First ever Ph.D program in Native studies offered

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Trent University, nestled in the heart of ancestral Iroquois-Anishinabe lands in Southern Ontario, has always been a special place for Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

As the home of the first Native Studies department in Canada, Trent will be celebrating 30 years of ground-breaking education with the addition a new Ph.D. program - the first of its kind in Canada - which will be welcoming four new doctoral candidates in September.

Founded in 1969, the Native Studies program is the oldest in the country, offering bachelor degrees, honors bachelor degrees, a diploma program, a Native Management and Economic Development specialization course and a solid 10-year track record with the Native Studies component of the Trent's master's degree in Canadian Heritage and Development Studies.

The addition of a Native Studies Ph.D. program will represent a new high water mark in a list of impressive firsts for Trent University.

Designed to prepare graduate students for academic, research and leadership positions, the new Ph.D. program will bring together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students to study the historical, cultural and contemporary situation of the Aboriginal/Indigenous people.

"There was a real need to open this door, a growing need for a Ph.D. in Native Studies," explained Paul Bourgeois, cultural advisor at Trent's Otonabee College.

With 1200 students (out of 5000) enrolled in undergrad and graduate courses in the NS department and about 250 with Aboriginal ancestry, it was definitely an idea whose time had come, added Bourgeois.

One of the things that will separate the new NS doctoral program from others in the country is that it has been designed to integrate Aboriginal knowledge, both experiential and traditional community learning, with a strong focus on Native people.

"I think it's fair to say that within Trent and the larger community itself, including different First Nations in the area, that there is a lot of support, direction and participation.

"And although four students in the new Ph.D. program may sound like a very small number, that will be its strength, a lot of interaction with faculty, traditional teachers and Elders, to get a better education. That is what Trent has striven to maintain from the beginning. Its strength is built on being a small university."

With an ever increasing interest in Aboriginal studies on both a national and international level, there is a growing need to have qualified faculty in place with a background and specialization in Native studies. Up until now, most students taking Native studies in a university department have received their instruction from faculty from other disciplines like anthropology, sociology or political science.

"What is very different now is that people in Native Studies at Trent are branching out into other disciplines. It used to be the other way around, people from the outside coming into Native Studies. Now our graduates are going off into other professions, education, politics and environmental studies, for instance, growth and learning from here going outward. There's a lot going on and it's very diverse, this thing called Native Studies."

Best known for its annual Elders conference that draws visitors from all over the world, Native studies at Trent currently offers more than 30 courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels including Aboriginal languages, history, politics, law, literature, theatre, urbanization, education, northern and polar studies, Ojibwa and Iroquois culture, critical theory, community development, research, women's studies, self government and Aboriginal thought. Native Studies sponsors academic, social and cultural events, theatre productions, artists-in-residence, Elders gatherings and traditional ceremonies including Sweatlodges and Healing Lodges on campus.

Daphne Taylor, a Spanish/English speaking Mexican-Otomi from central Mexico who grew up in Scarborough, Ont., explained that the "Aboriginal student community at rent was very strong and a good safe place to live in southern Ontario for Native students coming in from all over Canada."

Taylor, who has completed an honors degree in Native studies, an education degree and is currently working on a MA, says she is also aiming for the Ph.D. which she describes as "a very interdisciplinary kind of degree that stresses the importance of thinking through our own issues as Aboriginal people in contemporary culture, so that when we do go back into our own communities we have a better idea of what to do politically and socially.

"I appreciate 'the different ways of knowing' here, and being from a Native studies department doesn't erase my own cultural identity or the complexity of where I'm coming from in any way," said Taylor.

"There are many issues common to Indigenous groups from all over the world to be examined such as colonization, preserving and developing different Native traditions, language and culture without having to feel that we are all part of a smorgasbord or 'pan-Indian culture.'

"Kevin Fitzmaurice, who co-ordinates the mentor/tutor program in the Native Studies Department, which matches up incoming and more experienced students, says that there is a definite sense of community and solidarity within divergent cultural groups that includes both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students.

Fitzmaurice, who offers a non-Native perspective on the doctoral program, says that it could offer some real potential for western and non-western knowledge to come together by examining the "two different ways of knowing," perhaps moving it into a more healthy relationship.

"Native Studies as a discipline is not a homogenized cultural or spiritual blanket imposed on everybody, even though in this part of the world known as Anishinabe/Mississauga we do offer culturally specific courses. There is no stereotyping within the department, or what one writer has recently called pan-Indianism or Shake-n-Bake shamanism," said Bourgeois.

"In thiking of what to name a department that brings so many different people together. We had thought of calling it Aboriginal Studies so that we could be the first in the phone book, ahead of Anthropology," he added with a laugh.

On a more serious note, explained Bourgeois, there exists in Aboriginal communities a significant need for research to be carried out to inform policy and program development as well as an expanding need for trained experts who can conduct basic and applied research and assume positions of responsibility and leadership at local, provincial and national levels.

These individuals must be able to address contemporary and historical Aboriginal issues, building community infrastructure for self government, researching land claims, contributing to the revitalization of traditional cultures and languages, facilitating cross-cultural awareness, conducting comparative research with Indigenous peoples in other countries, developing models for natural resource management and analyzing social and political issues at an advanced level.

Some people say that the 21st century will belong to the Aboriginal peoples in Canada. It seems only fitting that Trent, the small university set like a shining stone on a rolling river in one of the most beautiful and natural wilderness campuses in the country, should once again be on the cutting edge with the graduating class of 2002, the first of many future Ph.D.'s to come in Native Studies.