Coyote ProjectIndigenous TRU
The Coyote Project has united all of TRU — nine faculties plus TRU World, Open Learning and the Library — in creating a campus that is welcoming and supportive to all, especially Indigenous students and staff.
This project is funded by $224,000 per year and is a pan-institutional program to accelerate Indigenization, but its impacts and legacies are meant to be long-lasting.
The Secwépemc people of the BC Interior tell a story about Coyote, who is known for being a powerful transformer. The story, called Coyote Brings Food from the Upper World, forms the basis of The Coyote Project at TRU.
About the Coyote Project
Situated on the traditional territory of the Secwépemc people, in a region rich with the culture and history of Indigenous peoples, TRU welcomes First Nations students from across the country. Long before The Coyote Project, the university had undertaken numerous indigenization initiatives.
In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) recommendations called for education institutions to take action. Currently, about 10 per cent of TRU’s student population is Indigenous. And while services and supports for these students are already in place, the university recognized it could do more.
The Coyote Project sprang from a willingness to move forward on the TRC’s recommendations and calls for action and to make deep, thoughtful and long-lasting changes.
The Coyote Project’s goals are about outcomes – the university working in ways for Indigenous students that accelerates improvement in participation, retention and completion. To make this happen there will be improved cultural understanding throughout the TRU community, along with research and reporting.
Each faculty and department has targets and is taking action. Change can come in the form of creating new courses and programs, altering course content or curriculum, expanding research, indigenizing support services, hiring expertise, enhancing environments.
Coyote story
Three stories set the scene for this initiative.
The story "Coyote Brings Food from the Upper World" tells how Coyote brought to earth the plants that the Secwepemc use for food and medicine, and how animals and fish got their special shape and features. The story closes with Coyote gathering all the people together and reminding them to enjoy the environment where they are, to share what they have, and to not ruin or destroy. "It is your job to care for the land and to protect all living things. You are its caretaker."
In October 2015, the president of TRU rose to close off a remarkable presentation by Justice Murray Sinclair, the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We had heard a compelling talk about the findings of the TRC and the need to take up the commission’s calls to action. Dr. Alan Shaver, in responding, would give his shortest speech ever. He said that in his younger days he was a hippie, and he and his friends would say that you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. President Shaver paused slightly that evening, looked around the hundreds there in the Great Hall and said, "Tonight I am saying TRU is part of the solution."
Finally, when TRU was established in 2005, TRU's motto was created in Secwepemcstin: "T7etsxem7nte re stselxmem": To strive ahead.
Why indigenization matters
The Coyote Project is about implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action — particularly the elimination of educational and employment gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians and new Indigenous education legislation with the full consent and participation of Indigenous peoples.
The latter call to action includes:
- Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation.
- Improving education attainment levels and success rates.
- Developing culturally appropriate curricula.
- Protecting the right to Indigenous languages, including the teaching of Indigenous languages as credit courses.
In response, The Coyote Project will address recruitment, retention and completion issues for Indigenous students.
