Marie Battiste and the Decolonization of the Academy
We are delighted by the news that Dr. Marie Battiste has joined Cape Breton University as Special Advisor to the Vice President Academic and to Unama’ki College on decolonizing the academy.
Editor of two CBU Press books (Visioning a Mi’kmaw Humanities, 2017, and Living Treaties, 2016), Marie is a Mi’kmaw educator of the Potlotek First Nation, Professor Emerita at the University of Saskatchewan, a 2019 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellow, and an Honorary Officer of the Order of Canada.
Her passion, research and scholarly work for decolonizing education, protecting Indigenous knowledges, cognitive justice through balancing diverse knowledge systems and languages have earned her graduate degrees from Harvard and Stanford Universities, as well as four honorary degrees from University of Ottawa, Thompson Rivers University, University of Maine and St. Mary’s University.
Dr. Battiste’s other scholarly works includes books, chapters in books, journals, and reports, notably Decolonizing Education: Nourishing the Learning Spirit (UBC Press, 2013) and Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge (UBC Press, 2000), a new edition of which is forthcoming, as well as multiple edited book collections, including Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision (UBC Press, 2000) and First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds (UBC Press, 1995). More recently, she co-authored a report for the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences “Igniting Change: Final Report and Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Decolonization” (2021).
It’s great to have Marie back in Cape Breton, and to know she will continue to build on her scholarly research and work toward decolonization.
