Algoma University has approved its first Anishinaabe degree program and is now being urged to make mandatory Anishinaabe classes a requirement for graduation from all programs.
"I call to the board that we make Anishinaabe studies mandatory rather than an elective," Shirley Roach said in a special statement delivered Thursday night at the outset of an Algoma U board of governors meeting.
Roach endured seven years at Shingwauk Indian Residential School, graduated from Lake Superior State University and now works in Anishinaabe culture-based education and in providing mental health support for residential school survivors.
She points to the central role in the reconciliation process assigned to post-secondary institutions in this year's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.
"I urge us as a board to advance our Anishinaabe programming and rethink how we move forward into the future. Having the program compulsory is long overdue," Roach told her fellow Algoma U board members last night.
"All students, board members, faculty and administrators must become informed about the truth of our relationship in an accredited course and cross-cultural training done by Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig."
'We need to do much more'
The new three-year general bachelor of arts in Anishinaabe studies program, unanimously approved last Friday by Algoma University's senate, will be jointly offered by the university and Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig, the Sault's evolving Anishinaabe post-secondary institution.
"Here on these grounds, where visible remnants of Chief Shingwauk's school are still evident, the small graves still remind us of a painful time - that we need to do much more," Roach said.
"We need to invest both human and financial resources to support this programming. And we need to reach out to Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig and offer them adequate financial and human resources to operate. Not just crumbs that fall from the table."
Roach points out that two Canadian universities - Lakehead University in Thunder Bay and the University of Winnipeg - now require all students to take a course in indigenous culture or history to graduate.
She called on the Algoma U board of governors to formally endorse the 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with a special emphasis on the tenth recommendation, calling for new Aboriginal education legislation incorporating these principles:
- Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation.
- Improving education attainment levels and success rates.
- Developing culturally appropriate curricula.
- Protecting the right to Aboriginal languages, including the teaching of Aboriginal languages as credit courses.
- Enabling parental and community responsibility, control, and accountability, similar to what parents enjoy in public school systems.
- Enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children.
- Respecting and honouring treaty relationships.
Roach's proposals were greeted with warm applause last night, and with encouraging words from Armando Plastino, chair of the Algoma University board.
"Speaking for the board, and maybe even for adminstration, I believe that much of what you have said, our views are clearly aligned in that respect, for sure," Plastino said.
A special relationship
The special relationship of Algoma University to the Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes Region, and the legacy of Chief Shingwauk and his teaching wigwam, were front and centre in a strategic plan for research approved in October by the university senate.
"The university acknowledges a special responsibility in terms of supporting Anishinaabe communities in their self-determination initiatives, in creating meaningful opportunities for knowledge exchange, and for enhancing our collective understanding of different ways of being and knowing the world," the strategic plan stated.
The plan established Anishinaabe and indigenous communities as the first of four major strategic research directions, with the other three clusters (cultures and creativity; life and the environment; and northern, rural and remote communities) all linked to the core Anishinaabe cluster.
Since 2006, Algoma U and Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig have jointly offered Anishinaabe studies courses as elective credits.
The new degree
The new three-year Anishinaabe studies degree program will now be submitted to Ontario's minister of training, colleges and universities, who in turn will refer it to the Post-secondary Education Quality Assessment Board, an arms-length agency that advises on new program applications.
The Algoma U program will focus on the languages and knowledge systems of the original peoples of the Great Lakes region.
The number of students graduating with the new degree over its first four years is expected to be 17.
The program will be taught using culture-based education, a method pioneered decades ago by Dr. Eddie Benton-Banai, who will teach some of the Algoma U courses.
Benton-Banai is grand chief of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge and Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig's academic and spiritual advisor.
'It's about time'
"It's about time.... It's 2015," said Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig President Darrell Boissoneau after the new program received senate approval last week.
The program was accredited three years ago by the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium, which represents indigenous-controlled post-secondary programs and institutions worldwide.
"We want to thank our critics who said we couldn't do it," Boissoneau said.
"Critics are important because they give us inspiration and determination to want to do it even more."
The following are the courses proposed for the three-year program:
Year One
ANIS 1006/1007: Anishinaabe Peoples and Our Homelands (6 credits)
OJIB 1016/1017: Introductory Anishinaabemowin (6 credits)
18 additional credits, of which 6 credits must be from Group III (Sciences)
Years Two and Three
ANIS 2006/2007: Anishinaabe Social Issues/Social Movements (6 credits)
ANIS 3126/3127: Ni Mi koo Bi doon: Anishinaabe Research I & II (6 credits)
6 credits upper-year OJIB (Anishinaabemowin) (list A)
6 credits from the approved course list for a major in Anishinaabe Studies (list B) 36 Elective Credits
List A courses are all the OJIB courses (Anishinaabemowin, or Ojibwe language courses)
List B courses include a wide selection of courses at Algoma featuring material related to Anishinaabe Studies: ANIS 2067, 3006, 3007, 3906 and 3907; CESD 2406 and 3016; ENGL 2926; HIST 2116 and 2117; JURI 3106 and 3107; POLI3106, 3107 and 3506; and SWRK 3406 and 3407.
Three professors
The Anishinaabe studies program is expected to require a minimum of three full-time professors.
Currently teaching are Dr. Rainey Gaywish, Professor Howard Webkamigad and Professor Benton-Banai, who is a part-time instructor and full-time advisor to Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig.
Professor Webkamigad is retiring and Algoma University is seeking a replacement for him.
When Grand Chief Benton-Banai retires he could be replaced with a full-time professor at no additional cost.
Symposium in January
Algoma University and Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig will be hosting the second bi-annual Anishinaabe Inendamowin Research Symposium on January 29, 2016.
The theme will be Rekindling Anishinaabe Inendamowin.
Potential topics for discussion may include:
-
Recovering Anishinaabe research practices
-
Anishinaabe research outside the academy
- Cross-cultural pedagogy
- Affirming/revitalizing Anishinaabe knowledge traditions and language
- Research involving local communities
- Any other topics in the area of Anishinaabe knowledge and research
From the symposium synopsis: "The symposium will create opportunities for Anishinaabe and non-Anishinaabe scholars, as well as traditional knowledge keepers, to engage in dialogue about Anishinaabe thought while providing mentorship for students who are in the early stages of their engagement with research. The symposium aspires to foster a supportive learning community inclusive of traditional knowledge-keepers, academic scholars, students, and other educators."
(Photo: Some of the faculty and students from Algoma University's Anishinaabe studies program, after senate approved their three-year degree program on Friday, December 4, 2015. David Helwig/SooToday.)