On this page: Background/Context | Engagement Approach
Background/Context
Universities in Ontario are public institutions that have been established on lands acquired by colonial governments throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As physically and socially significant sites within the landscapes of the cities in which they are situated, university campuses possess cultures and histories that are not always evident to the students, faculty and staff who are the daily users of those spaces. In effect, university campuses can be culturally and historically “thin” environments that are organized spatially by faculty to reflect specialized knowledge boundaries or, at best, through the naming of buildings and open spaces to commemorate a select group of institutional founders or patrons. If the campus environment is a culturally thin setting, then how can local geographies and histories be better captured to create a thicker or deeper campus place experience? More particularly, why does this matter?
The university campus as a place matters for two reasons:
- Universities are spaces for academic discourse that have become deeply engaged in debates regarding historical memory and identity. Yet they are also spaces that have, through their physical planning and design, effectively erased Indigenous identities and connections to the lands on which they are situated. Recent placemaking scholarship has found that Indigenous reclamation of public spaces through renaming or art and architecture is an important act of reconciliation that acknowledges traditional Indigenous territories and reasserts the significance of original occupancy. However, placemaking is more than producing isolated markers of historical and contemporary connections to land. It also has the power for Indigenous students, faculty and staff to build stronger connections to and identify more strongly with the campus setting, which enhances well-being and motivation.
- Students, faculty and staff are the largest constituents on a university campus and are the primary users of campus names and landmarks for wayfinding purposes as they navigate throughout the campus landscape on a daily basis. Creating a new spatial geography that recognizes previously erased Indigenous ties to land embeds identity and meaning into the landscape. This can create a more vivid or “legible” mental image of the campus where identifiable and memorable landscape elements enhance both the user’s experience of and their ability to navigate the campus setting.
The purpose of this report is to address the objectives of the Indigenous Wayfinding Initiative and consider how the University of Waterloo can “…identify and implement ways of Indigenizing wayfinding on University of Waterloo campuses in consultation with Indigenous leaders and the campus community”. The broader intention of this initiative is “…to further recognize, honour and educate our community about Indigenous Peoples, the physical land we inhabit, and the geographical territories on which we work through a comprehensive system of signage and wayfinding installed throughout our campuses.”
The Indigenous Wayfinding Initiative is a collaborative project of the Office of Indigenous Relations and University Relations launched in 2023. It builds upon the Campus Wayfinding Initiative that began implementation in 2018 through the installation of exterior signage at campus gateway entrances, pathways, parking areas and building entrances to address, among other considerations, the legibility, accessibility and branding of campus facilities. The Indigenous Wayfinding Initiative is an opportunity to meet the University’s commitment to reconciliation in part through a physical and therefore visible acknowledgement of the University’s place in an Indigenous landscape. It is also an opportunity to create a tangible/physical curriculum that instructs all members of the campus community and celebrates the lives, histories and cultures of Indigenous Peoples through naming or placemaking strategies that thicken or deepen the campus experience.
Through two workshop sessions with Indigenous members of the campus community, this report documents the opportunities and challenges associated with Indigenous wayfinding strategies that have been identified through precedence research. It concludes with recommendations for consideration by the Office of Indigenous Relations and University Relations.
Engagement Approach
The findings and recommendations in this report are the result of engagement with Indigenous members of the University of Waterloo community in two, two-hour long workshop settings. The workshops were intended to provide a forum for Indigenous members of the University community to:
- Learn about the Indigenous Wayfinding Initiative,
- Raise questions and issues regarding the Initiative’s objectives,
- Review precedence examples of Indigenous wayfinding strategies from other campuses, and
- Discuss aspirations, concerns and recommendations for consideration by University Relations and the Office of Indigenous Relations.
The workshops were hosted by the Office of Indigenous Relations on June 22nd and July 18th, 2024. They included 14 participants (refer to the Acknowledgements) who offered their views of the current wayfinding context on the University of Waterloo campus and their aspirations or concerns regarding Indigenous campus wayfinding. Discussions among the participants included considerations of what strategies could work well, what strategies ought to be considered cautiously, recommendations to engage Indigenous host communities in the wayfinding initiative, as well as immediate and long-term wayfinding priorities.
The findings from these discussions and the recommendations provided in this report are intended to provide a foundation for the Indigenous Wayfinding Initiative that will inform future planning and design-focused stages of the Initiative.