Category: Announcements

Funding for research

Congratulations to #UREdu Dr. Valerie Triggs (Co-investigator) on SSHRC/CRSH-funded research: Retracing, Reimaging, and Reconciling our Roots.
 
Led by artists, arts-educators, and social work educators in collaboration with elders, and knowledge keepers, this project explores the arts as a space to retrace Indigenous-settler relations, reimagine conceptions of land and culture and engage in everyday processes of reconciliation. By implementing arts based methods of inquiry alongside Indigenous methodologies, teachings and worldviews, this project will artistically and pedagogically explore what it might mean for educators and social workers to walk in three provinces, on traditional, treaty, and unceded territories, grounded by the 4 R’s of Indigenous learning: respect, relevance, reciprocity and responsibility (Kirkness & Barnhardt, 2001).
 
This current study builds on ongoing research from the successful 2018 SSHRC PDG Project Mapping A/r/tography which focused on the international pedagogic implication of movement with/in physical contexts to create and examine human-land relationship as a collective expression grounded in movement of thought (theory) and body (practice), responsibility and reciprocity.

 

Orange Shirt Day / National Day of Truth and Reconciliation

September 30, 2021, Orange Shirt Day, will be the inaugural National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, “a time for reflection”, as Lori Campbell, Associate Vice-President,
Indigenous Engagement, has written.

The University of Regina is closing offices and courses so that the campus community can take time to reflect.

Read more of Phyllis Webstad’s story https://www.orangeshirtday.org/phyllis-story.html

Purchase an official 2021 Orange Shirt Day shirt at https://orangeshirtday.net/

#Orangeshirtday2021 #everychildmatters

 

 

New Black Teachers Matter Scholarship

Donors to the U of R share in the University’s commitment to creating and promoting a more equitable system that fosters diversity and inclusion.

By University Advancement and Communications Posted: September 13, 2021

“This commitment to well-being and belonging was no more evident than in the $25,000 donated by Agnes Stephanson-Cooke to endow the Black Teachers Matter Scholarship in 2020 – an award that will support a Black undergraduate student in pursuing a degree in the Faculty of Education in their final year.

“It’s a huge commitment by Agnes to trust us and our Faculty and our University to carry forward this gift with her name,” said Dr. Jerome Cranston, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. “It brings me tremendous joy to know that there are people like Agnes out there. Her foresight and her willingness to have her name associated with this gift is huge.”

Dr. Cranston was quick to give credit to his Faculty of Education colleague Stephen Davis, who came up with the concept and name of the award. “I felt that this was needed to recognize the important role of Black educators in Saskatchewan and celebrate the brilliant and gifted educators that we have at the University of Regina,” Davis said. Both Dr. Cranston and Davis recognize the enormous impact that the award will have.

“Representation matters. We don’t only need Black teachers for Black students, we need Black teachers for white students,” Dr. Cranston said. “This award is going to support changing the teaching workforce and it’s going to do it in a way that even further identifies the U of R as a place where we are inclusive, and we are respectful.”

Read the full story on the U of R Front Page

If you would like to help a student in need, visit our donor page and consider supporting one of our Faculty’s funding priorities:  https://giving.uregina.ca/pages/fundraising-priorities/education

Inaugural Gabriel Dumont Research Chair in Métis/Michif Education

We are pleased to announce the launch of the inaugural Gabriel Dumont Research Chair in Métis/Michif Education within the Faculty of Education, University of Regina.

Dr. Melanie Brice has been appointed to the inaugural Gabriel Dumont Chair in Métis/Michif Education for a 5-year term. Dr. Brice has been working with the University of Regina Faculty of Education since 2018 as an Assistant Professor in Indigenous Education, Language & Literacy Education, and Educational Core Studies. Dr. Brice a Michif (Métis) born in Meadow Lake and raised at Jackfish Lake, Saskatchewan has a strong understanding of Indigenous histories, cultures, languages and literacies, perspectives, educational experiences, and cross-cultural education issues.

The Gabriel Dumont Chair in Métis/Michif Education will increase research and teaching capacity in Métis/Michif Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina and enhance academic engagement with Gabriel Dumont Institute’s (GDI’s) Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program (SUNTEP).

As Chair, Dr. Brice will focus on the research that seeks to understand and expand the scholarship of teaching and learning by building capacity in Métis and Michif education. The research program will focus on research, learning, knowledge-keeping, language and cultural revitalization, reconciliation, and inclusion with and by the Métis through formal education systems.

According to the Statistics Canada 2016 census, with a rising population of 51.2%, the Métis were the fastest growing population in Canada between 2006 and 2016. However, less than two percent of Métis people speak the Michif language, making the Michif language one of the most vulnerable Indigenous languages in Canada.

With the establishment of this new Chair, the first in a Faculty of Education in Canada, and many other endeavours toward Truth and Reconciliation, the Faculty continues to demonstrate a concerted and sustained commitment to teaching and research that is engaging faculty, students, and other education stakeholders in gaining a deeper understanding of our shared histories and a reconciliatory approach to a more just future. (Photo credit: Sweetmoon Photography)

IPHRC/SCPOR funding renewed

PhD Candidate (Education Psychology) Shana Cardinal has been renewed as recipient of an Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre (IPHRC) / Saskatchewan Centre for Patient Oriented Research (SCPOR) Research Award in the amount of $30,000 for her doctoral research, which Cardinal says involves, “analyzing the contexts and frameworks through which Indigenous children and youth mental health may be viewed, with particular emphasis on the impacts of social determinants and cultural assumptions.”  Through her research, Cardinal says she “hopes to determine ways in which we can better support Indigenous students as they progress through Pre-K to 12 education system.”

The IPHRC/SCPOR grant has facilitated Cardinal’s ability to complete coursework requirements for her PhD program and to begin a review of the literature by locating, assembling, and reviewing resources to support her doctoral research.  The grant has given Cardinal, “numerous educational and mentorship opportunities specifically related to Indigenous research methodologies and practices,” she says.

The IPHRC/SCPOR Trainee program has facilitated the growth of Cardinal’s professional networks. These networks have “broadened my perspective and expanded my thinking about my research questions within the context of the mental health of Indigenous children and youth,” says Cardinal.

 

Successful defence

Dr. Emily Ashton has successfully completed her PhD from the University of Victoria. Dr. Ashton’s research explores how the cultural connections of childhood are being rewritten under conditions of ecological destruction and political uncertainty. Her research seeks to better understand how child figures of public and popular culture entangle with early childhood imaginaries to create particular worlds.

New appointment to the Centre for Teaching and Learning from Faculty of Education

Dr. Alec Couros

The Faculty of Education’s Dr. Alec Couros has been appointed as the Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) effective September 1, 2020.

Dr. Alec Couros is a Professor of Educational Technology and Media in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina.

Couros currently serves as the Director of the Centre for Educational Research, Collaboration, & Development (CERCD), the Faculty of Education’s research unit.  Couros’s research focuses on the areas of connected/networked/open learning, digital citizenship, social media in education, SoTL, and media/digital literacy. His work spans the traditional academic realm (including numerous book chapters, articles, and Tri-Council grants) but also includes research done in collaboration with government and industry partners. Couros is an internationally recognized expert in his field and has given hundreds of keynotes and workshops around the world to academics, educators, parents, and students. In his tenure as a faculty member at the University of Regina, Couros has been recognized on several occasions for his scholarship, with recent honours including the D2L Innovation Award in Teaching (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), 2018), the University of Regina Alumni Association Award for Teaching Excellence (2016), EdTech Leader of the Year in the Post-Secondary Category (Canadian EdTech Awards, 2016), and the Centre for Teaching and Learning Award for Innovation in Teaching (University of Regina, 2015). Prior to receiving his doctorate from the University of Regina in 2007, Couros held various education-related positions in K-12, technical, youth corrections, and post-secondary institutions. He also holds a Bachelor of Education and Master of Education from the University of Saskatchewan.

Dr. Nilgün Önder
Associate Vice-President Academic
University of Regina