Orange Shirt Day
Orange Shirt Day began as a result of a residential school commemoration event held in Williams Lake, BC in the spring of 2013. It grew out of Phyllis Webstad’s story of having her shiny new orange shirt being taken away…
Online Sharing Circle
Technology is excellent at allowing us to work remotely, but it can be more challenging for building community or keeping a community strong. Technology’s strength is for communication and is not as robust for building connection, especially with larger groups.…
Land Acknowledgements – A Reflection 5-years After the TRC Report
By Stryker Calvez and Rose Roberts Five years after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, Land Acknowledgements are still gaining strength as an important component of the University landscape. In fact, it is more common to notice when this…
Graduates with perspectives and approaches the world needs
We often talk about the skills our graduates will need for success in their work and within our communities. As we aspire to be the university the world needs, we can’t overlook how essential perspective taking and cross-cultural competence are…
Taking a Fresh Approach to the Course Design Institute
[social_share/] For more than a decade, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL) has offered the Course Design Institute (CDI). Throughout the CDI, facilitators from the GMCTL work with instructors on developing or redeveloping a course. We go…
Why Do We Acknowledge Treaty 6 & Metis?
[social_share/] A session on this topic will be held during the Fall Fortnight on Monday August 29, 2016 from 9:30 – 9:55. Register here. Many of you may have noticed that across the campus that there has been an increase…
Gearing Up With Fall Fortnight 2016
[social_share/] “Happy New Year!!” That is how I think of September and the new school year. This often coincides with a strong pull to stationary stores, tidying my office, organizing my supplies, reading new books, and pulling out sweaters and…
Historical Biases in Understanding Culture – A Barrier to Indigenization?
[social_share/] Western society has made significant advances in empirically derived truth and scientific inquiry (e.g., anthropology, psychology, linguistics, etc.) since the Age of Enlightenment (e.g., Descartes, Diderot, Montesquieu, Turgot, Vico, Voltaire, etc.). The impact and importance of this epistemological approach…
Indigenizing Education Series: Getting started …
[social_share/] As an Indigenous educator, researcher, and scholar, academics have asked me more often about ‘how’ we, the collective we, can improve the situation for the First Nation, Metis, and Inuit peoples than ‘why’ we should do this? While I…
Truth and Reconciliation – Call to Action for Educators
[social_share/] Indigenous people and their communities have had a long and contentious experience with Western education. For far too long, schools and education were used as instruments to systematically dismantle Indigenous culture, their way of living and knowing. Generation after…
“If Not Us, Who? If Not Now, When?”
[social_share/] In Peter Stoicheff’s speech for the Presidential Announcement, he posed two questions that inspire the university’s efforts to decolonize and Indigenize our campus (July 9, 2015, http://www.usask.ca/presidentialtransition/). Emphasizing the urgency for action, he asked, “If not us, who?” and…
wâhkôhtowin: 2014: Linking Kindred Sprits
[social_share/] The Beadwork Committee, of the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan, had a vision for a national conference that would bring together “kindred spirits” to unpack decolonization and kindle Indigenization processes and methods to transform educational practices.…
Undergraduate Student Engagement Underpins Success of Indigenous Philosophy Class
[social_share/] How can a European educated, non-Aboriginal philosopher effectively and ethically teach a course on Indigenous philosophy? For Dr. Daniel Regnier, professor and department head of philosophy at St. Thomas More College, the answer to this question was to set…
Where Are You From?
[social_share/] By Colleen Charles Academically speaking, when you first meet a professional on campus, you state your name, job title and credentials accordingly. However, for First Nations people, and I speak for myself as a Woodland Cree, Treaty Six Territory,…
Indigenous Voices Program is Built for You
[social_share/] A ground-breaking program, almost unique to post-secondary institutions in Canada, is offered through our own Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectivness: Indigenous Voices. In its final of three years of PCIP funding, we have been able to develop, pilot,…