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<\/a>\u201cWe anticipated having probably about 500 people in attendance and we had over 700 show up,\u201d says Bell. \u201cThe day was set up differently than other Conversations Days; we had roundtables and we shared a meal together. When we had the extra 200 people, we had to put out chairs, which was a good thing to see. The response from faculty and staff has been incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ey\u0113\u0294 Sq\u0203\u2019lewen director Janice Simcoe feels that the success of the Day of Reconciliation was also due to the interest in reconciliation from faculty and staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attendance turnout really indicates that staff and faculty at Camosun College are very interested in reconciliation and interested in, \u2018What does it mean, what do we need need to know, and what do we need to do in order to engage?\u2019\u201d says Simcoe. \u201cFor me, just that message of that large attendance was amazing. The day was supposed to start at 9 am and by 8:45, people were standing before we even began.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keynote speaker Chief Robert Joseph and his daughter Shelly talked in great detail with the gathered members of Camosun about reconciliation work, says Simcoe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were so skilled, so articulate,\u201d she says. \u201cI saw that Chief Joseph was able to provide the contextual information about the residential school experience and the process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and how it has evolved into what now is reconciliation work that is being done across Canada. He was able to provide that information and integrate his personal story around being a residential school survivor and the impacts it had on him, and the healing process he went through, and his desire to work with Canada toward greater acknowledgement of the indigenous peoples\u2019 and non-indigenous peoples\u2019 shared history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camosun School of Access dean Ian Humphries was part of the task force organizing the 39 recommendations. He says that Bell\u2019s arrival at the school spurned the 39 recommendations into action.<\/p>\n
\u201cShortly after Sherri took on the president\u2019s role, she asked us, \u2018What is the college doing with respect to the Truth and Reconciliation calls to action?\u2019 As a result of that question, a small task force of senior leadership members was formed and worked on coming up with the 39 recommendations,\u201d he says. \u201cI meet with all sorts of groups to ensure we put the resources to action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell says that the college is constantly looking for new ways to get staff, faculty, and students involved so as many people as possible can be educated about indigenization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe path to reconciliation includes education, certainly of our staff, but also of our students,\u201d she says. \u201cSome next steps we\u2019re looking at are to continue to indigenize our curriculum and looking at ways to have more students get a deeper understanding about where we were, and where we\u2019re moving to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bell says that she has been working closely with other presidents of post-secondary institutions on Vancouver Island to share their practices of indigenization and what they can improve on.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt our last meeting there was about five people from each of the five institutions,\u201d she says.
\n\u201cWe met at Royal Roads and the meeting was basically sharing what we\u2019re doing, what the best practices are, and where we have overlap. It\u2019s really wonderful to work with other institutions that have such a strong focus on indigenization, indigenous education, and Truth and Reconciliation. All five institutions have made that part of their focus for the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Friday, February 18, Camosun College held their latest Conversations Day, this time around with a focus on reconciliation. The Day of Reconciliation event was a day of learning and awareness-raising for the faculty and educators of Camosun. Last year marked the beginning of the five-year strategic plan set in place by Camosun president Sherri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-march-1-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13544,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions\/13544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}