 We have a new Office of Indigenous Strategy that is being formed in this current year, and that's going to be ideally centrally coordinating a lot of the Indigenous initiatives across campus. Previously I worked in a recruitment and outreach out of the First People's House, which is the hub of student activities, but in terms of other level of initiatives, it's now going to be housed under the Office of Indigenous Strategy. So, who are the target audience for the Office of Indigenous Strategy? Well, people who are interested in advancing Indigenous knowledge, access to Indigenous education, so people who are in school board functions and communities, government representatives, other associations that might have an interest to see how we're helping their communities to create learning opportunities, we welcome that level of interaction. So, the First People's House is a dedicated Indigenous student space on campus. We have a ten-room brownstone building, really, ideally located in the center of campus, and it's a residence. We have seven rooms there, so it's a residence for Indigenous students, whether they're undergraduate or graduate, and it's also the Office of the Administrative People of the First People's House. So, they're looking after the Indigenous learners who are on the McGill campus. So, students who are in undergraduate programs and graduate programs, it's part of the student services, and it's really a community space. So, it's a home away from home, and we have students in the full range of ages coming from across North America, so it's a really good place to network and to meet other students. We have special events there throughout the year. It's the place where a lot of students are given support, given opportunities to network, to build their career paths, and it's a welcoming place for any Indigenous learners, whether they're youngsters coming to visit the university or their grandparents, or learners of all ages, really. It's a drop-in center, it's a resource center, and it's the anchor. We have actually three dedicated Indigenous student spaces on campus, so that's the hub. We also have the School of Social Work, Indigenous Access McGill, which is another support office, and in the Faculty of Education, there's a student workspace, so a large room for students who are in programs that are part of the Office of First Nations and Inuit Education. So we have three spaces on campus, and we try to make sure the students are, you know, their needs are met across our space. I think what makes McGill pretty unique is the initiatives we've undertook in the last couple of years. Our provost launched a task force to look at Indigenous studies and Indigenous education. So it was a pan-university introspection on what are we doing for Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous professors and teaching staff, knowledge holders. Let's make a better way to collaborate in a respectful way. And so I think, you know, what it takes to get to that point is the capacity to listen to elders, to the knowledge holders, to the community leaders and also to the students who are coming from the community. So our administration has opened up a serious channel to really get input and feedback on the directions we're going and how we're growing the university in terms of our Indigenous people as students, as staff, as faculty, and also bringing in more Indigenous content to curricula and also different Indigenous ways of knowing that can be transmitted on campus or on the land. We're really trying to make as many open pathways as possible for a respectful transmission of Indigenous knowledge that can really inform anybody coming through McGill programs. We have a very international student body and, of course, other Canadians who are here just really brings a lot of opportunities for the university to grow as well. So we're happy to be on this really fun wave and we're growing. It's a really good point for the momentum we have for Indigenous initiatives here. The way we look at ourselves from year to year is examining our data. So our student numbers, which have been on the rise for the last few years, our incoming teaching staff, which also has been on the rise for the last few years, our provost actually set a target of having 10 Indigenous tenure-track professors by 2020. So we're really heading towards that mark and the creation of this office at the provost level and the ability to really collaborate across the university is one example of McGill pulling that together. We're currently fundraising with our university advancement team to be able to fund Indigenous students' scholarships and bursaries and that's one of the biggest barriers that our Indigenous students who are applicants and even admitted have to actually coming to McGill is that there's not enough of a financial package but we have dedicated a few people to really work towards that realization. That itself will be removing a barrier. So we have an Indigenous admissions protocol that can be applied to undergraduate applicants to most bachelor programs. So our enrollment services admits applicants to most of the faculties at McGill but there are a few that have their own admissions offices such as medicine and law. So that gives us a bit of flexibility for the admissions decisions committee to review beyond just an R score or an average depending on where the applicant is coming from. If the applicant is in the range, right, where they're slightly, they're at the threshold or they're slightly below the cutoff used from the last year, this opportunity exists for them to be able to tell their story in their own words so they can present additional documents, a personal statement, letters of recommendation to really talk about their ability and their interest and their motivation to a particular program and in some cases we have a lot of mature applicants as well. So of course we welcome CV for anybody. Any applicant who has got work experience who would like to have that also taken into consideration is welcome. We have programs in the school for continuing studies that have some admissions requirements, prerequisites but as well there are some that are open access just for anybody. But we do have a few robust programs that are delivered online for Indigenous people in the communities that are more remote and northern. So we have some examples of entrepreneurship and information systems. So at least to certification. So it's a 10 credit course that's delivered usually one time a week in the evenings. It's meant to be for working adults so it's meant to be accessible. It's in their communities. So there are a few ways for Indigenous people to access the university whether it's through school of continuing studies programs or bachelor programs. Of course master's level and doctoral programs they usually want to know a lot more to begin with anyway. So it's not just the grades but we're certainly working through a protocol on how we can consider the additional documents for applicants to master's and doctoral programs. So we have a long-standing initiative since 2006 that's known as the Eagle Spirit High Performance Camp and that was an event held over the May long weekends where we invited up to 30 Indigenous youth from around Canada between the ages of 13 and 17 and it's an opportunity for them to experience campus and meet other Indigenous youth. And so we give them an opportunity to usually explore the health professions. We've worked with other faculties and schools in the past. We always bring an athletic component to it as well. We expose them to physical activity so it's not just sitting in a classroom or a laboratory the whole day. We take a run up Mount Royal, sometimes we do yoga, sometimes we've done like inner tube water polo. We try to give them experiences they wouldn't normally have otherwise. We did capoeira once. We usually have a lacrosse and basketball workshop. Those are sort of the main sports that are in Indigenous communities right here anyway. And so that's growing into a bigger initiative. That's going to be moved into July starting this year into a week format. And there's going to be a lot of emphasis on the math and the sciences so that students have an opportunity to really get support around learning these concepts and having a new approach to math and sciences. Because we would like to inspire the youth to continue through school and also move into post-secondary. So we're trying to be part of this big pipeline through the Eagle Spirit Science Futures is what the initiative is going to be called. So when I look at the word Indigenous education, two things come to mind. First of all, how are we going to be educating our Indigenous people? Of which aren't parts? And the other question is in terms of looking at Indigenous education is well clearly a lot of other people need to learn a lot more about us. So we also equally need to provide opportunities for non-Indigenous people at McGill, at least in our context, to learn, to really engage with topics, to meet present presenters, appreciate different types of art. So it's sort of a balanced two-sided unity that I see in Indigenous education. So my vision for McGill, at least in the next 10 years, is to really have a critical mass of Indigenous people here. Our Provost has a goal of 1,000 Indigenous students in the fall of 2022 who are here both incoming and returning. So that's a big jump in our numbers, which I would love to see. We're trying to make it happen. We have two recruiters who are hired to go do the outreach into the communities across North America. And we're actively working to create these scholarships and student bursaries. And we're planning for an enhancement of our Indigenous student services. And of course, we also have a goal of 10 Indigenous tenure track professors by 2020. And I could imagine in 10 years from now, I mean, why not 20, 30, 40, 50, we're actually looking into creating something large at McGill that's around sort of Indigenous studies. And so I think right now we can just really dream as high as the sky. And so I'm excited about what could emerge in the next 10 years, just based on the momentum we have, just based on the visions that we're making and how we're plotting out our path. We really would like to become a center of Indigenous excellence, right? So Indigenous people from across the hemisphere, across the world can come, have a place of dedicated space on campus to meet and to exchange. We would like to also have a dedicated ceremonial space for Indigenous people to use on campus. I would like to imagine that we have a lot more Indigenous... I would like to imagine we have a lot more Indigenous physical presence on campus, right? So besides our Hoshilaga monument, we would like to be able to fly our flag on the arts building during key times of the year. We would like to see an Indigenous theme to a project that's currently going on to reimagine an area into a park. So I'd love to see some real Indigenous marks here physically, structures, some motifs, some ways to indicate that you are on Indigenous territory. What do we need to achieve that vision? I believe is some solid partnerships with Indigenous communities. So we're not talking only about the BAM councils but the Indigenous people as well, right? We need to listen to everybody to be sure that we're adequately representing the needs of the people and how to represent the people on the campus in a respectful way. Our flag, for example, if we're going to create any other things, I think that's a huge resource. So we need a lot of participation at a higher level with Indigenous communities locally and from around the province because we're a provincially funded institution and we really look at all of our Indigenous stakeholders in the province. The Francophone and Anglophone alike are key stakeholders. So we need stronger relationships there. We need a lot of partnerships with governments as well or private nonprofit institutions, right? So we need to constantly look externally to our other schools in Canada and in the United States as well as Australia and New Zealand to benchmark what our people are doing. It's really good to be able to cross-pollinate. I think what we need is that network to be strengthened. We have a few exchanges between us receiving people from Australia and New Zealand and Canada and vice versa in those countries. We need to have a lot more channels opened up and a lot more opportunities to bring each other to each other's campuses, not only staff but students, right? And we as the Indigenous staff as well need to all plug into those networks and travel to those other places because it helps us get inspiration, right? We constantly are looking inward but we also like to see what other best practices are out there and make partnerships. We're actually pursuing partnerships and we'd like to pursue a plethora of Indigenous partnerships across the ocean, right? So that's going to help us to really amplify our commitment at the university and in that regard, you know, I think it'll just help us to continue to grow. I think we're on a good growth spurt and we'll hopefully benefit from that. For non-Indigenous people in the university community, one of the best things they can do is just engage with the opportunities they have on campus. We have an Indigenous Awareness Week. I know my colleagues deliver workshops in a lot of classes throughout the year. They also deliver workshops to staff and faculty who requested. So there are opportunities and I think students should definitely take every possible opportunity to learn through any of those channels that they come across. We have a powwow. Usually that gets a lot of people's interest sort of at the beginning of the school year and that launches the Indigenous Awareness Week. The following week is the Indigenous Awareness Week and we try to sustain this momentum for the duration of the academic year.