The Potential and Pitfalls of Ongoing Attempts to Indigenize Canada's Universities


Claire Polster, University of Regina

Just when it seemed that there was little hope of reclaiming the public serving nature of our nations corporatized universities, the Truth and Reconciliation Commision of Canada released its Calls to Action and sparked a major shift within Canadian higher education. Today, ideas and initiatives to Indigenize or decolonize our universities abound, and they are being supported and institutionalized through significant investments of human and financial resources. This paper explores how the Indigenization/decolonization project could revitalize the public serving nature and contributions of our universities, while also acknowledging ways in which this projects transformative potential may be diminished if not extinguished by the corporate nature of our higher education institutions. Avoiding both naive optimism and debilitating pessimism, the paper also proposes steps that Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the university community and the broader community could take to help amplify the progressive potential and outcomes of the Indigenization/decolonization project in the interest of all those who work and learn in our universities as well as the various publics that these institutions are meant to serve.

This paper will be presented at the following session: