We hope you are enjoying the shift into cooler days and the crisp fall sunshine that lights up the colours of the changing leaves on the trees.  

An important day we want to highlight is Musqueam Day on November 1st. This day acknowledges the ruling in favour of Musqueam in Guerin v. the Queen at the Supreme Court of Canada on November 1, 1984. This legal decision asserted that the federal government must act in the best interests of Indigenous peoples, and recognized the inherent and collective nature of Aboriginal land title (language used in the legislation). This ruling has had far reaching impacts for Indigenous peoples across Canada and in Canadian law. As part of the community's recognition of this landmark ruling, November 1st is a statutory holiday at Musqueam, and all non-essential services are closed for the day.  

To learn more about this important decision and about Musqueam Day, we encourage you to review this post by our friends at X̱wi7x̱wa Library. We invite you to reflect on the story of the Guerin decision and these resources, and we'll see you in November. 

For those following our Teaching Practices Survey (TPS) results from 2023, we‘re back for our final blog post to wrap up the series. This last post focuses on the area of “professional development”, which 16% of survey respondents said this was how they engage with Indigenous topics, perspectives and worldviews in their courses (for reference, please read blog post  1, 2, and 3 here). Various professional development opportunities were mentioned in the responses, and many of these are often recommended by our team of consultants when instructors ask for ways to deepen their own learning about Indigenous topics.

As we approach mid-term, supporting student’s mental health and wellbeing is a critical component to creating a thriving classroom and classroom climate. One way to do this is through learning about resources on campus that directly support Indigenous student mental health and wellbeing.  

We are excited to be hosting special guests Hali McLennan and Anne Sinclair from Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing (IMHW), and Gloria Cardinal from the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVRPO) for an opportunity to learn about Indigenous student mental health and wellbeing in the classroom. Within this session, facilitators will share about the important work they do to support Indigenous students, explore common issues in the classroom that can impact Indigenous student experiences and approaches to mental health and wellbeing from each of their respective offices. 

Date: October 23, 2025
Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Location: Room 2.22, IKBLC

Join Lauren Casey, Educational Consultant, CTLT Indigenous Initiatives and Samantha Nock, Educational Resources Developer, CTLT Indigenous Initiatives for an interactive conversation focused session on supporting, developing, and maintaining a safer classroom climate that upholds a dynamic and rigorous learning space while navigating complex classroom conflicts, discussions, and situations.

Some key areas that we may discuss include:

• The essentials of a trauma informed practice;
• Balancing the emotional load of facilitating complex learning spaces and creating respectful boundaries;
• Holding difficult conversations with care;
• Building in sustainable supports for students in learning design, and;
• Navigating systemic power structures in the classroom.

This session is designed to be participant directed and the topics and goals of the session may shift depending on the conversation that develops in the room.

Date: November 27, 2025
Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Location: Room 2.22, IKBLC

Often when discussing the representations and realities of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer (2SIQ) people, there is a focus on the history and attempted erasure of gender and sexual diversity within Indigenous communities. However, that attempt was not successful. While we have been left with complexities to address and untangle, the stories and kinship practices have not only survived they have flourished anew.

Added to this complexity is the new reality of learning and connecting with one another online as we attempt to locate resources and transfer cultural knowledge in a virtual world. Join us for this session as we explore where we have been and shift our focus into contemporary spaces and embodiments of queer Indigenous joy and surthrivance.

Date: December 10, 2025
Time: 10:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Peña Room, IKBLC

We welcome you to attend one of CTLT Indigenous Initiatives‘ monthly Virtual Coffee Hours. They are an informal space to connect with consultants on the team and other colleagues across the university. Some common topics that come up include:  

• Professional development plans for individuals, teams, and departments  
• Engaging with the Indigenous Strategic Plan
• Fostering a respectful classroom and campus climate
• Connecting with a network of people across the university
• Locating relevant resources
• Meaningful land acknowledgements

…and more!

Upcoming Dates: 

• September 10, 2025
• September 25, 2025
• October 29, 2025

The forum will include subthemes including the celebration of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL), First Nations control of First Nations education, integrating First Nations languages into education, and advancing unique initiatives in lifelong learning.

Date: February 24-26, 2026
Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, 1055 Canada Place

The Symposium on AI for Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Futures (AI4CHIEF) is an interdisciplinary forum designed to explore and advance the application of artificial intelligence as a powerful tool for cultural heritage preservation and revitalization. The symposium brings together researchers from a broad array of artificial intelligence fields—such as machine learning, computational linguistics, computer vision and computer science—and humanities and social science disciplines, including digital humanities, cultural Informatics, archaeology, history, anthropology, museum studies, and archival science. AI4CHIEF aims to advance rigorous and reproducible methods, open standards, and community-aligned protocols for documenting, analyzing, and preserving languages, and cultural practices. By fostering collaboration, the symposium seeks to develop innovative, culturally-appropriate solutions for heritage preservation and revitalization that are ethical and beneficial to our society as we build a solid future.

Date: April 16-17, 2026
Location: Paris, France

This section of the newsletter is a space for intersectional Anti-Racist Teaching and learning (A-RTL) program reflections, community care commemorations, and updates.  

Latinx Heritage Month! 

October is Latin American Heritage Month, a month to celebrate the history, achievements, and contributions of Latin American communities! The vibrant and diverse tapestry of the Latinx community, spanning across communities, traditions, cultures, and histories from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Spain, has a legacy of resisting and advocating against the cultural erasures, silencing, and harms of the historical legacies and consequences of colonization.  

Want to learn more? We suggest checking out these two resources: The X in LatinX is a Wound, not a Trend by Alan Pelaez Lopez and What Latin American Heritage Month Means for Canada by Dr. Alessandra Santos here at UBC!  

We also encourage you to learn through getting involved in the community! Check out some community resources and events below, curated by Daniel Gallardo, Graduate Student Facilitator at CTLT:  

• Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre (VLACC) 
• Latincouver 
• Batucada Abrace - Latinx Drumming Group Instagram 
• Salseo - Queer Salsa and Cumbia Instagram  

What's Coming Up for A-RTL:  

• Fill out this survey for a chance to win a $20.00 gift card to Loafe: Access the A-RTL Survey Here! 

Writing our stories and interweaving them with poetry makes for great spoken words. We will be writing with Kevin’s insights into traditional storytelling from the prairies. Kevin will offer protocols into making safe space for telling our stories during this workshop. Interaction and community building have always been a part of Kevin’s teaching style. Bringing his teachings from Piapot First Nation he shares ‘sahkihitok’ to love one another. Time to share new and old writings will follow the end of the workshop.

Date: October 21, 2025
Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Location: Central Library, 350 West Georgia St.

How have Indigenous narratives helped Indigenous peoples cope with and confront climate change? What does it mean to see and story climate change not so much as a problem, but as a symptom?

Drawing on a century-plus of collective storytelling experience across multiple realms and locations, this seasoned panel will discuss how Indigenous narratives reframe and resist mainstream media’s preoccupation with extreme weather events to instead forefront what legacy newsrooms all but ignore: the colonial conditions, institutions and infrastructures surrounding these events.

Date: October 24, 2025
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Location: MOA, 6393 NW Marine Drive

YINTAH follows Howilhkat Freda Huson and Sleydo‘ Molly Wickham during the years-long campaign of violence, harassment, discrimination, and dispossession perpetrated against the Indigenous Wet‘suwet‘en resisting the construction of Coastal GasLink (CGL) liquified natural gas pipeline through their unceded ancestral territory without their free, prior and informed consent.

Date: October 25, 2025
Time: 2:30pm - 5:30pm
Location: New Westminster Public Library, 716 6th Avenue

Join us for a free screening of Blood Quantum. When a zombie plague starts near the isolated Mi'gmaq reserve of Red Crow, only Indigenous residents seem to be immune. Tribal sheriff Traylor must defend his family and community in the face of the oncoming hordes.

Date: October 28, 2025
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Central Library, 350 West Georgia St.

How do you turn an idea into a comic? Jordanna George will talk about how they create digital illustrations and comics, their influences, and the process of making a full-length graphic novel. Jordanna George is an artist of mixed T‘Sou-ke and Ukrainian ancestry. Originally from Sooke, BC, they now live on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) nations in Coquitlam, BC.

Date: November 1, 2025
Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Central Library, 350 West Georgia St.

The DTES Heart of the City Festival is honoured to present Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again, a stirring documentary by award-winning Stellat‘en filmmaker Lyana Patrick. Once a lifeline for the Stellat‘en and Saik‘uz Nations, the Nechako River in northwestern BC was diminished when the Kenney Dam diverted 70% of its waters, displacing the Cheslatta T‘En, and disrupting wildlife, land, and culture. Through stories of resistance and resilience, Nechako reveals a decades-long fight for justice and renewal. Screening followed by a special talk-back with Lyana Patrick.

Date: November 1, 2025
Time: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Location: Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, 149 W Hastings street
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