New Chairholder in University Teaching Aims to Support the Indigenization of Course Curricula Across the uOttawa Campus
The Teaching and Learning Support Service (TLSS) is proud to announce the recipient of the Chair in University Teaching (2020-2023), Professor Karine Vanthuyne of the Faculty of Social Sciences.
The Project – Indigenizing Post-Secondary Curricula with Indigenous Curriculum Specialists
As part of the 3-year Chairship appointment, Professor Vanthuyne will build on an initiative led by the Indigenization and Decolonization Committee of the uOttawa Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS), in collaboration with uOttawa Indigenous Affairs and the Indigenous Resource Centre (IRC) Mashkawazìwogamig. The project will critically examine the strategies employed by the FSS’s Indigenous Curriculum Specialist (ICS) to Indigenize the FSS’s course curricula; the challenges and opportunities these strategies present for the FSS faculty, teaching assistants (TA), students, and staff; complementary approaches deployed by ICSs at other universities for Indigenizing post-secondary course curricula; and the various resources, knowledge, skills and incentives required to implement effective strategies at uOttawa and beyond.
The project will be guided by the following research question: How can ICSs best support universities’ faculty in infusing Indigenous contents, pedagogies, and philosophies throughout their curricula?
A presentation on Professor Vanthuyne’s project will take place in August as part of the closing reception of the Orientation Program for New Professors. All members of the University community are welcome to attend.
This Year’s Chairholder
Professor Vanthuyne is an Associate Professor at the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on the Territories of Extraction (IRGTE) at uOttawa. At the crossroads of medical and political anthropology, Karine Vanthuyne's research focuses on memory, identity and Indigenous rights advocacy. Her publications include "Le présent d'un passé de violences. Mémoires et identités autochtones dans le Guatemala de l'après-génocide" (Hermann/Presses de l’Université Laval, 2014), and "Power through Testimony. Residential Schools in the Age of Reconciliation" (with B. Capitaine, University of British Columbia Press, 2017). In addition to Indigenization initiatives in post-secondary contexts, her current work examines how the colonial history and decolonization processes of the Maya-Mam (Guatemala) and of the Cree of Eeyou Istchee (Canada) are differently encoding their practices of engagement with, or opposition to, mining. As part of professor Vanthuyne’s projets, special attention is paid to the methodologies to be employed in order to encourage truly participatory and decolonized research.
The Chair in University Teaching Initiative
As part of the Transformation 2030 strategic plan, the University of Ottawa's Chairs in University Teaching underscore the University's commitment to instructional excellence by:
- Promoting innovative teaching and learning practices that will benefit the wider University community as grounded in a scholarly framework/model;
- Recognizing the value of educational leadership and excellence in University Teaching; and
- Supporting professors committed to the scholarly investigation of teaching and learning, translating to University wide transformation of instructional practices.
For more information about the Chair in University Teaching initiative or to read about the projects led by current and former Chairs, please visit the Teaching and Learning Support Service website.