ICYMI: Academica interviews VP Ron McLester on Indigenization at institutions
Posted on Thursday, June 20th, 2019
Academica President & CEO Rod Skinkle recently sat down with Ron (Deganadus) McLester, Vice President – Truth, Reconciliation & Indigenization at Algonquin College in Ottawa, with an aim to share the benefits of Ron’s experience working deeply in the area of Truth and Reconciliation with the rest of Canada’s post-secondary community.
Read the full article, titled “What it means for an institution to Indigenize,” or the excerpt below:
RS – “Ron, you and your team have developed a comprehensive vision and have proposed a series of ground-breaking practices at Algonquin with respect to Indigenization. Can you tell us a bit about the context and inspiration for that work?”
RM – “We started by looking into the Indigenous Knowledge concepts that are embedded within wampum belts and other objects that contain traditional understandings. The first and most important traditional framework is captured in the Two Row wampum belt.
This sacred belt was used to codify an agreement between Indigenous peoples and the colonists whereby our peoples would be represented on that belt by two parallel rows. One row would be the Original people and be represented as a canoe. The other row would represent those who came across the water and would be represented by a ship. It was also agreed that both parties would forever have their laws, languages, culture, government and customs protected and cared for. They agreed, through the construction of this belt, that the ships (or Western ways) would never interfere with the canoe and vice versa.
Importantly, they also agreed that the relationships between the ship and the canoe would be based on three tenets: peace, friendship, and respect. I share this because this concept of ships and canoes becomes important when we talk about Indigenization at our institutions.
You see, our institutions today are like the ship, which can take you many places. But you must be careful because the ship also holds a lot of people and cargo. It is less nimble than the canoe because of its size. The canoe, on the other hand, is agile and maneuverable. It doesn’t allow you to take a lot of cargo—only what you need. In this, it represents a different way of looking at our post-secondary institutions that I find quite helpful for understanding what we mean by Indigenization.
RS – “And for you, how does that translate into a vision, or perhaps even more importantly, a mission for post-secondary education in Canada?”
RM – “Many people are talking about Indigenization, and many organizations have very different definitions of what that is. Usually, the goal is to decolonize the institution or include more Indigenous spaces and culture on campus. This often leads to new campus spaces and a greater emphasis on hiring Indigenous faculty. What people are only now beginning to talk about is changing basic institutional processes to have them better integrate and benefit from Indigenous ways of knowing.
In order to do this, we need to recognize that at this moment, nearly all of us are on the ship that I mentioned earlier, that being the “institution” as defined by a Western vision of what is efficient and effective. In order to begin to understand, articulate, build, implement, and experience Indigenization, we must consider how we get where we want to go from our current position.”
RS – “Is that to suggest that all community members are in a similar starting place with respect to Indigenization? How does that recognize the truth of the history of colonization that has led to this moment?”
RM – It is true that colonization has deeply fractured our people and our culture. However, it is also true that we are all standing at this place and time, here and now, together. I would suggest that in recent years, we have made some progress in a journey toward reconciliation – toward peace, friendship and respect, as illustrated in the Two-Row Wampum.
At Algonquin, thanks in large part to the spirit of our outgoing leader, Cheryl Jensen, we have decided to drop anchor, get off the ship, and explore the land, teachings, and resources that we need to start building the canoe. What’s different and most meaningful about this work is that we aren’t just building canoes for Indigenous learners. We are building them for every single person at the college.
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