This four-part session is being held on Monday, April 7th, Thursday, April 10th, Thursday, April 17th, and Friday, April 25th, 2025, from 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm.

Session 1: The “Original Instructions”

The lecture will discuss Indigenous peoples of North America, with a focus on the local area. We will explore some of the cultural, social, and political histories of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations/Iroquois) and the Mississauga peoples. The goal is to discuss their cultures, their traditions, and their values to gain an understanding of Indigenous law and philosophy.

Session 2: Historical context and settlement history

This session will involve an in-depth critical discussion on the history of settlement in North America. For many citizens there is a gap in Canadian settlement history and the experiences of Indigenous peoples. Until recently little education about Indigenous Peoples was taught in schools, the only way one could learn was to take an interest in wanting to learn for yourself. Unfortunately, what is known about Indigenous Peoples is often based on misinformation and stereotypes. The goal of this workshop is to deconstruct of these myths while examining the social-political history to develop an understanding for why Indigenous families continue to experience poor population health outcomes.

Session 3: Moving beyond allyship with Indigenous communities

This session will begin to discuss concrete steps for mobilizing and working towards addressing the 94 Calls to Action for reconciliation. We will discuss developing a strategy across the many departments of the university and how to deal with barriers. Participants will be asked to consider an environmental scan of their departments for potential conflicts, barriers, and opportunities for reconciliation efforts. We will use these to plan for strategies for overcoming the challenge of dealing with the status quo in the final session.

Session 4: Critical Discussions and Visioning

This last session will be an open dialogue to ensure a potential action plan for reconciliation is developed. For many organizations/levels of government/public service agencies the process to create meaningful changes is the hardest barrier to overcome. To accomplish this takes an honest, critical, self-reflection, and a thorough understanding of the impacts of settlement history, but furthermore an analysis of the systems and social policies that are in operation within the Academy. This last session will also spend some time to planning some self-care strategies and acknowledge that some people and policies are not easily changed. The goal of this is to provide avenues and resources with the intention of building comfort, safety, and support for leaders within the university that have chosen to take on this leadership role.

Instructor

Darren Thomas, Darren Thomas Professional Services

Registration

Register through Qualtrics! [1] Registration closes 2 working days prior to the session. Please cancel at least 2 weeks prior to this session to ensure we can give your space to the next person on the waiting list.

Contact

Phone: 56800

Email: landd@uoguelph.ca [2]