Among the 94 calls to action published by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a 2015 report were numerous references to the need for increased education about Indigenous issues, including a call for governments to “provide the necessary funding to post-secondary institutions to educate teachers on how to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods in classrooms.”
Some Canadian universities are working to better recognize Indigenous knowledge on their campuses, from the implementation of Indigenous content requirements, to the creation of buildings dedicated to Indigenous studies and culture.
Lakehead University
Following the implementation of an Indigenous content requirement in the fall 2016 semester, Lakehead University is working to address student concerns about the information being taught.
“There have been some disagreements between students and instructors over delivery of content, and so one of the issues that’s come up is the importance of providing support to faculty to help ensure that the content being delivered is appropriate,” said Peggy Smith, interim vice-provost (Aboriginal initiatives) at Lakehead. “So one of the things that we’re doing is hiring an Indigenous curriculum specialist.”
Along with helping faculty to find resource material for Indigenous content courses, the Indigenous curriculum specialist will act as a support person for students to speak with about course content, Smith said. The university will also be following up with faculty currently teaching Indigenous content courses.
“I think we’d probably like to see more work around incorporating traditional knowledge holders in our curriculum, and we certainly want to see every academic unit that go beyond this minimum requirement,” Smith said.
In May 2014, Lakehead made the decision requiring all undergraduate students to fulfill an Indigenous content requirement in order to graduate. Under the requirement, students are required to fulfill 18 hours of study on Indigenous content in a discipline-specific course, which is equivalent to 0.5 course credits.
University of Winnipeg
Similar to Lakehead, the University of Winnipeg (U of W) also has a discipline-specific Indigenous content requirement. According to Kevin Lamoureux, associate vice-president (Indigenous affairs) at U of W, the implementation of the content requirement, which started in September 2016, has been “going great.”
“The most difficult question that I get from students who have taken the course, and I’m talking about mostly non-Indigenous students, is honestly ‘why haven’t we learned this any sooner?’” Lamoureux said. “I think that speaks to the willingness and the readiness of young people to really embrace contributing to change once they understand the reason why change needs to take place. There’s a thirst for reconciliation once the need for reconciliation is understood.”
In order for a course to qualify as an Indigenous content requirement course, Lamoureux said there is a consultation process with the university’s Indigenous advisory circle, comprised of U of W personnel as well as off-campus experts “in policy, academia and governance.”
Approximately 12 per cent of U of W’s student population self-identifies as being Indigenous, according to Lamoureux. He said the movement to implement an Indigenous content requirement at the university was partially driven by students, after an incident of racism was reported in a course.
In 2015, U of W came out with five strategic directions to guide and shape activities taking place on campus. Alongside academic excellence and student experience, one of the five strategic directions is “Indigenization.”
“In large part, ‘Indigenization’ means safety,” Lamoureux said. “Physical safety is the bare minimum, but also cultural identity, safety of cultural expression, safety of grieving when grieving is a necessary part of learning, safety of spiritual practice, safety of Indigenous knowledge.”
Concordia University of Edmonton
At Concordia University of Edmonton (CUOE), steps are being taken to integrate Indigenous knowledge into the curriculum without implementing an Indigenous course requirement.
“We went through about six months of consultations with the Indigenous community with the basic question of how Concordia can better serve Indigenous students,” said Lewis Cardinal, an Indigenous strategy advisor at CUOE. “What we want to do is integrate Indigenous knowledge in all the courses.”
Cardinal said requiring students to take one particular course to satisfy an Indigenous content requirement can be problematic, because “there’s so much that needs to be talked about, but it’s difficult to cover as much and create the deeper understanding that you want.”
By including Indigenous knowledge in all courses, Cardinal said students will learn traditional Indigenous knowledge alongside the latest in academic discovery.
“For example, if there’s an astronomy class, they will integrate the Blackfoot and Cree traditional knowledge of astronomy in parallel to what we know today from a scientific method,” Cardinal said.
CUOE is in the process of implementing an Indigenous strategy on campus that will include the creation of an Indigenous student council. As part of their Indigenous strategy, CUOE is also looking to create an elders council and have Indigenous representation present on the university’s Board of Governors.
“[An elders council] would integrate Indigenous elders in what the university does, not only serving and supporting Indigenous students, but also serving and supporting the staff, so that the administration and faculty can have access to Indigenous elders where they can seek counsel on particular issues,” Cardinal said.
Carleton University
Carleton University vice-president (finance and administration) Michel Piché announced in a press release on Feb. 3 that the school is working to transform its outdoor amphitheater into an “Indigenous learning and gathering space” as part of the university’s “Aboriginal Co-ordinated Strategy.”
The strategy includes an Aboriginal Academic Initiative, which says the school will be “reaching out to Aboriginal communities, welcoming Aboriginal students to campus, promoting research on Aboriginal affairs and opening our curriculum to the inclusion of Aboriginal knowledge.”
Carleton also changed the name of the School of Canadian Studies to the School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies last summer. However, there is currently no mandatory Indigenous learning requirement at Carleton comparable to some other Canadian universities.
“Push” for Indigenous learning
Adam Gaudry, an assistant professor in the faculty of native studies and department of political science at the University of Alberta, said “there’s been a push” by Canadian universities in recent years to incorporate Indigenous knowledge on campuses.
“There has been quite an uptick in the number of Indigenous studies job postings for tenure track and instructor positions across Canada, which I think is somewhat in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call for universities to basically do more in educating students,” Gaudry said. “I think that is definitely a step in the right direction.”
When working to incorporate Indigenous culture and content requirements, Gaudry said universities can face a challenge in making their efforts appear sincere.
“On some level there is a public relations component to this, because being seen as a university that’s leading the way in providing Indigenous content for students in order to achieve reconciliation is an important consideration,” Gaudry said.
“But on the other hand, I think that there’s also an earnest attempt by a lot of people to do this right. The kind of tension between those two poles is that in order to do it right, it does take a lot of time, it takes a lot of resources, you need to have a critical mass of instructors, you need administrative support,” he added.
While the process to change university degree requirements can take time, Gaudry said the slow pace isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since universities should take their time to put “the right instructors in place.”
“Having specialists in place is the number one concern, because you want the right people with the right education, the right knowledge, the right specialties teaching these courses,” he said. “You need people who have experience teaching difficult and challenging topics, topics that people may feel uncomfortable with, people may feel implicated in, and kind of turning that discomfort into something constructive.”
He also stressed the need for Indigenous content course instructors to be mindful of the students who will be in attendance.
“A risk of Indigenous content requirements is that they presume that students are non-native, and that is going to be the primary target audience, which then forces Indigenous students to go to these classes because it would be required for them as well, and sit through a course about them designed for someone else,” Gaudry said. “I think that that’s something we need to work really hard to avoid as well.”
– Photo by Justin Samanski-Langille
