutions University of the Fraser Valley wishes to thank those institutions (listed below) that participated in its Indigenizing the Academy Questionnaire. The questions asked were similar to those discussed at the gathering: How many indigenous faculty and staff are at your institution? How many indigenous courses are offered? Is there an indigenization […]
Outcomes Report for the Indigenizing the Academy Conference August 26-28 2012 Summary Report on Outcomes ITA Dr. Ken Brealey, Associate Dean of Faculty, College of Arts University of the Fraser Valley, October 8 2013 Introduction The Indigenizing the Academy Conference (ITA) was held at the Gathering Center at the new Canada Education Park […]
Indigenizing the Academy report
Senior Administrators felt that it was necessary to consult with Aboriginal advisors to get started. It was considered important to have Learning Place for First Nations, which most institutions have, and First Nations programming included in the strategic plan. Programs needed to be created that acknowledge multiple nations. Administrators noted that many departments within the […]
Staff (Caucus) observed that it was very easy to underestimate the challenges involved, and wondered how to make the curriculum more balanced for aboriginal students, and if there were a way to incorporate and promote understanding through staff training and development. It was suggested that ceremonial activities, like sweats, were important to indigenization, as they […]
Indigenizers stressed, among other things, that First Nations should be hired throughout institutions, not just the First Nations studies department, and that institutions should report to aboriginal councils and that there be aboriginals and elders on the Board of Governors. It was felt that Indigenizing needed to be done by First Nations people to be […]
Elders stressed that best practices in indigenizing would include making language and particularly language immersion an important part of indigenization. Indigenous teaching methods – employing patience, and teaching with love, with “no slapping or yelling” — were recommended as well, rather than token efforts (“not enough to take a non-indigenous program and slap a name […]
Governance Students mentioned that it was difficult to make it through a system that talks about inclusion but that is backed by an infrastructure and policy that does not allow for inclusion: these issues are particularly extant within graduate studies, such as within Masters and PhD dissertation processes. Very often the students find themselves as […]
Students principally spoke to the questions of addressing misconceptions of what indigenization meant: they felt that a separate gathering space was needed where they could feel at home and culturally safe, feeling they could be themselves and not be judged. Also addressed were issues of structural discrimination typical of a Eurocentric post-secondary institution: mentioned as […]