Head of new university department hopes to infuse UCN with Indigenous culture

Ramona Neckoway wantsto incorporate Indigenous ways of learning into higher education as the head of a new department at Manitoba's University College of the North.

"This new position is really an opportunity to bring forward and carry forward some of the perspectives from our community, the Indigenous community, into structures and institutions like this," Neckoway said.

The department of Indigenous initiatives and reconciliation, which launched Jan. 3, was created to better develop curriculum, while also helping students get the most out of Indigenous-related topics.

"I really hope that we're able to continue moving in a direction where we make Indigenous knowledges, language and culture accessible, and finding ways to infuse that into what we do as an organization," Neckoway said.

Neckoway, who is from Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, hopes to achieve this with help from teachings passed down by her parents and grandparents.

"Those teachings and those stories, all of those pieces, they're really a part of my experience and my journey," she said.

"That's what makes this opportunity really exciting, because I get to bring those perspectives and those teachings into the space, into this area."

The department was created after years of work on the university's Indigenous curriculum policy, and will seek to make Indigenous knowledge more accessible both in current courses and by creating new courses.

For Neckoway, who is not a fluent speaker of Cree, access to Indigenous languages at UCN is important.

She feels developing her own language skills at the university will help her understand what students need.

"Sometimes we need to take different and innovative approaches to learning language or to giving folks opportunities to build back culture or to build back knowledge that may not be there for a whole bunch of different reasons," Neckoway said.

Doug Lauvstad, president and vice-chancellor at UCN, said the department will help the university better serve Indigenous people.

"It's like anything we can always do more, and we can always do better," he said.

'Soaking it all in'

A UCN spokesperson said 74 per cent of the university's students self-declare as Indigenous.

Neckoway has worked at the UCN since 2017 and has a PhD in individual interdisciplinary studies (with a focus on Native studies).

Shewas previously a policy analyst for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and a research assistant in the department of Native studies (now Indigenous studies) at the University of Manitoba.

Neckoway said she is still adjusting to being named department head, although the appointment was announced Dec. 15.

"I'm soaking it all in," she said.

"It's not a position or a role that I take lightly. There's a lot of responsibility, and I want to make sure that it's done in a culturally meaningful and a culturally appropriate way.

"We're going to work at this as a team and really find a way to centreIndigenous knowledge in a respectful and meaningful way."

Provincial impact

Lauvstad hopes the new department will help students feel heard and accepted at UCN.

"We want students from northern Manitoba to feel comfortable, to feel welcome, to feel that their experience is reflected in our programming and in our buildings and in our services."

Neckoway also hopes that the department's impact will make waves, not only in the north, but provincewide.

"We're just at the start of this journey, and I'm just really looking forward to, you know, pathways that we can create and initiatives that we can undertake that [are] going to be meaningful for communities in the north and for the communities that we serve."