On May 20, the School began rolling out Four Seasons of Reconciliation, an online course that examines Canadian history and Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples from an Indigenous perspective. This course is available to faculty and staff as part of the School’s ongoing commitment to achieving reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people.
The Four Seasons of Reconciliation was developed in partnership with First Nations University of Canada with input from Indigenous Elders, knowledge-keepers and residential school survivors and authentically renders Canadian history to help us “unlearn” the history most of us were taught. It contains ten modules and spans from pre-contact with European settlers to reconciliation efforts underway today.
This training fits into the School’s larger Indigenization Strategy. With guidance from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo Pharmacy is implementing this Strategy, which includes four components:
- Faculty and staff training
- Curriculum Indigenization
- Recruitment and support for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis learners
- Recruitment and support for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis faculty and staff.
To achieve strategic goals, we rely on establishing strong relationships with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities and partnerships with national Pharmacy educators across Canada and other healthcare programs at University of Waterloo.
Faculty and staff training is particularly important since the truth of Canada’s relationship with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples has not been accurately conveyed to previous generations in either education or media. By providing this training, all members of our School community will have a strong baseline of learning to work from to achieve our reconciliation goals.
This training will increase our faculty and staff’s ability to support both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students as we prepare for our next step in our Indigenization strategy - Indigenizing our PharmD curriculum.