Canadian universities are working towards Indigenizing their campuses and programs in response to the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report.
The report included 94 calls to action, for the government and post-secondary institutions to improve the livelihood of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Among the calls to action is for Canadian post-secondary institutions to create university and college degree and diploma programs in Aboriginal languages.
Olson Crow, a Haudenosaunee and Métis student at Ryerson University, said Indigenization is the creation of “a space where Indigenous students can feel supported.”
“The learning in university institutions is not traditional learning . . . it is colonized, and fundamentally resistant to changes, such as Indigenization,” Crow added.
He said that universities need to improve their inclusion of language courses, history, and arts courses aimed at diversifying the school system with pro-Indigenization programs.
Recently, Ryerson installed a plaque by the statue of Egerton Ryerson, which acknowledged his contribution to residential schools.
Crow said the plaque is “ineffective” and “unnoticeable.”
He said students at Ryerson continue to push for the statue’s removal, but the university has chosen to let the statue remain.
However, Ryerson has launched the Yellowhead Insitute this summer, a First Nations-led research centre based in the faculty of arts.
The institute is focused on policies related to land governance, and offers, “critical and accessible resources for communities in their pursuit of self-determination,” according to its website.
In June, Ryerson also began the process of “decolonizing” its library, where categories such as “Indians of North America” will be replaced with more appropriate terms, according to a news release.
Nicole Ineese-Nash, project co-ordinator for the Inclusive Early Childhood Service System, is of Cree and Ojibway heritage. She said in the release that she hopes decolonization will involve developing other ways of expressing knowledge.
“The whole concept of a library is pretty colonial, as it is essentially a way of commodifying knowledge and retaining it for later sale,” Ineese-Nash said. “The values of a university library are pretty different from Indigenous knowledge systems, which are about relationship-building and propagating knowledge between different generations.”
Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Carleton University’s president, said in an interview “you can’t do anything about Indigenous people without Indigenous people.”
He said what he can do as a president is create the space for Indigenous people to work towards their needs and aspirations.
Bacon said he’s working closely with faculty members to achieve that, particularly, Kahente Horn-Miller, an Indigenous studies professor at Carleton.
Horn-Miller challenged traditional learning structures in her master’s level course, “Indigenous Politics and Resurgence.”
According to a university press release, instead of writing typical essays, students in the course develop multimedia websites, digging deeply into different forms of Indigenous resurgence.
Horn-Miller said in the release that for her, this course is about representing information with all senses.
“As Indigenous people, we’re using all of our senses to live in the world, so I’m trying to get students to do the same in the online environment,” she said.
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