The Integration of the Indigenous Knowledge Holders Council into a Post-Secondary Education Tri-Cameral Governance Institution

• Main Author: McCagg-Nystrom, Heather
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarship@Western 2024
• Subjects: reconciliation; critical Indigenous perspectives; culturally responsive leadership; tri-cameral governance; Indigenous Knowledge Holders Council; Etuaptmumk or Two-Eyed Seeing; Education; Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Indigenous Education; Arctic; Big River; Psi; First Nations; inuit
• Online Access: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/oip/450; https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/context/oip/article/1547/viewcontent/McCaggNystromHeather_IKHCIntegration202407_v.3.3__final_.pdf

The 2015 release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) final report documented the historical impact of Canadian Indigenous residential schools through 94 Calls to Action requiring redress. Supporting post-secondary institution (PSI) educational reconciliation, Calls to Action #62 appeals to incorporate Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) knowledge, philosophies and approaches into the post-secondary system which has historically been built on a Western colonial worldview. An arctic Canadian PSI (referred to by the pseudonym Big River College, BRC) has made reconciliation an institutional priority, as it aligns with BRC strategic, academic, and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) plans. Consequently, this Dissertation-in-Practice (DiP) focuses on increasing support for reconciliation and indigenization by integrating into BRC tri-cameral governance an Indigenous Knowledge Holders Council (IKHC). The recently amended legislation supports reconciling BRC governance through a tri-cameral approach. The integration of the IKHC into BRC governance is the focus of the Problem of Practice (PoP). Institutionalization of the IKHC will be in place when the IKHC provides strategic direction to leadership, faculty and staff by braiding critical Indigenous perspectives within BRC through Etuaptmumk or Two-Eyed Seeing. This DiP is constructed using critical Indigenous and cultural perspectives including three leadership approaches: transformative, adaptive, and culturally responsive that are linked to the change process. Addressing the PoP should lead to a longer-term learning cultural shift within BRC that supports reconciliation indigenization, equity, diversity, and inclusion and increasing institutional success factors for Indigenous faculty, staff and students to walk in two worlds, Dene Nahjo.