Dr. Nicole Ives, Director, School of Social Work, was recently awarded the Meritorious Service Decoration (Civil Division), conferred by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, for her work in founding Indigenous Access McGill.Ěý
Indigenous Access McGill recruits and supports First Nations, Inuit and MĂ©tis students in social work at McGill.
“Prior to IAM, there were very few Indigenous students in the School of Social Work at McGill over decades,” says Dr. Ives. “With IAM, we have supported nearly 40 graduates and currently have First Nations and Métis students across the BSW, MSW, and PhD programs. Several of our BSW graduates have returned for their MSW and a BSW graduate just completed her Master of Science (Applied) in Couple & Family Therapy in the School of Social Work.”
Indigenous Access McGill has received significant funding from Health Canada, the Counseling Foundation of Canada, and the Faculty of Arts under then Dean Christopher Manfredi.
“Since co-founding IAM, I have used my privileged position to further IAM’s collective goals,” says Dr. Ives. “While I am proud of the leadership and commitment I have offered, I have always seen myself as a placeholder. I am not an Indigenous person and am deeply committed to supporting Indigenous leadership.”
“IAM co-founder and friend Michael Loft from the Kanien'kehá:ka community of Kahnawake told me when we started IAM that if I were going to work with Indigenous Peoples, I had “to stay,” she adds. “I listened and I have stayed, to ensure continuity and growth. I stood in the interim Director position for as long as it took to provide support and ensure a timely and successful transition to Indigenous leadership. I’m thankful to work alongside the new Director of Indigenous Access McGill, Dr. Ann Seymour.”
During her time at Indigenous Access McGill, Dr. Ives was committed to advancing multidisciplinary learning environment to address the histories of colonization and oppression and give students a space in which they could reflect on their unique cultural and disciplinary identity, assumptions, and ways of knowing, being in learning.
“In 2009, as part of Indigenous Access McGill’s curriculum dossier, I led applications to Health Canada to develop and implement a pilot course designed to provide this space,” says Dr. Ives. “Ensuring the participation of multiple disciplines has greatly expanded the impact of the program across the University. The founding disciplines were Social Work, Law, Medicine, and Anthropology.”
“Fifteen years later, it is a permanent course, with over 225 students and even two chaplains from the Canadian Armed Forces having participated, representing the original disciplines as well as the Indigenous Studies Minor, Nursing, Education, Political Science, and Environmental Studies,” says Dr. Ives.
The course takes place over a four-week period in May of each year and brings together a cohort of students, an Elder and seven course instructors to engage together, working through entrenched stereotypes and biases in historical and contemporary contexts, exploring new ways of learning, being, doing, and processing knowledge individually. The course also includes one week of collectively living on the land together on Kanien'kehá:ka Territory.
For more information about Indigenous Field Studies, please see made during the first year, and made during the 10th anniversary.
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