Learn more about the Indigenous student experience at Royal Roads University.
The Emerging Indigenous Scholars Circle at Royal Roads University is a first-of-its-kind program for those at the beginning of their academic careers.
The Circle currently hosts three emerging scholars: Tasha Brooks is a scholar and assistant professor in the School of Business; Christine Webster is working with the College of Interdisciplinary Studies as a scholar and assistant professor; and Erynne Gilpin is a scholar and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Culture.
Each scholar’s role is to engage in teaching and research at the intersection of their respective areas of study and Indigeneity. They also engage in relationship-building with Indigenous communities to facilitate closer collaboration and determine opportunities for their associated school to fulfill its obligations and commitments to decolonization and reconciliation.
Mentorship takes shape
Shauneen Pete, chair of the Circle, provides guidance and mentorship to all three scholars on a one-on-one and group basis, while also helping to expand a wider community of support for emerging Indigenous scholars across the country. One piece of that work is the Igniting the Flame webinar series, which Pete has developed to amplify the voices of Indigenous people in academia and provide a forum where emerging Indigenous scholars can listen and learn from their experiences.
Pete’s research, Gathering Kindling: Exploring Indigenous Scholars Experiences with Mentorship, informed the development of the webinar series and helped determine where support is needed to encourage more Indigenous people to pursue careers in academia.
“With Gathering Kindling, I wanted to get a strong sense of what is being written about Indigenous experience in faculty roles,” says Pete. “Only 1.4 per cent of all faculty [in Canada] are Indigenous people and there's a couple of things that emerged — people are not feeling safe in order to self-identify, so some of them just don't. And for those that are self-identifying, their experiences are related to not just racism in the university, but also to embedded colonialism.”
The work within the work
Throughout her research, Pete noted Indigenous scholars often reported feeling isolated and overburdened at work. While faculty are tasked with advancing decolonization and indigenization initiatives at universities, they’re also faced with systemic racism and colonialism and don’t necessarily have a community of support to turn to.
“As instructors, we’re having to deal with anti-racism, we have to be prepared for the tensions and resistance that social justice frameworks create, and we have to help students craft a role and responsibility for themselves towards reconciliation,” says Pete.
Pete also found that Indigenous faculty are assigned a larger than average “service workload” on top of their normal workload, which includes responsibilities like: “advancing the university’s reconciliation or indigenization goals, sitting on committees for hiring Canada Research Chairs, or senior administrative positions — Indigenous faculty are overly tapped into for these things that support the university achieving its goals.”
Though critical work, the service load can over-burden when combined with the teaching and research workload of faculty, causing burnout, and often delaying their time as an assistant or associate professor before they achieve tenure. When faculty are just starting out, it can be difficult to recognize when they’re taking on too much, or to say no when asked.
With the “Igniting the Flame” series, Pete hopes to answer some of these questions for emerging Indigenous scholars, helping them define their purpose and advance their careers.
When it comes to her mentorship with the three scholars, Pete’s vision for the program is simple:
“I just really hope to be a good auntie to these young scholars,” she says. “I hope I'm someone that is trustworthy, consistent, compassionate, supportive and does the heavy work of removing barriers where they appear — I just really hope to be a good auntie.”