We are inviting individual and community reflections and insights on how universities can embrace responsibility for their roles in settler colonialism and move toward reparative practices. This initiative particularly welcomes contributions from First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities within what is currently known as Canada, as well as from all those engaged in or affected by higher education.
Our goal is not to gather “data” or “consult” in the traditional sense; rather, we seek to co-create a platform where diverse voices can shape the conversation on reparative pathways. These contributions will inform our collective work in mobilizing structural changes within universities, ensuring the process of reflection, accountability, and repair extends beyond symbolic gestures.
We recognize that each submission is part of a wider relational ecosystem and reflects specific knowledges and experiences. Contributions will be made public, honoring transparency and accountability to all participants.
Submissions will be open from January to December 2025.
[include link to submissions]
Initial Steps Toward Repair
We recommend the report “Indigenous Perspectives on Higher Education” published by the Canadian Commission for Unesco (2021) as a baseline reading about the challenges and opportunities for co-creation of a different system of Higher Education that is respectful of Indigenous Knowledge systems and Indigenous Peoples.
We have also started a list of initial steps toward repair with Indigenous Peoples that could be undertaken by individual universities in BC and beyond. This list will be expanded through the public submission process.
- Tuition and fee waivers for Indigenous students, including students from local Indigenous Nations, and/or students from all BC First Nations. This has been implemented by Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) and a handful of other universities nationwide.
- Other forms of financial support for Indigenous students, including e.g. support for housing, especially for students whose home communities are located far from campus.
- Name changes to institutions, buildings, and other significant landmarks around campus that have been named after colonial administrators or advocates.
- Reserved seats for Indigenous students in specific programs, especially those with low Indigenous enrollments. Several programs at UBC have these commitments in place.
- Rigorous and culturally relevant recruitment and retention efforts for Indigenous students and faculty, including programs that begin with familiarizing K-12 Indigenous students with universities. For example, UVic’s Indigenous Wellness Working Group has called on the university’s new Faculty of Health to aspire to achieving 50% Indigenous representation among students, faculty members, and staff by 2050.
- Returning university campus and/or other university-held lands to the appropriate local Indigenous Nations, and/or other forms of shared governance, jurisdiction, and stewardship according to the preferences and capacities of local Nations? See for example the Land Repatriation (or “rematriation”) process of Royal Roads University.
- Developing specific Indigenous-serving university programs, micro-credentials, and trainings, in consultation with BC communities and according to their identified needs and aspirations. See for example, the micro-certificate “Co-management of Natural Resources” developed by UBC Forestry with the Haida Gwaii Institute.
- Reserved seats for Indigenous representation on Boards of Governors/Trustees or the creation of senior leadership academic structures that prioritizes Indigenous aspirations. For example, UVic has created an Office of the Vice-President Indigenous (OVPI) grounded on an Indigenous Plan co-created with Indigenous Elders.
- Repatriation of Indigenous remains, Indigenous plant samples, and Indigenous art and other materials to the appropriate Indigenous Nations.
- Research funding opportunities reserved for local or other BC Indigenous Nations, through which the funds are transferred and administered by Nations themselves.
- Honorary degrees for Indigenous knowledge keepers and language speakers, especially to help ensure recognition of their expertise by other settler institutions.
- Commitments by individual departments and units to examine and enact repair for their historical and ongoing colonial complicity in settler colonialism.