As many people across the country don orange shirts to observe the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30, Sheila Cote-Meek finds herself encouraged by the support.
But responding to those calls shouldn't be confined to a moment in time, says the Professor and Director of Indigenous Educational Studies at Brock University.
Cote-Meek, a member of the Temagami First Nation, is looking back on the 10 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) first published its 94 Calls to Action.
Reconciliation, she says, is a journey.
"It's an ongoing commitment to move forward together and build institutions that are more inclusive of Indigenous Peoples and knowledges," she says.
Cote-Meek says the TRC report was "a wake-up call" to all Canadian institutions especially in education.
"Universities and colleges began and continue to respond to the calls, which were established as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, but we need to keep the conversation going 12 months of the year," she says.
Nationally recognized for her work to advance change in higher education through Indigeneity, decolonization and equity, Cote-Meek is working on a second edition of her publication, Colonized Classrooms - Racism, Trauma and Resistance in Post-Secondary Education, which was first published in 2014.
By gathering perspectives of Indigenous faculty members and students across the Ontario post-secondary landscape, Cote-Meek is exploring how Canadian universities and colleges are making structural changes towards reconciliation through decolonization.
"I am interested in how the sector is making deeper, systemic changes in ways that are not performative; in ways that are truly changing how Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples interact on campuses," she says.
Among those, Cote-Meek says, are curriculum changes, a rising number of Indigenous faculty, staff and students, and the creation of dedicated spaces and buildings on campuses to support them.
"This increase in Indigenous presence on campuses is positive and encouraging; as a sector, we are moving forward and enacting curriculum changes to incorporate Indigenous content," she says.
Even with this momentum, Cote-Meek says it is critical to acknowledge that forms of racism in post-secondary education systems still exist and operate in different ways.
Across the sector, support needs to be built in for Indigenous faculty whose course material often includes challenging and difficult subject matter, including the history and impact of the residential school system, she says.
"The emotional labour and responsibility Indigenous faculty members bear can be a heavy weight to carry," she says. "We need to work together to mitigate feelings of isolation and minimize potential classroom tensions for Indigenous students and educators."
While true reconciliation is not going to happen overnight, Cote-Meek says "we are beginning to see deeper shifts in attitudes about Indigenous Peoples and their beliefs. It starts with education."
