In December, our Faculty received news that six of our graduate students have been chosen for the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowships/Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Competition. We saw this news as an opportunity to highlight some of our extraordinary graduate students and their research.
Our spotlight today is shining on PhD student Heather Carter, one of the six competitors from our Faculty.
Heather (B.Ed.’08 SUNTEP-PA, M.Ed.’19 UofR) is a Métis woman from Prince Albert, SK, and is now living and working on Treaty 4 territory, the territories of the nêhiyawak, Anihšināpēk, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakoda, and the homeland of the Métis/Michif Nation. Before moving to Regina, Heather worked as a middle years teacher for 8 years and then in adult education at Dumont Technical Institute for 2 years. She also earned her M.Ed. (C&I with a focus on Indigenous Leadership and Pedagogy) in our community-based master’s of education program offered in partnership with Gabriel Dumont Institute in Prince Albert. Currently, Heather works as an Indigenous Student Success Facilitator and runs the nitôncipâmin omâ Student Success Program at the University of Regina.
While Heather is working toward a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Leadership, her research focus is anti-oppressive leadership in higher education. She chose this topic because she is interested in “understanding the impact that ubiquitous racism and oppression has on the identity of Indigenous and racialized learners in post-secondary institutions,” says Heather.
She adds, “I was fortunate to have been given the opportunity to learn, to teach, and to lead while cocooned in my culture. I am called now to do this research and join those whose aim is to make change in post-secondary institutions and move toward equity in education for those Indigenous and racialized students yet to come.”
Dr. Jerome Cranston (Education) is Heather’s supervisor. Her committee members will be Dr. Amanda Gebhard (Social Work), Dr. Emily Grafton (Politics and International Studies), and Dr. Donna Swapp (Education).
Read Heather’s published research:
Gebhard, A., Novotna, G., Carter, H., & Oba, F. (2022). Racism plays a disappearing act: Discourses of denial in one anti-discrimination campaign in higher education. Whiteness and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/23793406.2022.2072760
Carter, H. (2022) Permission to escape. In A. Gebhard, S. McLean, & V. St. Denis, (Eds.), White benevolence: Racism and colonial violence in the helping professions. Fernwood Publishing.
Carter, H., & Cranston, J. (2023, in press). Freedom with relational responsibility: Exposing the culture of Whiteness of academic freedom from a critical pedagogy of place. In M. Popovic, Q. Dang., & L. Matei, (Eds.), Global observatory on academic freedom. https://elkana.ceu.edu/goaf-blog
