Workshop Breakout 1 Group 5 (UFV Caucus) Personal & Institutional Reflections on Indigenizing the Academy

Personal & Institutional Reflections on Indigenizing the Academy

Workshop Breakout I

Breakout Group 5 (UFV Caucus)

Indigenizing Challenges

It’s easy to underestimate the challenges involved

Family function and influence

Can we make education a better experience by understanding how the family has evolved, and what it takes to make the families functional?

Balancing curriculum for aboriginal students

How can we make the curriculum more balanced for aboriginal students?

Sense of community?

Has the University become selfish and lost its sense of community?

Staff training and development

Is there a way to incorporate and promote understanding through staff training and development?

Inclusivity

How do we become all-inclusive? Can we change education to benefit the community, not just the individual? (Getting the individual to change the community would be transforming)

Challenges students face

Need to know what you don’t know about the challenges students face before you can help.

Ceremonial activities

Ceremonial activities, like sweats, are important to indigenizing the academy, because they convey the spiritual component and basis for “good heart & good mind”. They can be healing for participants, overcoming fears.

Allies and Champions

It’s a multi-step process – we need champions and allies at different stages of the educational process. Unfortunately, people come and go, so the institutional memory gets lost.

Institutional memory

It’s a multi-step process – we need champions and allies at different stages of the educational process. Unfortunately, people come and go, so the institutional memory gets lost.

Stakeholders

All stakeholder groups – unions, churches, etc. – not just the academy need to participate in decolonizing the entrenched colonizing/settler mentality

Decolonization

All stakeholder groups – unions, churches, etc. – not just the academy need to participate in decolonizing the entrenched colonizing/settler mentality

Settler mentality

All stakeholder groups – unions, churches, etc. – not just the academy need to participate in decolonizing the entrenched colonizing/settler mentality

Transformative change

Need to be mindful and be ready to challenge where we see the need for change; it must be transformative change.

Blank stare

Walk the talk when you go back home; get past the blank stare, don’t just talk to the other person, move to action.

Aboriginal participation in program development

Can we incorporate aboriginal participation into the program development process, from the beginning?

Segregation

Segregation between aboriginals and others is very strong in interior communities.

Aboriginal and non-aboriginals

Immigrants and aboriginals

Immigrants in particular can find it very hard to understand what’s going on for aboriginal people when they (immigrants) haven’t personally learned about the history in Canada

Need for personal as well as institutional engagement.

Personal engagement

Need for personal as well as institutional engagement.

Institutional engagement

Human Resources

Working in Human Resources area, there’s often an institutional expectation that HR will “have the answer”, but on this they don’t. From HR point of view, how can we help share learning, with each other, with new hires?

Population

Aboriginals comprise 3% of Canadian population (BC is almost half of that total)

Poverty

85% are below the poverty line

Levels of education

47% complete K – 12 system

Foster care

53% of children in foster care system are aboriginal

Prison population

40% of prison population is aboriginal

Rebuilding Extended family crucial

In the past, grandparents, aunts & uncles raised the children. Rebuilding extended family is crucial.

Family structure and Preparedness for university

Maybe white society needs to rebuild its family structure too. Get away from ‘me’ and back to ‘we’. Not just in the aboriginal community, but wider community as well. Do kids have a strong foundation when they start education? Do college students struggle financially and resist asking for help? Do kids get taught that when you have work to do, you get it done?

Helping students learn to be away from home is an important form of support for those going on to post-secondary education. This can go right to the level of familiar food, activities, in first steps away from home.

Knowledge of one’s culture important

(Combined from several people) It’s hard to hold dear what you haven’t had handed down to you – several participants had grown up without knowing their background or learning their culture.

Tokenism/rethink the system/University as part of community

How do we get past tokenism and rethink the system? Maybe viewing the university as contributing to the community will help break down the barriers

Feminist and aboriginal research methods

The shift in feminist & aboriginal research methods is an important shift from working on people to working with them and for them, learning from their qualitative experience.

Audience engagement

The quality of speech and the audience engagement in the traditional space this morning was impressive.

Practicality of working groups/content experts

It’s easy to underestimate the challenges involved

Think about working groups as a practical step, bringing together people who can apply their content knowledge to solve problems in that area.