Landmark agreement commits southwestern Ontario post-secondary institutions to promote opportunities for First Nations students

Candace Brunette of Western University in London told signers of a new education partnership agreement between post-secondary institutions and First Nations that reaching out to the Nations in southwestern Ontario is one key to helping students from those communities succeed at their schools. – Photo by Southern First Nations Secretariat via Facebook

By Colin Graf

DELAWARE NATION AT MORAVIANTOWN— A landmark agreement committing universities and colleges in southwestern Ontario to promote post-secondary education opportunities for First Nations students has been signed in Delaware Nation at Moraviantown recently.

The Post-Secondary Education Collaborative agreement commits six post-secondary institutions, six First Nations, and other partners to “prioritize the needs and interests of aspiring former and present First Nations students,” said Jennifer Whiteye, Executive Director of the Southern First Nations Secretariat (SFNS), the body that helped bring the document’s signers together.

The document provides the “framework and conditions” for the parties to work together in helping First Nations students to “have a safe and successful post-sec education experience,” she told the physically distanced audience of signers and supporters recently.

The agreement is an “action-oriented commitment” that will see the partners meeting to set “common goals that require institutional change” at the schools, Whiteye said. The collaborative group will “come together with open heart and minds in good faith to outline our shared commitment and responsibility” to First Nations students, she explained.

SFNS provides services directly to around 280 students, while staff members also sit on Indigenous Education Councils at the colleges and universities as well as working closely with student centres at the schools, said Shawn Plain, Chair of the SFNS Board of Directors.

Collaboration among the group members will help create positive experiences for students so that they can “have a positive experience and bring that back to the community so they can contribute back.”

“They can build up their communities, and be those next role models who will sit in our own positions [one day],” said Jane Manning, Manager of Indigenous Education at Lambton College in Sarnia.

Candace Brunette of Western University in London, Ont., said one priority for the group would be strengthening relationships with First Nation communities. Brunette, Associate Vice-President for Indigenous Education, said building community connections is “the heart and foundation of what we do[— a] critical step.”

The members of the Collaborative “don’t have all the answers right now, but it’s that commitment that we are going to find those answers together” that is important, said Guy Williams, Special Advisor for Indigenous Education & Development at Fanshawe College in London. He said the agreement is a first step.

“A commitment not just to sign something, but to make it real.”

The next step for the signers is to develop an action plan, according to White-Lightning Clark, Economic Leakage Strategic Plan Coordinator for SFNS. The group has so far focused on knowledge-sharing and solidifying relationships between the members, he tells Anishinabek News by e-mail. Creating the action plan will come next, he explains.

The SFNS leakage committee has been working since 2016 to identify and recapture money from areas where the six member nations spend the most outside those communities, said Whiteye. SFNS member nations are Aamjiwnaang, Chippewas of the Thames, Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point, Delaware-Moravian of the Thames, Munsee Delaware Nation, and the Oneida of the Thames. The leakage project found they spend over 40 million externally annually on education.

Education institutions participating in the Collaborative are Lambton and Fanshawe Colleges, St. Clair College in Windsor, Western University, the University of Windsor and triOS College in London. Other members include the regional tribal council and the Tecumseh Community Development Corporation at Aamjiwnaang.