This story is featured in the Spring 2016 issue of Showcase: The Champions of Change Issue. » View the complete publication

"If there's going to be a change in our relationship with Indigenous peoples then it's important to change the way we think," says Dr. Lynne Davis, a non-Indigenous professor in Indigenous Studies at Trent.

How do we change the way Canadians think about Indigenous peoples and our relationships with them? How do we make non-Indigenous Canadians understand that we have unfairly benefited from the injustices of the past and continue to perpetuate those kinds of injustices? These are the types of questions Professor Davis poses through her research.

At the heart of this research, is an understanding of the way in which settler consciousness is constructed, making people aware of the different kinds of narrative needed in order to be able to live and learn together.

Undergraduate students collaborate on faculty research

Taking her research into the classroom, these are also central themes Prof. Davis explores in her fourth-year course, Transforming Settler Consciousness. In the course, Prof. Davis engages her students in her research, expanding their learning experience in the process.

"Two years ago I invited the students to become part of a research group," she says. "Together we researched many initiatives across Canada related to the education of non-Indigenous people that we could call transforming settler consciousness."

The group created a website (transformingrelations.wordpress.com) with more than 200 entries that document initiatives aimed at building bridges with, and increasing understanding of, Indigenous peoples.

Last year, four of the undergraduate students accompanied Prof. Davis to the Congress for Social Sciences and Humanities and presented a paper on the research project. "It's really been fun to have student collaborators in this research and to use the classroom as the basis of that research," Prof. Davis says. In follow-up to the presentation, the research group has undertaken an analysis of the initiatives, and submitted a research paper for publication.

While their focus for the past two years has been on documenting initiatives, students in this year's class will begin to help Prof. Davis build a new section of the website, focused on reconciliation. The unusual opportunity to work with leading faculty on research is a highlight of the Trent experience and an exceptional way to learn.

"Analysis leads to action, planning and education," Prof. Davis say. "We want to identify initiatives that look promising and that take people to a different place and towards different kinds of conversations."