Indigenizing Higher Education and the Calls to Action Awakening to Personal, Political, and Academic Responsibilities

Underlying all other truths spoken during the Year of Reconciliation is the truth that the modern city of Vancouver was founded on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations and that these territories were never ceded through treaty, war or surrender (Meiszner, 2014). One human rights injustice in Canada was acknowledged by Vancouver City Council in 2014, some 128 years after the city was founded on three unceded First Nations territories. What the Vancouver City Council statement does not say is that European settlement was accomplished using the principles of the Doctrine of Discovery, racist political and religious bigotry, which effectively denied the humanity of First Nations peoples, and a drastic Indigenous population decline due to diseases such as small pox and measles. These colonial acts caused the Musqueam population to decline from an estimated 30,000 at European contact to 100 people post contact, to current estimates of over 1,200 (Musqueam, 2011, pp. 39-49). During the same time period, the colonial government removed the Musqueam people from prime west coast real estate totalling 144,888 hectares, and relegated them to three tiny reserve parcels totalling 388 hectares, or 0.2% of their traditional lands (Musqueam, 2011, p. 51). Yet despite deliberate colonial actions to accomplish Musqueam erasure from the planet, the Musqueam people continue to live on their traditional lands where the mouth of the Fraser River meets the Pacific Ocean, as they have for the past 3,500 years. Today their recovery from the brink of obliteration is a contemporary survival story that is still not well known in Vancouver, nor at the University of British Columbia – Vancouver (UBC-V), which for the past 100 years has been located on unceded Musqueam territory. One cannot help but wonder what drives this continued lack of knowledge, and if, or how the inequitable institutional occupation of Musqueam lands contributes to the silence. The UBC-V campus is located just seven kilometers from the Musqueam community, yet, it is far enough away to protect UBC-V from a second injustice affecting the Musqueam people: the overpowering stench of Vancouver’s sewage disposal, which is located at the Musqueam community site. A SUV could drive through Vancouver’s huge sewer pipe, which runs directly underneath the Musqueam community, and empties into the Fraser River. The sewer pipe was put there years ago, with no consultation to the Musqueam, no compensation, and with no thought to its impact on the well-being of Musqueam people. Numerous community members have said that it was “just done.” During one visit to the community, as I ran from a building to my car to avoid the foul odour, I contemplated other things that were “just done” and are still being done to the Musqueam, and other Indigenous communities in Canada. I wondered about the June 26, 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that unanimously recognized land title claimed by the Tsilhqot’in peoples of British Columbia (BC) (Moore, 2014), and the potential implications for other unceded First Nations lands in BC, including the 144,888 hectares of prime Vancouver real estate claimed by the Musqueam. I envisaged “Indigenizing efforts” by various higher education institutions across Canada, and how the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action (2015) are being enacted by universities located on unceded territories. It encouraged thinking about what university governors, administrators, faculty, and students could do to address the foul odour arising from centuries of inequitable colonial relationships, and to meaningfully improve Indigenous community well-being. One recent example of reconciliation action was taken by the Indigenous Student Caucus and Equity Committee in the School of Social Work …