September 14th marks a significant milestone in UBC's commitment to truth and reconciliation: the university will celebrate the launch of its new Indigenous Strategic Plan (ISP). This makes UBC the first university in North America to commit to taking a human rights-based approach to its Indigenous strategic framework. The plan represents a university-wide response to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls' Calls for Justice. It also represents the UBC Vancouver campus' response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action.
The plan, intended as a guiding framework for faculties, units and portfolios across both campuses to develop their own plans, outlines eight goals and 43 actions the university will collectively take to advance its vision of UBC as a leading university globally in the implementation of Indigenous peoples' human rights.
"The new Indigenous Strategic Plan acknowledges our responsibility toward the truth as an institution of knowledge and learning and how we need to collectively evolve to respond to the urgent need for meaningful reconciliation," says Sheryl Lightfoot, plan co-lead and senior advisor to the president on Indigenous affairs at UBC and Canada research chair of global Indigenous rights and politics.
"Our expectation is that this plan moves beyond our UBC goals. We want it to demonstrate how public institutions, not just governments, can play a critical role in upholding, advancing and implementing the human rights standards set out in the UN Declaration, and inspire others to do the same."
