Di-bayn-di-zi-win (To Own Ourselves) by Jerry Fontaine & Don McCaskill

Author:Jerry Fontaine & Don McCaskill [Fontaine, Jerry & McCaskill, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Indigenous Studies
ISBN: 9781459749016
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2021-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

Challenges

DESPITE THE PROGRESS, THERE HAVE ALSO BEEN SERIOUS SETBACKS to indigenizing the academy. Two Anishinabe academics who were appointed to senior administrative positions (vice-president at the University of Manitoba and dean of the law school at Lakehead University) have resigned over what they perceived as a lack of willingness of their universities to make significant changes. At the CAUT conference on advancing Indigenization, some Anishinabe faculty spoke of the burden of implementing the Anishinabe course requirement, with its huge increase in enrollment, without a subsequent increase in faculty support. Moreover, few if any universities other than Trent have appointed Elders to tenure-track faculty positions or have developed tenure and promotion criteria that apply specifically to Anishinabe faculty who are primarily concerned with working in their communities or pursuing cultural activities, as opposed to conventional research and publishing. In some cases Elders, Spiritual Leaders, and Medicine People are assigned token roles, such as opening and closing events with a prayer, but are afforded little input into the substance of the activity. Further, a representative of the University of Saskatchewan claimed that nine Anishinabe faculty had left the university because of the lack of progress on indigenizing the academy in spite of the university’s rhetoric. There have also been incidents where, as an unintended consequence, efforts to indigenize the academy have had a negative impact on Indigenous Studies departments. That is, some universities have hired Anishinabeg faculty in departments throughout the institution rather than in Indigenous Studies departments, leading to a decline in the number of faculty in Indigenous Studies.

Furthermore, a major blow was struck against the discipline of Indigenous Studies in 2021 when the University of Sudbury terminated the Department of Indigenous Studies as a result of the financial restructuring of Laurentian University. It was the second-oldest Indigenous Studies department in Canada. It was housed at the University of Sudbury, a federated college of Laurentian University.

I remember being part of an evaluation team, which included Joe Couture and Sally Weaver, in the mid-1970s that went to Laurentian University to assess whether a department of Native Studies should be established. Indigenous courses were housed in the Department of Anthropology at the time, and there was some opposition in that department to letting go of those courses. Some anthropology faculty felt that Native Studies did not have the academic rigour to be a stand-alone department. We recognized that the disciplines of Anthropology and Native Studies had substantially different approaches to studying Anishinabe people, and we recommended that an independent department be established. The effort to create the department was spear-headed by Art Solomon, Ed Newberry, Edna Manitowabi, and Jim Dumont. The department went on to become one of the most successful in Canada. It is sad that it no longer exists.

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