Student calls for U of S to step up Indigenization efforts on campus
Three years into the University of Saskatchewan’s process of Indigenization, leaders are proud of steps taken but students are impatient for change.
Faculty and staff were inspired in the fall of 2015, when thennew president Peter Stoicheff announced the U of S would immediately begin working to make room for Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing to be incorporated throughout, said Patti McDougall, vice-provost of teaching, learning and student experience.
The number of Indigenous students at U of S has grown to more than 3,000, which reflects the supports available to students, improved programming and curricula, said Jacqueline Ottmann, vice-provost of Indigenous engagement.
This week, the university hosted the Teach and Learning Today conference on Indigenization.
McDougall said the creation of Ottmann’s high-level position among the university leadership is another example of the institution’s commitment to be influenced and shaped by Indigenous perspectives.
There are now more than 50 Indigenous scholars on the faculty, which McDougall believes is the highest of any university in the country. The College of Arts and Science has committed to hiring at least three Indigenous faculty members every year for the next 10 years.
“It’s the kind of commitment that’s going to shift the place,” McDougall said.
Ottmann said thinking and doing differently meets resistance.
“Are we ready to abandon practices that have made us successful in the past? The university has functioned in a certain way for hundreds and hundreds of years ... that comes from a specific world view. How do you become inclusive of other perspectives in respectful ways?”
Shifting attitudes, values and belief systems takes time, she said.
There’s more than one way to assess prospective faculty members or those seeking tenure, McDougall said, adding that established professors don’t need to be afraid that incorporating new ways will undermine the process they came through.
Zoey Roy, who is working on her master’s degree in public policy, said she sees small steps taken toward Indigenization but the university still has a long way to go.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples outlines the requirements to achieve equality and the Truth and Reconciliation’s 94 Calls to Action laid out the steps to get there, but the institution remains perplexed, she said.
“We’re just touching the surface because it still sounds like Indigenization is merely social inclusion ... I think Indigenization means I get to use traditional Indigenous knowledge as a way to find solutions to colonial problems,” she said.
The institution too often places the need for change on Indigenous people, as if the deficits lie with them, instead of looking at the flaws in the existing systems that have led to the problems, she said.
“People need to stop responding emotionally and look at the bigger picture and respect Indigenous people as human. The Indigenization mandate can’t be led by a colonial body, it has to be led by Indigenous people and affirmed by our elders.”