Kicking off the first day of Indigenous Awareness week, McGill’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives hosted Dr. Laara Fitznor for her talk entitled “Engaging Indigenous Philosophies and Practices for Mutual Respect and Leadership across University Landscapes” on September 9. At her conference, she spoke about Indigenous inclusion at Canadian universities and what can be done to advance this cause.
Fitznor is a longtime advocate for Indigenous perspectives and ideas in the classroom. She has worked with the University of Manitoba and the University of Toronto to expand positions and programs dedicated to Indigenous education. Her work was recently published in Land as Relation: Teaching and Learning through Place, People, and Practices for her essay focused on the importance of Indigenous stories and land rights to teaching in a way that supports the next generations of Indigenous students.
She has emphasized the importance of dedicated teams led by Indigenous people. Her belief is that universities must “ensure there’s a strong administrative support,” and if a team focused on Indigenous education “doesn’t have equal profile to other units, bring up that profile.”
Indigenous Awareness Week at McGill is a reminder of the work that Montreal universities must do to uplift Indigenous students and faculty. Over the summer, McGill announced a new tuition initiative that would cover educational finances for its Indigenous students, and just last week, Concordia University followed suit by revealing its own plans to waive tuition for Indigenous students in most degree programs.
In reaction to these shifts, Fitznor stressed that championing Indigenous ideas and implementing supportive policies should happen at every level. Describing her time as a lecturer at the University of Manitoba, she highlighted the motivation her faculty had for creating progress and how this spurred important change.
“We shouldn’t have to wait for the province to tell us to do this,” Fitznor urged. “Let’s do it because it’s the right thing to do for the heart and the body of the land.”
Fiznor’s concept of “change” refers to the gains that not only educational institutions must make, but also broader, societal shifts towards a future that rewrites its colonial history. Fitznor believes that such changes should happen at all levels of influence, from students to the highest levels of government. Student involvement can look like taking classes that emphasize Indigenous perspectives. At the faculty level, this means making sure every student has access to coursework that engages with Indigenous ideas and practices.
In terms of subject material that students learn at their universities, Fitznor believes being truly educated on Indigenous intersectionality is to “make sure that for every discipline there should be aboriginal perspectives of that discipline.”
Not every program currently emphasizes this at McGill. For Sophie Ou, a McGill accounting student who attended the event, Indigenous education rarely comes up in her courses.
“In my faculty right now, it’s a lot of internships, a lot of networking,” Ou described. “If I hadn’t had that push from my professor, then I wouldn’t have been able to experience this very moving moment where I get to learn more.” Ou attended the event for a course assignment, but expressed that it made her want to continue to learn about Indigenous education beyond her coursework.
Additionally, Manola Sob, a McGill psychology student who also attended the lecture, underscored that events like this inspire her to take action.
“It makes me want to learn more and do more,” Sob said.
In Canada, non-Indigenous youth were nearly twice as likely to complete a university degree compared to Indigenous youth as of 2023. To Fitznor, much of the disparity in education relates to a lack of representation of Indigenous topics in the classroom. “How do we get the university to change if we don’t know who we are?” Fitznor questioned, in reference to the lack of space for conversations about Indigenous identity in university spaces that often exists.
Otsi’tsaken:ra, a faithkeeper, started the event by sharing Indigenous teachings and explaining how they are integral to Indigenous rights and representation going forward.
“What we do today will affect our children seven generations in the future,” he said, echoing generations of Elders.
As it is McGill’s 14th Indigenous Awareness Week, Otsi’tsaken:ra described the importance of events like this at universities considering the historical erasure of Indigenous perspectives.
“I’m just happy that they’re doing something like this,” Otsi’tsaken:ra reflected. “For 100 years, nobody cared, including universities.”
Otsi’tsaken:ra has spoken at Montreal universities for decades. He says that speaking about Indigenous ways expands knowledge. For the future, he emphasized the power of spreading awareness.“Keep talking about our ways, keep sharing the knowledge,” Otsi’tsaken:ra emphasized. “Keep feeling the feeling of what our ways talk about.”
For Fitznor, impact is paramount for creating a better future for Indigenous education.
“Don’t just come and listen,” Fitznor advocated. “What do you do with what you learn?”