U of S, NCTR agreement to provide greater access to Truth and Reconciliation Commission records
- Fraser Needham | February 09, 2016
University of Saskatchewan President Peter Stoicheff says it is crucial the institution tries to live up to the calls to action in the final report of the Truth of Reconciliation Commission as best it can.
“It’s important for the University of Saskatchewan to be as engaged as it can possibly be with the whole challenge of reconciliation,” he says. “So last week’s opening of the Gordon Oakes Red Bear (Students’ Centre) was an example of that, the passing at our academic council the motion that we would bring in Indigenous ways of knowing and experience into all of our academic programming is another example and trying to build Aboriginal understanding into all of our student experiences is another example.”
February 8-12 is Aboriginal Achievement Week at the university.
As part of the week’s activities, the U of S signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation on February 9 to provide greater access to information on Canada’s history with Indigenous peoples.
The NCTR is located in Winnipeg on the campus of the University of Manitoba.
It is a permanent electronic archive of all statements, documents and other materials gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The archives currently hold about five million electronic records with roughly 40,000 of these available to the public.
The MOU will provide researchers, students and the broader community at the U of S the ability to access the vast resources the NCTR has to offer.
This includes a soon to be placed link to the NCTR database on the library’s public computers and training for librarians on how the database can be most effectively used.
The library also plans to expand its resources and records available to the NCTR through the Indigenous Studies Portal and its contributions to Saskatchewan History Online.
“This is a critically important step in the journey of reconciliation as we move forward,” NCTR Director Ry Moran says. “Sharing this information in respectful and responsible ways with the Canadian public, with researchers, with students is something we had been asked to do by survivors, by the agreement.”
The University of Saskatchewan is one of nine post-secondary institutions in Canada that have signed similar memorandums of understanding with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
Aboriginal Achievement Week also featured a number of other events over the course of the week.
These events included a motivational talk to students by Métis filmmaker Marcel Petit on Monday and a presentation on achieving Indigenous success in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and the student achievement awards gala on Thursday.
Related:
- Saskatchewan post-secondary leaders commit to closing the Aboriginal education gap
- Truth & Reconciliation Commission releases its findings
- PHOTOS: Grand Opening of Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre