UBC Roundtable on Decolonization

UBC declares, at the start of every formal governance meeting, that the Vancouver campus is situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. But what does that mean? How is this acknowledgement enacted in the University’s normal business operations? Academics have long called for decolonizing education and Indigenizing university processes and systems. What progress has been made at UBC? What remains to be done? This roundtable brings together scholars, practitioners and administrators to reflect on the silences, erasures, achievements and tasks ahead in UBC’s own process of decolonization.

For full information on this event, and for the Webinar link, visit the Event Homepage. The roundtable is open to the entire campus community.

Panelists (in speaking order):

Dory Nason, Associate Professor of Teaching, Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Society Justice and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies; and President of UBC Faculty Association. Dr Nason is Anishinaabe and an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

Sharon Stein, Assistant Professor, Educational Studies. A white settler scholar, Dr Stein’s research asks how education can prepare settlers to confront the impacts of colonialism, racism, and white supremacy in various fields of study and sectors of society.

Cheyanne Connell, PhD Student, Anthropology. Ja aa haanach’e. I am Dunne-Za Cree of the Brown family of West Moberly First Nations, and am an IAR Fellow (Centre for Japanese Research) and Socio-Cultural and Indigenous Anthropologist.

Gage Averill, Provost. Dr Averill, a settler ethnomusicologist with research interests in Haitian popular music, joined UBC in 2010 after holding positions as Vice-Principal, Academic, and Dean for the University of Toronto, Mississauga campus, and also Dean of Music at the University of Toronto. Prior to that, he served as Chair of the Department of Music at New York University.

Amy Perreault. Senior Strategist, Indigenous Initiatives, Centre for Teaching and Learning Technologies. Ms Perreault is Red River Métis, with mixed European ancestry. She was born in Thompson Manitoba but spent most of her childhood fishing, picking huckleberries, hiking and being on the land and water ways in the East and West Kootenay’s on the traditional territories and homelands of the Ktunaxa Nation.

Rima Wilkes, Professor, Sociology. Dr Wilkes is the author (with Aaron Duong, Linc Kesler, and Howard Ramos) of the article "Canadian University Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands, Treaties, and Peoples" published in the Canadian Review of Sociology.

Danielle Ignace, Assistant Professor, Forestry. Dr Ignace is an enrolled member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and a broadly trained ecophysiologist with a passion for science communication.

Moderator/Organized by: hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies), Professor, Anthropology. hagwil hayetsk is of the house of H:el/T'sibassa, Blackfish Clan and a member of Gitxaała Nation.