The College Fix

Will conduct a ‘decolonizing review’ of all university policies

The University of Alberta has hired a provost fellow in “Decolonizing Policies,” according to the school’s academic vice-president.

VP Verna Yiu noted the position is part of the university’s “institutional commitment to reconciliation and decolonization” as seen in its “Braiding Past, Present and Future: University of Alberta Indigenous Strategic Plan.”

Nathalie Kermoal, a professor of Native Studies at U of A, has begun a two-year term in the new position and “will assist in a variety of projects” including looking into “how tenure, promotion and merit practices can be aligned” with the school’s DEI plan, and the implementation of a “decolonizing review” of all U of A policies.

Kermoal (pictured) most recently was the recipient of a U of A Community Scholar Award for advocating Native American-based research and “furthering awareness and appreciation of [Native] research, education, art and culture.”

Kermoal’s faculty page notes her research expertise lies in the areas of “Métis [Native] rights and environmental issues,” the “History of Indigenous Political Thinking,” “Gender issues/Métis Women,” and “Contemporary Aboriginal Art.”

The above-linked U of A Indigenous Strategic Plan features a video message from Vice-Provost of Indigenous Programming and Research Florence Glanfield, who claims when she first arrived at the university almost 50 years ago as an undergrad math major, a faculty member told her “I didn’t think [Natives] could do mathematics.”

Glanfield then notes the Strategic Plan is “important” because it is “trying to change the narrative” of the university’s relationship with the Native community.

“The University is a colonial structure,” Glanfield says in the video. The Strategic Plan, she adds, will “break down some of th[e] colonial barriers” for indigenous people.

Meanwhile over at U. Alberta’s Ontario-based neighbor, the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine is seeking someone for the position of Associate Dean for Equity and Social Accountability.

Similar to U of A’s Kermoal, this candidate will advance the school’s DEI plan and “decolonization and reconciliation goals.”

The candidate also will collaborate with the School of Medicine to “lead strategic initiatives and practices focused on equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism, accessibility, social accountability, social justice […] and community engagement.”

Additionally, the medical school is looking for “clinical faculty leaders” regarding “Indigenous Health and Ways of Knowing” — which, according to others in the industrial world, are the equal to modern science.

MORE: Efforts growing to ‘braid Indigenous knowledge’ into science, UChicago biologist warns

IMAGES: whaptors/YouTube; U. Alberta

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